The Awaswas , also known as the Santa Cruz people , were a group of the Indigenous peoples of California in North America, with subgroups historically numbering about 600 to 1,400. Academic research suggests that their ancestors had lived within the Santa Cruz Mountains region for approximately 12,000 years. The Awaswas maintained regular trade networks with regional cultures before the Spanish colonists began settling in the area from the 18th century.
103-490: The Awaswas people were Ohlone , with linguistic and cultural ties to other Ohlone peoples in the region. "Ohlone" is a modern collective term for the peoples of the region; however, the term was not historically used by the indigenous populations themselves. They did not consider themselves to be a part of a larger tribe, such as the Hopi , Navajo , or Cheyenne , but instead functioned independently of one another. For centuries,
206-574: A complex association of approximately 50 different "nations or tribes" with about 50 to 500 members each, with an average of 200. Over 50 distinct Ohlone tribes and villages have been recorded. The Ohlone villages interacted through trade, intermarriage and ceremonial events, as well as some internecine conflict. Cultural arts included basket-weaving skills, seasonal ceremonial dancing events, female tattoos , ear and nose piercings, and other ornamentation. The Ohlone subsisted mainly as hunter-gatherers and in some ways harvesters . "A rough husbandry of
309-492: A cultural group. Their religion is different depending on the band referred to, although they share components of their worldview. The pre-contact spiritual beliefs of the Ohlone were not recorded in detail by missionaries. The Ohlone probably practiced Kuksu , a form of shamanism shared by many Central and Northern California tribes. Although, it is also possible that the Ohlone people learned Kuksu from other tribes while at
412-454: A diverse collection of Spanish Mission Era / Mexican Republic materials including glass beads, Majolica ceramic fragments and phoenix buttons. These findings suggest that the structure was used to house the neophyte community of Yokuts and Ohlone families living at the Mission in the 1820s and 1830s. The Lost Adobe collapsed during the 19th century and no remnants remain. The area
515-512: A historical monument and chapel for the parish. Near the replica chapel stands the one surviving Mission Santa Cruz Mission building, an adobe structure built between 1822 and 1824. This adobe building served as housing for Indigenous families who, after being converted to Catholicism , lived and worked at the Mission. It is the oldest surviving structure in Santa Cruz County and the best preserved Native American residence at any of
618-406: A language called Awaswas , a branch of the larger Ohlonean language family. They inhabited multilingual regions interconnected through shared symbols and rituals as well as monetary, trade, and complex kinship relationships. This shared culture connected with a larger Indigenous California, where long-distance trade relations and communication characterized linguistically diverse societies that shared
721-536: A museum of the Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park . At the same time, the mission cemetery was excavated and the remains moved to a mass grave at Old Holy Cross Cemetery, a few miles to the east. In recent years, a group of local volunteers worked to restore the old cemetery, and to identify the mission gravesite and those whose remains were moved there. A memorial was dedicated in 2016. The only original Mission building left
824-401: A pavement" to the incoming Spanish. In general, along the bayshore and valleys, the Ohlone constructed dome-shaped houses of woven or bundled mats of tules, 6 to 20 feet (1.8 to 6 m) in diameter. In hills where redwood trees were accessible, they built conical houses from redwood bark attached to a frame of wood. Residents of Monterey recall Redwood houses. One of the main village buildings,
927-475: A push for cultural and historical recognition of their tribe and what they have gone through and had taken from them. The Ohlone living today belong to various geographically distinct groups, most of which are still in their original home territory, though not all; none are currently federally recognized tribes . Members of the Tamien Nation are direct lineal descendants from Tamien speaking villages of
1030-532: A single peak Pico Blanco near Big Sur (or Mount Diablo in the northern Ohlone's version) on which Coyote, Hummingbird, and Eagle stood. Humans were the descendants of Coyote. The predominant theory regarding the settlement of the Americas date the original migrations from Asia to around 20,000 years ago across the Bering Strait land bridge , but one anthropologist, Otto von Sadovszky , claims that
1133-566: A task like hunting and spirit dancing. Today, there is a place located in Hollister called Indian Canyon , where a traditional sweat lodge, or Tupentak, has been built for the same ceremonial purposes. Along with the development of the sweat lodge in the early 1990s, the construction of an upen- tah-ruk, or round house/assembly house, was underway as well. These areas are meant to provide a gathering place for tribal meetings, traditional dances and ceremonies, and education activities. Indian Canyon
