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Ohlone

The Ohlone (/ˈlni/ oh-LOH-nee), formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish costeño meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley. At that time they spoke a variety of related languages. The Ohlone languages make up a sub-family of the Utian language family.[3][4][5] Older proposals place Utian within the Penutian language phylum, while newer proposals group it as Yok-Utian.

For other uses, see Ohlone (disambiguation).

In pre-colonial times, the Ohlone lived in more than 50 distinct landholding groups, and did not view themselves as a single unified group. They lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering, in the typical ethnographic California pattern. The members of these various bands interacted freely with one another. The Ohlone people practiced the Kuksu religion. Prior to the Gold Rush, the northern California region was one of the most densely populated regions north of Mexico.[6]


However, the arrival of Spanish colonizers to the area in 1769 vastly changed tribal life forever. The Spanish constructed missions along the California coast with the objective of Christianizing the native people and culture. Between the years 1769 and 1834, the number of Indigenous Californians dropped from 300,000 to 250,000. After California entered into the Union in 1850, the state government perpetrated massacres against the Ohlone people. Many of the leaders of these massacres were rewarded with positions in state and federal government.[7] These massacres have been described as genocide. Many are now leading a push for cultural and historical recognition of their tribe and what they have gone through and had taken from them.[8]


The Ohlone living today belong to one or another of a number of geographically distinct groups, most, but not all, in their original home territory. Tamien Nation citizens are direct lineal descendants from Tamien speaking villages of the Santa Clara Valley. The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has members from around the San Francisco Bay Area, and is composed of descendants of the Ohlones/Costanoans from the San Jose, Santa Clara, and San Francisco missions. The Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation, consisting of descendants of intermarried Rumsen Costanoan and Esselen speakers of Mission San Carlos Borromeo, are centered at Monterey. The Amah Mutsun tribe are descendants of Mutsun Costanoan speakers of Mission San Juan Bautista, inland from Monterey Bay. Most members of another group of Rumsien language, descendants from Mission San Carlos, the Costanoan Rumsien Carmel Tribe of Pomona/Chino, now live in southern California. These groups and others with smaller memberships (See groups listed under "Present day" below) are separately petitioning the federal government for tribal recognition.

Name[edit]

British ethnologist Robert Gordon Latham originally used the term "Costanoan" to refer to the linguistically similar but ethnically diverse Native American tribes in the San Francisco Bay Area.[9] The term was based on the name of a group of Ramaytush speakers in the area of Mission Dolores first mentioned in 1850 as "Olhones or Costanos". Based on the former, American anthropologist Clinton Hart Merriam referred to the Costanoan groups as "Olhonean" in the early 20th century in his posthumously published field notes,[10] and eventually, the term "Ohlone" has been adopted by most ethnographers, historians, and writers of popular literature.[11]

Burial practices[edit]

Sacred sites and importance[edit]

The arrival of the Spanish in the 1776 decelerated the culture, sovereignty, religion, and language of the Ohlone. Before the Spanish invasion, the Ohlone had an estimated 500 shellmounds lining the sea and shores of the San Francisco Bay. Shellmounds are essentially Ohlone habitation sites where peopled lived and died and often buried. The mounds consist predominately of molluscan shells, with lesser amounts mammal and fish bone, vegetal materials and other organic material deposited by the Ohlone for thousands of years. These shellmounds are the direct result of village life. Archaeologists have examined the mounds and often refer to them as "middens," or "kitchen midden" meaning an accumulation of refuse.


One theory is that the massive amount of shellfish remains represent Ohlone ritual behavior, whereas they would spend months mourning their dead and feasting on large amounts of shellfish which were disposed of ever growing the girth and height of the mound.[44] Shellmounds were once found all over the San Francisco Bay area near marshlands, creeks, wetlands, and rivers. San Bruno Mountain is home to the nation's largest intact shellmound. These mounds are also thought to have served a practical purpose as well, since these shellmounds were usually near waterways or the ocean, they protected the village from high tide as well as to provide high ground for line of sight navigation for watercraft on San Francisco Bay.[45] The Emeryville Shellmound is a site standing at over 60 feet (18 m) tall and 350 feet (105 m) in diameter, and was believed to be occupied between 400 and 2800 years ago.


