Chumash_Indians

Chumash Indians The Chumash Indians were natives to the coastlands in California, from Malibu to Paso Robles, as well as on all three of the Northern Channel Islands. There were 150 independent villages with a total population of 18,000 people. People in the other regions spoke a little differently although the languages were similar. The villages were made of ceremonial grounds, semi subterranean sweathouses, cleared playing fields, storage huts, and round thatched dwelling houses up to fifty feet in diameter and able to hold as many as seventy people. Their homeland was first settled about 13,000 years ago and with time, the population got bigger so some of them started migrating to other coastlands of California. With all these other villages they had access to different resources, which they would trade with one another in different villages. Some of the major groups were the Obispeño, Purismeño, Ynezeñ, Barbareño and Ventureño (named after the Franciscan missions San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, La Purísma Concepción, and Santa Ynez. With all this trading going on among the Chumash villages, it would have taken many days to travel by foot. Living on the coastlands they invented a seagoing plank canoe or in their language a “tomol”. chumash, men, canoes, about, made, indians, canoe, people, baskets, water, plank, even, years, villages, tribe, much, money, california, built, bead, women, together, three, small, make, different, didn’t, weaving, wear, top, sweathouses, skirt, probably, lived, last, juncos, john, hunting, houses, hold, history, good, food, first, fiber, feet, encyclopedia, cooking, coastlands, because, basket