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#17327721944341236-620: A variety of resources and practicies, spiritual and physical, tracing back over thousands of years. Santa Cruz had been the home to the Awaswas people whose self-sustaining culture supported them in the coastal bioregion of the Monterey Bay for more than 12,000 years. Archaeological excavations suggest these early dates but it is possible that human habitation goes back further, as it is generally believed that sites of earlier habitation may have been washed away by stream action or submerged on
1339-404: Is a long multi-room building which at one time housed local Yokuts and Ohlone Native American families. The original building is located at 144 School Street and can be toured during operating hours. There is also a protected remnant of the mission church foundation wall behind the current Holy Cross Church. The parish address is 126 High Street. The road leading to the mission from the west
1442-508: 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
1545-853: Is an important place because it is open to all Native American groups in the United States and around the world as a place to hold traditional native practices without federal restrictions. Indian Canyon is also home to many Ohlone people, specifically of the Mutsun band, and serves as an educational, cultural, and spiritual environment for all visitors. Indian Canyon allows Natives to reclaim their heritage and implement their ancestral beliefs and practices into their lives. The storytelling of sacred narratives has been an important component of Ohlone indigenous culture for thousands of years, and continues to be of importance today. The narratives often teach specific moral or spiritual lessons, and are illustrative of
1648-419: Is apparent that the pre-contact Ohlone had distinguished medicine persons among their tribe. Some of these people healed through the use of herbs, and some were shamans who were believed to heal through their ability to contact the spirit world. Some shamans typically engaged in more ritualistic healing in the form of dancing, ceremony, and singing. Some shamans were also believed to be able to tell and influence
1751-419: Is called Mission Street, which is also part of California State Route 1 . In 1931, Gladys Sullivan Doyle proposed to construct a reduced-size replica of the original chapel. She contributed all of the construction costs, on the condition that she be allowed to be buried inside. Her grave can be viewed in a small side room. Since there were no surviving photographs or drawings of the original structure, design of
1854-682: Is completely unknown. The Awaswas were six distinct tribes, and further branched into bands. They lived in territories marked by watersheds with ridgelines as boundaries. The largest and most economically and politically powerful tribe of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the Quiroste lived at the northern edge of the mountain range on the Pacific Coast from Bean Hollow south to Año Nuevo Creek, and inland to Butano Ridge . The Quiroste derived their political influence from controlling
1957-694: Is designated California Historical Landmark number 342. The Neary-Rodriguez Adobe was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Santa Cruz County, California as site number 75000484 on February 24, 1975, and the Mission Hill Area as a United States Historic District as site number 76000530 on May 17, 1976. The stone foundations of an unidentified adobe on the east edge of Mission Hill in Santa Cruz
2060-452: Is important because the Ohlone can further piece together a cultural identity of their past ancestors, and ultimately for themselves as well. Additionally, through knowing sacred narratives and sharing them with the public through live performances or storytelling, the Ohlone people are able to create an awareness that their cultural group is not extinct, but actually surviving and wanting recognition. Ohlone folklore and legend centered around
2163-618: Is mainly used for private services, daily Masses (M-F), and Morning Prayer on Saturday. An adjoining room functions as a gift shop. A stone fountain from the original mission complex stands in the garden behind the gift shop. The only surviving original adobe mission building, a dormitory for Native American residents, has been restored as part of the Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park as the Neary-Rodriguez Adobe. The Santa Cruz Mission
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#17327721944342266-400: Is on private property and visitors are not allowed. Mission Santa Cruz has a hidden single track gated railroad tunnel running under it. Railroad train service used to connect Oakland to Santa Cruz with a train going down the middle of Pacific Avenue on the way to the wharf. In 1876 South Pacific Coast Railroad built a railroad tunnel under Mission Santa Cruz to reroute train traffic out of
2369-759: The Alta California missions. It is now part of Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park . The outpost was originally established near the Uypi village of Aulintak , located near the mouth of the San Lorenzo River , on August 28, 1791. There the Franciscan brothers erected a tent for worship to bring Christianity to the Awaswas people. The settlement was named for the feast of the Exaltation of
2472-607: The Carmel Valley . To call attention to the plight of the California Indians, Indian Agent, reformer, and popular novelist Helen Hunt Jackson published accounts of her travels among the Mission Indians of California in 1883. Considered the last fluent speaker of an Ohlone language, Rumsien -speaker Isabel Meadows died in 1939. Descendants are reviving Rumsien, Mutsun, and Chochenyo. The arrival of