The Ohlone burial practices changed over time with cremation being preferred before the arrival of the Spanish. Once the cremation was complete the loved ones and friends would place ornaments as well as other valuables as an offering to the dead. Ohlone believed that this would give them good fortune in the afterlife. Many of these artifacts have been found in and around the shellmounds. They often include a wide variety of shell beads and ornaments as well as frequently used everyday items such as stone and bone tools. These burials also showcase genealogies and territorial rights. The mounds were seen as a cultural statement because the villages on top were clearly visible and their sacred aura was very dominant.[46]

Present day burial and sacred sites[edit]

West Berkeley Shellmound


The West Berkeley Shellmound, located in Berkeley, California, is thought to be the site of the earliest known habitation in the San Francisco Bay Area.[1] It was mostly removed by the early 20th century, but human remains and artifacts are still found in the area during construction projects. Local Ohlone groups have fought to have a portion of it protected and returned to their use.


Glen Cove (Sogorea Te')


The City of Vallejo, California built Glen Cove Waterfront Park after years of protests from Ohlone people and their allies that the location was a sacred site known as Sogorea Te', one of the last native village sites in the San Francisco Bay that had escaped urban development.[47][48]


Santa Cruz


A 6,000-year-old grave site was found at a KB Home construction site in the city of Santa Cruz. Protestors have picketed at the front gate of the Branciforte Creek construction site, holding signs, handing out flyers and engaging passersby to call attention to the site.[49]


San Jose


Ohlone remains were discovered in 1973 near Highway 87 during housing development. Some remains were removed during the construction of the highway.[50]


Mount Umunhum (Dove Mountain) is the physical foundation of Tamien Nation oral narrative of the Great Flood - Tamien Nation's most sacred landscape.[51]


Fremont


Construction crews at a Van Daele Homes luxury housing development unearthed 32 sets of Ohlone remains in 2017. The remains were reburied on-site under the supervision of a native consultant.[52]

Revitalizing and reclaiming heritage[edit]

The determination and passion to preserve sacred ground is largely influenced by the desire to revive and preserve the Ohlone cultural heritage. Natives today are engaging in extensive cultural research to bring back knowledge, narratives, beliefs, and practices of the post-contact days with the Spanish. The Spanish eradicated and stripped the Ohlones of their cultural heritage by causing the death of ninety percent of the population, and forcing cultural assimilation with military fortification and Catholic reform. After the arrival of the Americans, many land grants were contested in court. Preserving their burial sites is a way to gain acknowledgment as a cultural group.[53]


Site CA-SCL-732- Kaphan Umux or Three Wolves Site


The Muwekma Ohlone tribe are active participants in the revival of Ohlone people across the East and South Bay.[54] Key to their success is in their involvement in unearthing and analyzing their ancestral remains in ancient burial sites, which allows them to "recapture their history and to reconstruct the present and future of their people".[55] Only some sacred cultural narratives survive through the recording of stories told from various Ohlone elders living in the missions between 1769 and 1833. This makes analyzing pre-contact Ohlone sites so difficult because so much of the symbolism and ritual are unknown. Therefore, the Muwekma see their participation in archeological projects as a way to bring tribal members together as a unified community, and as a way to reestablish the link between the Ohlone people today and their pre-contact ancestors through their ability to analyze remains and be coauthors in the archeological reports.[56] One major archeological site the Muwekma tribe actively helped excavate is the burial site CA-SCL-732 in San Jose, dating between 1500 and 2700 BCE. In this burial site, excavated in 1992, the remains of three ritually buried wolves were found among human remains.[56] In other grave site, the skeletal remains of two more wolves were found with "braided, uncured yucca or soap root fiber cordage around their necks".[56] There were many other fragments of remains of animals like deer, squirrel, mountain lion, grizzly bear, fox, badger, blue goose, and elk found as well. From the excavations it is clear that the animals were ritually buried, along with beads and other ornamentations.[56]


Although the truth may not be known about exactly what these findings mean, the Muwekma and the archeological team analyzed the ritual burial of the animal remains as a way to learn what they may tell about the Ohlone cosmology and cultural system before pre-contact influence. One way the team did this was using known narratives of the Ohlone, as ascribed by previous ethnographers who recorded the sacred narratives of various Ohlone elders in the missions across the Bay, well as the narratives telling of other central California cosmologies to make references about what the meaning of the possible kinship between the animals and the Ohlone in these burials were. Together the archeological team made three hypotheses: animals served as "moieties, clans, lineages, families, and so on," animals were "dream helpers," or personal spirit allies for individuals, and lastly, the animals were representations of "sacred deity-like figures".[56]

Indian People Organizing for Change[edit]

Indian People Organizing for Change (IPOC) is a community-based organization in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its members, including Ohlone organization members and conservation activists, work together in order to accomplish social and environmental justice within the Bay Area American Indian community. Current projects include the preservation of Bay Area shellmounds, which are the sacred burial sites of the Ohlone Nation, whose homeland is the San Francisco Bay Area. Currently, IPOC has spread awareness throughout the community through shellmounds walks and has advocated for the preservation of sacred burial sites in the Emeryville Mall, Glen Cove Site, Hunters Point in San Francisco, just to name a few.[57]