2575-562: The Central Valley . Ohlone The Ohlone ( / oʊ ˈ l oʊ n i / 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
2678-528: The Pajaro River , lived the Aptos ("The People"). The Aptos tribe was one of the larger Awaswas groups in the region. They held kinship ties with the Uypi, Calendaruc (a Mutsun speaking people), and Cajastaca. At the time of their first interactions with the Spanish, the chief of the Aptos was Molegnis. The Spanish renamed the people "San Lucas". The Sayanta tribe was a smaller Awaswas group that lived in
2781-461: The San Lorenzo River to the east of Mission Santa Cruz. The mission padres did not welcome the location of the pueblo so close to the mission, and accused the Branciforte settlers of gambling , smuggling and tempting the native acolytes to desert the mission. On October 12, 1812, Father Andrés Quintana was strangled to death by mission neophytes, angry over his use of a metal-tipped whip in
2884-672: The sweat lodge was low into the ground, its walls made of earth and roof of earth and brush. They built boats of tule to navigate on the bays propelled by double-bladed paddles. Generally, men did not wear clothing in warm weather. In cold weather, they might don animal skin capes or feather capes. Women commonly wore deerskin aprons, tule skirts, or shredded bark skirts. On cool days, they also wore animal skin capes. Both wore ornamentation of necklaces, shell beads and abalone pendants, and bone wood earrings with shells and beads. The ornamentation often indicated status within their community. A full list of their ethnobotany can be found in
2987-427: The 1840s a wave of United States settlers encroached into the area, and California became annexed to the United States. The new settlers brought in new diseases to the Ohlone. The Ohlone lost the vast majority of their population between 1780 and 1850, because of an abysmal birth rate, high infant mortality rate, diseases and social upheaval associated with European immigration into California. Peter Hardeman Burnett ,
3090-546: The 6,000-year-old burial site of a child, located near Branciforte Creek. Awaswas people, the "documented descendants of Missions San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz", have become members of the Amah Mutsun [ Wikidata ] tribal band. In 2012, Amah Mutsun Tribal Chairman Valentin Lopez stated that "tribe members are scattered. Few can afford to live in their historic lands today," and many now make their homes in
3193-595: The Awaswas "the Santa Cruz people" and theirs became the main language spoken at the Mission Santa Cruz . The Franciscans named local tribes after saints. During the era of Spanish missions in California , the Awaswas people's lives changed with the Mission Santa Cruz (founded in 1791) built in their territory. Most were forced into slavery at this mission and were baptized, lived and educated to be Catholic neophytes , also known as Mission Indians , until
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3296-529: The Awaswas, who lived to the north of them. Unfortunately, translations for villages in Awaswas territory are difficult to piece together, as very little of the Awaswas language is still in circulation or on record. Many of the names for Monterey Bay places come from Mutsun words. The Awaswas spoke an Ohlone dialect that has some structural affiliation to San Francisco Bay Ohlone and some affiliation to Mutsun Ohlone. An analysis of Awaswas shows it to represent disparate dialects spoken by Natives who were apparently in
3399-539: 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. These massacres have been described as genocide . Many are now leading
3502-592: The Californian culture heroes of the Coyote trickster spirit, as well as Eagle and Hummingbird (and in the Chochenyo region, a falcon-like being named Kaknu). The Coyote spirit was clever, wily, lustful, greedy, and irresponsible. He often competed with Hummingbird, who despite his small size regularly got the better of him. Ohlone creation stories mention that the world was covered entirely in water, apart from
3605-512: 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. British ethnologist Robert Gordon Latham originally used the term "Costanoan" to refer to the linguistically similar but ethnically diverse Native American tribes in
3708-476: The Cross, adopting the name given to a nearby creek by the missionary priest Juan Crespi , who accompanied the explorer Gaspar de Portolá when he camped on the San Lorenzo River on October 17, 1769 . The original mission was a small structure dedicated on September 25, 1791. It was located on the bottom of what would become Mission Hill, near what is today the intersection of River and North Pacific Streets, on
3811-524: The East Bay to Mission San Francisco. In March 1795, this migration was followed almost immediately by the worst-seen epidemic, as well as food shortages, resulting in alarming statistics of death and escapes from the missions. In pursuing the runaways, the Franciscans sent neophytes first and (as a last resort) soldiers to go round up the runaway "Christians" from their relatives, and bring them back to