Etymology[edit]

Costanoan is an externally applied name (exonym). The Spanish explorers and settlers referred to the native groups of this region collectively as the Costeños (the "coastal people") circa 1769. Over time, the English-speaking settlers arriving later Anglicized the word Costeños into the name of Costanoans. (The suffix "-an" is English). For many years, the people were called the Costanoans in English language and records.[60]


Since the 1960s, the name of Ohlone has been used by some of the members and the popular media to replace the name Costanoan. Ohlone might have originally derived from a Spanish rancho called Oljon, and referred to a single band who inhabited the Pacific Coast near Pescadero Creek. The name Ohlone was traced by Teixeira through the mission records of Mission San Francisco, Bancroft's Native Races, and Frederick Beechey's Journal regarding a visit to the Bay Area in 1826–27. Oljone, Olchones and Alchones are spelling variations of Ohlone found in Mission San Francisco records. However, because of its tribal origin, Ohlone is not universally accepted by the native people, and some members prefer to either to continue to use the name Costanoan or to revitalize and be known as the Muwekma. Teixeira maintains Ohlone is the common usage since 1960, which has been traced back to the Rancho Oljon on the Pescadero Creek. Teixeira states in part: "A tribe that once existed along the San Mateo County coast." Milliken states the name came from: "A tribe on the lower drainages of San Gregorio Creek and Pescadero Creek on the Pacific Coast".[61]

(also called Carquin): The Karkin resided on the south side of the Carquinez Strait. The name of the Carquinez Strait derives from their name. Karkin was a dialect quite divergent from the rest of the family.[63]

Karkin

(also called Chocheño, Chocenyo and East Bay Costanoan): The Chochenyo speaking tribal groups resided in the East Bay, primarily in what is now Alameda County and the western (bayshore) portion of Contra Costa County.

Chochenyo

(also called San Francisco Costanoan): The Ramaytush resided between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific, in the area which is now San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. The Yelamu grouping of the Ramaytush included the villages surrounding Mission Dolores, Sitlintac and Chutchui on Mission Creek, Amuctac and Tubsinte in Visitation Valley, Petlenuc from near the Presidio, and to the southwest, the villages of Timigtac on Calera Creek and Pruristac on San Pedro Creek in modern-day Pacifica.

Ramaytush

(also called Tamien, Thamien, and Santa Clara Costanoan): The Tamyen resided on Coyote Creek and Calaveras Creek, and the language was spoken in the Santa Clara Valley. (Linguistically, Chochenyo, Tamyen and Ramaytush were very close, perhaps to the point of being dialects of a single language.) The Tamyen village was near the original site of the first Mission Santa Clara located on the Guadalupe River; Father Pena mentioned in a letter to Junípero Serra that the area around the mission was called Thamien by the Ohlone.[64]

Tamyen

(also called Santa Cruz Costanoan): Local bands of Awaswas speakers resided on the Santa Cruz coast and adjacent Santa Cruz Mountains between Point Año Nuevo and the Pajaro Rivers (Davenport and Aptos).

Awaswas

(also called Mutsen, San Juan Bautista Costanoan): A number of distinct local territorial tribes of Mutsun speakers lived in the Hollister Valley (along the lower San Benito River, middle Pajaro River, and San Felipe Creek) and along nearby creeks of the eastern Coast Range valleys (including San Luis and Ortigalita creeks).

Mutsun

Rumsien (also called Rumsen, Carmel or Carmeleno): A few independent Rumsien-speaking local territorial tribes resided from the to Point Sur, and the lower courses of the Pajaro, as well as the lower Salinas, Sur and Carmel Rivers (San Carlos, Carmel, and Monterey Counties).

Pajaro River

(also called Soledad): Local bands of Chalon speakers resided along the upper course of the San Benito River and farther east in the Coast Range valleys of Silver and Cantua creeks. Kroeber also mapped them on the middle course of the Salinas River, but some recent studies give that area to the Esselen people.

Chalon

Linguists identified eight regional, linguistic divisions or subgroups of the Ohlone, listed below from north to south:[62]


These division designations are mostly derived from selected local tribe names. They were first offered in 1974 as direct substitutes for Kroeber's earlier designations based upon the names of local Spanish missions. The spellings are anglicized from forms first written down (often with a variety of spellings) by Spanish missionaries and soldiers who were trying to capture the sounds of languages foreign to them.[65]


Within the divisions there were over 50 Ohlone tribes and villages who spoke the Ohlone-Costanoan languages in 1769, before being absorbed into the Spanish Missions by 1806.[66]

Loss of recognition[edit]

In 1925, Alfred Kroeber, then director of the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, declared the tribe extinct, which directly led to its losing federal recognition and land rights.[67]

, Southern San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Santa Clara County

Tamien Nation

Salvaging records[edit]

The chroniclers, ethnohistorians, and linguists of the Ohlone population began with: Alfred L. Kroeber who researched the California natives and authored a few publications on the Ohlone from 1904 to 1910, and C. Hart Merriam who researched the Ohlone in detail from 1902 to 1929. This was followed by John P. Harrington who researched the Ohlone languages from 1921 to 1939, and other aspects of Ohlone culture, leaving volumes of field notes at his death. Other research was added by Robert Cartier, Madison S. Beeler, and Sherburne F. Cook, to name a few. In many cases, the Ohlone names they used vary in spelling, translation and tribal boundaries, depending on the source. Each tried to chronicle and interpret this complex society and language(s) before the pieces vanished.[85]


There was noticeable competition and some disagreement between the first scholars: Both Merriam and Harrington produced much in-depth Ohlone research in the shadow of the highly published Kroeber and competed in print with him. In the Editor's Introduction to Merriam (1979), Robert F. Heizer (as the protege of Kroeber and also the curator of Merriam's work) states "both men disliked A. L. Kroeber." Harrington, independently working for the Smithsonian Institution cornered most of the Ohlone research as his own specialty, was "not willing to share his findings with Kroeber ... Kroeber and his students neglected the Chumash and Costanoans, but this was done because Harrington made it quite clear that he would resent Kroeber's 'muscling in.'"[86]


Recent Ohlone historians who have published new research are Lauren Teixeira, Randall Milliken and Lowell J. Bean. They all note the availability of mission records which allows for continual research and understanding.[87]

1777: Xigmacse, chief of the local Yelamu tribe at the time of the establishment of the Mission San Francisco, and thus the earliest known San Francisco leader.

[88]

1779: Baltazar, baptized from the Rumsen village of Ichxenta in 1775, he became the first Indian alcalde of Mission San Carlos in 1778. After his wife and child died, he fled to the Big Sur coast in 1780 to lead the first extensive Ohlone resistance to colonization.

[89]

1791: Charquin, a chief of the Quiroste tribe, began leading an active resistance against the mission system soon after being baptized. After his capture in 1793, the Quirostes continued their resistance, ultimately launching the only direct attack on a Spanish mission in that December. Charquin escaped in 1795 and then was recaptured in 1796 and sent to the San Diego Presidio where he died two years later.

[90]

1807: Hilarion and George (their baptismal names) were two Ohlone men from the village who served as alcaldes (mayors) of the Mission San Francisco in 1807. As such, they were at the beginning of a long line of Mayors of San Francisco.[91]

Pruristac

1877: Lorenzo Asisara was a Mission Santa Cruz man who provided three surviving narratives about life at the mission, primarily from stories told to him by his own father.

[92]

1913: Barbara Solorsano, died 1913, Mutsun linguistic consultant to C. Hart Merriam 1902–04, from San Juan Bautista.

[93]

1930: , died 1930, renowned Mutsun doctor, principal linguistic and cultural informant to J. P. Harrington.[94]

Ascencion Solorsano de Cervantes

1934: Jose Guzman, died 1934, he was one of the principal Chochenyo linguistic and cultural consultants to J. P. Harrington.

[95]

1939: , died 1939, the last fluent speaker of Rumsen and a primary Rumsen consultant to J.P. Harrington.[96]

Isabel Meadows

2006: Ralph Allan Espinoza, Director and founder of the only non-profit, Native American affiliated food bank in the U.S., "God Provides - Pomona Valley Food Bank" located in Pomona, California.

2016: Ann Marie Sayers, Mustun Ohlone leader, tribal chair of , the only federally recognized Indian country from Sonoma to Santa Barbara.

Indian Canyon, California

2022: , San Francisco musician, composer, and professional skateboarder.

Tommy Guerrero

Ohlone mythology

List of Ohlone villages

Mission Dolores mural

Kroeber, Alfred L. (ed.). 1925. . Chapter 31. pp. 462–473 in Handbook of Indians of California. Also available as: Washington, D.C: Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78, 1925.

The Costanoans

Costanoan Rumsen Carmel Tribe Website

Amah-Mutsun Tribe Website

Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation Tribal Website

Archived 2017-03-09 at the Wayback Machine

Costanoan-Ohlone Indian Canyon Resource

Muwekma Ohlone Tribe Website