3914-634: The Esselen in the south represent a remnant. Datings of ancient shell mounds in Emeryville and in Newark and suggest the villages at those locations were established about 4000 BCE. Through shell mound dating, scholars noted three periods of ancient Bay Area history, as described by F.M. Stanger in La Peninsula : "Careful study of artifacts found in central California mounds has resulted in
4017-585: The Exaltation of the Holy Cross ) is a replica Spanish Californian mission in Santa Cruz, California . Located on the San Lorenzo River floodplain below what would later be named Mission Hill, the mission was founded on August 28, 1791, by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén , the successor to Father Junipero Serra . The mission was dedicated that same year but, in the winter rainy season,
4120-428: The Franciscans on missionary outreach daytrips but declined to camp overnight. For the first twenty years, the missions accepted a few converts at a time, slowly gaining population. Between November 1794 and May 1795, a large wave of Bay Area Native Americans were baptized and moved into Mission Santa Clara and Mission San Francisco, including 360 people to Mission Santa Clara and the entire Huichun village populations of
4223-477: The Indians had no natural immunity. Other causes were a drastic diet change from hunter and gatherer fare to a diet high in carbohydrates and low in vegetables and animal protein, harsh lifestyle changes, and unsanitary living conditions. Under Spanish rule, the intent for the future of the mission properties is difficult to ascertain. Property disputes arose over who owned the mission (and adjacent) lands, between
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4326-678: The Missions. Many Ohlone bands refer to anthropologic records to reconstruct their sacred narratives because some Ohlone people living in the missions acted as "professional consultants" for anthropologic research, and therefore told their past stories. The problem with this type of recording is that the stories are not always complete due to translation differences where meaning can be easily misunderstood. Therefore, many Ohlone bands today feel responsible for re-adopting these narratives and discussing them with cultural representatives and other Ohlone people to decide what their meanings are. This process
4429-614: The Native American Ethnobiology Database They use the roots of many species of Carex for basketry. Researchers are sensitive to limitations in historical knowledge, and careful not to place the spiritual and religious beliefs of all Ohlone people into a single unified worldview. Due to the displacement of Indian people in the Missions between 1769 and 1833, cultural groups are working as ethnographers to discover for themselves their ancestral history, and what that information tells about them as
4532-561: The Natives in a petition against the San Jose settlers. The fathers mentioned the "Indians' crops" were being damaged by the San Jose settlers' livestock and also mentioned settlers "getting mixed up with the livestock belonging to the Indians from the mission." They also stated the Mission Indians had property and rights to defend it: "Indians are at liberty to slaughter such (San Jose pueblo) livestock as trespass unto their lands." "By law",
4635-542: The Ohlone and some other northern California tribes descend from Siberians who arrived in California by sea around 3,000 years ago. Some anthropologists think that these people migrated from the San Joaquin–Sacramento River system and arrived into the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas in about the 6th century CE, displacing or assimilating earlier Hokan -speaking populations of which
4738-450: 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
4841-516: The Ohlone region and brought most of the Ohlone into these missions to live and work. The missions erected within the Ohlone region were: Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo (founded in 1770), Mission San Francisco de Asís (founded in 1776), Mission Santa Clara de Asís (founded in 1777), Mission Santa Cruz (founded in 1791), Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (founded in 1791), Mission San José (founded in 1797), and Mission San Juan Bautista (founded in 1797). The Ohlone who went to live at
4944-697: The Ohlone, which he termed one of the "southern Kuksu-dancing groups", in comparison to the Maidu and groups in the Sacramento Valley ; he noted "if, as seems probable, the southerly Kuksu tribes (the Miwok, Costanoans, Esselen, and northernmost Yokuts) had no real society in connection with their Kuksu ceremonies." The conditions upon which the Ohlone joined the Spanish missions are subject to debate. Some have argued that they were forced to convert to Catholicism , while others have insisted that forced baptism
5047-865: The San Francisco Bay Area. 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, and eventually, the term "Ohlone" has been adopted by most ethnographers, historians, and writers of popular literature. The Ohlone inhabited fixed village locations, moving temporarily to gather seasonal foodstuffs like acorns and berries. The Ohlone people lived in Northern California from
5150-492: The San Lorenzo River's flood plains. The mission was flooded as the river swelled with the rains that winter. Over the next three years until 1793, the padres rebuilt the mission on the hill overlooking the river. As with the other California missions, Mission Santa Cruz served as a site for ecclesiastical conversion of natives, first the Amah Mutsun [ Wikidata ] people, the original inhabitants of
5253-790: The Santa Clara Valley. The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has members from around the San Francisco Bay Area, and is composed of documented 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 [ Wikidata ] 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,
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#17327721944345356-542: The Santa Cruz Mountains around the Zayante Creek drainage, near present-day Scotts Valley , Glenwood , and Laurel to the north and east. They held kinship ties with the Chaloctaca and Achistaca. The Spanish renamed the people "San Juan Capistrano". The Chaloctaca lived along the crest of the Santa Cruz Mountains around Loma Prieta Creek. They may have been a separate village community of one larger group with
5459-519: The Santa Cruz Mountains indigenous inhabitants experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing newcomers. Centralized government and religious policies designed to foster language shift and cultural assimilation , as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, inter-marriage and other intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity . Awaswas speakers were formerly distributed over much of
5562-579: The Sayanta. They held kinship ties with the Sayanta, Achistaca, Cotoni, Partacsi of Santa Clara Valley, and Somontoc. The Spanish renamed the people "Jesus" (Mission Santa Cruz) and "San Carlos" ( Mission Santa Clara de Asís ). Indigenous Awaswas were Ohlone peoples , with linguistic and genetic ties to other Ohlone groups, such as peoples of the Mutsun , Ramaytush , Rumsen , and Tamien . The Santa Cruz Mountain tribes were united linguistically, as they spoke
5665-682: The Spaniards in the 1770s." The arrival of missionaries and Spanish colonizers in the mid-1700s had a negative impact on the Ohlone people who inhabited Northern California. The Ohlone territory consisted of the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula down to Big Sur in the south. There were more than fifty Ohlone landholding groups prior to the arrival of the Spanish Missionaries. The Ohlone were able to thrive in this area by hunting, fishing, and gathering, in
5768-588: The Spanish crown, the Catholic Church, the Natives and the Spanish settlers of San Jose : There were "heated debates" between "the Spanish State and ecclesiastical bureaucracies" over the government authority of the missions. Setting the precedent in an interesting petition to the Governor in 1782, the Franciscan priests claimed the "Missions Indians" owned both land and cattle, and they represented
5871-545: 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
5974-665: The Spanish, the chief of the Quiroste was Charquin. The Spanish renamed the people "San Rafael". Just south of the Quiroste and north of the Uypi, the Cotoni lived along the Pacific Ocean, near present-day Davenport , likely including the inland ridge of Ben Lomond Mountain in the Bonny Doon area. They subsisted on shellfish from the coast and carried them to the hills, where their villages were located. Two known villages were Asar and Jlli . The Uypi were concentrated along
6077-400: 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
6180-643: The continental shelf. Archaeological evidence points to a major change beginning around 1,000 years old, with the arrival of new technologies such as notched line sinkers and circular shell fishhooks, bows and arrows, flanged steatite pipes, stone "flower-pot" mortars, new Olivella shell bead types, and "banjo" effigy ornaments signifying the development of the Kuksui secret society. When the Portolá expedition arrived on October 23, 1769 near Año Nuevo, Awaswas-speaking Quiroste representatives from Mitenne village welcomed
6283-426: The cultural, spiritual, and religious beliefs of the tribe. Because not all the Ohlone bands shared a unified identity, and therefore have varying religious and spiritual beliefs, the stories are unique to the tribe. Today, sacred narratives are still an important part of the Ohlone culture. Only a minimal number of sacred stories have survived Spanish colonization during the 1700s and 1800s due to ethnographic efforts in
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#17327721944346386-483: 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. Mission Santa Cruz Mission Santa Cruz ( Spanish : La Misión de la Exaltación de la Santa Cruz , lit. The Mission of
6489-526: The discovery of three distinguishable epochs or cultural 'horizons' in their history. In terms of our time-counting system, the first or 'Early Horizon' extends from about 4000 BCE to 1000 BCE in the Bay Area and to about 2000 BCE in the Central Valley. The second or Middle Horizon was from these dates to 700 CE, while the third or Late Horizon, was from 700 CE to the coming of
6592-533: The expedition, exchanging food for Spanish glass beads and cloth; an overture which was readily accepted by the Spanish. The expedition was traveling through the area during the fall, a time when Awaswas tribes left their coastal village sites for their winter forest homes to hunt and gather, not encountering people and, being unfamiliar with the land, were badly in need of food. Shortly after the Portolá expedition returned to Monterey, permanent Spanish settlement began in
6695-535: The first Ohlone people to be encountered and documented in Spanish records when, in 1602, explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno reached and named the area that is now Monterey in December of that year. Despite Vizcaíno's positive reports, nothing further happened for more than 160 years. It was not until 1769 that the next Spanish expedition arrived in Monterey, led by Gaspar de Portolà . This time, the military expedition
6798-436: The future, therefore they were equally able to bring about fortune and misfortune among the community. Additionally, some Ohlone bands built prayer houses, also called sweat lodges , for ceremonial and spiritual purification purposes. These lodges were built near stream banks because water was believed to be capable of great healing. Men and women would gather in the sweat lodges to "cleanse, purify, and empower themselves" for
6901-527: The girth and height of the mound. 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. The Emeryville Shellmound
7004-469: The government for redistribution. At this point, the Ohlone were supposed to receive land grants and property rights, but few did and most of the mission lands went to the secular administrators. In the end, even attempts by mission leaders to restore native lands were in vain. Before this time, 73 Spanish land grants had already been deeded in all of Alta California , but with the new régime most lands were turned into Mexican-owned rancherias. The Ohlone became
7107-744: The laborers and vaqueros (cowboys) of Mexican-owned rancherias. The Ohlone eventually regathered in multi-ethnic rancherias, along with other Mission Indians from families that spoke the Coast Miwok , Bay Miwok , Plains Miwok , Patwin , Yokuts , and Esselen languages. Many of the Ohlone that had survived the experience at Mission San Jose went to work at Alisal Rancheria in Pleasanton , and El Molino in Niles . Communities of mission survivors also formed in Sunol , Monterey and San Juan Bautista . In
7210-641: The land was practiced, mainly by annually setting of fires to burn-off the old growth in order to get a better yield of seeds—or so the Ohlone told early explorers in San Mateo County ." Their staple diet consisted of crushed acorns, nuts , grass seeds, and berries, although other vegetation, hunted and trapped game, fish and seafood (including mussels and abalone from the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean), were also important to their diet. These food sources were abundant in earlier times and maintained by careful work, and through active management of all
7313-498: 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. 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
7416-578: 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. Older proposals place Utian within the Penutian language phylum, while newer proposals group it as Yok-Utian . 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
7519-414: The midst of language shift from a divergent form of San Francisco Bay to Mutsun. There is evidence that this grouping was more geographic than linguistic, and that the records of the 'Santa Cruz Costanoan' language in fact represent several diverse dialects. Awaswas Ohlone continues to be considered a separate language, but the degree to which it originally extended to the east of present-day Santa Cruz County
7622-528: The mission property was to pass to the Mission Indians after a period of about ten years, when they would become Spanish citizens. In the interim period, the Franciscans were mission administrators who held the land in trust for the Natives. In 1834, the Mexican government ordered all Californian missions to be secularized and all mission land and property (administered by the Franciscans) turned over to
7725-671: The missions were called Mission Indians , and also "neophytes." They were blended with other Native American ethnicities such as the Coast Miwok transported from the North Bay into the Mission San Francisco and Mission San José. Spanish military presence was established at two Presidios, the Presidio of Monterey , and the Presidio of San Francisco , and mission outposts, such as San Pedro y San Pablo Asistencia founded in 1786. The Spanish soldiers traditionally escorted
7828-682: The missions were discontinued by the Mexican Government in 1834. In 1925, Alfred Kroeber , then director of the Hearst Museum of Anthropology , declared the Ohlone extinct, which directly led to the tribe's losing federal recognition and land rights. There are no living survivors of the Awaswas, who are spoken for by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band . In 2011, a march was held in Santa Cruz to preserve "the Knoll",
7931-482: The missions. By running to tribes outside of the missions, escapees and those sent to bring them back to the mission spread illness outside of the missions. Indians did not thrive when the missions expanded both their populations and operations in their geographical areas. "A total of 81,000 Indians were baptized and 60,000 deaths were recorded". The cause of death varied, but most were the result of European diseases such as smallpox, measles, and diphtheria against which
8034-535: The missions. Kuksu included elaborate acting and dancing ceremonies in traditional costume, an annual mourning ceremony, puberty rites of passage , intervention with the spirit world and an all-male society that met in subterranean dance rooms. Kuksu was shared with other indigenous ethnic groups of Central California, such as their neighbors the Miwok and Esselen , also Maidu , Pomo , and northernmost Yokuts . However Kroeber observed less "specialized cosmogony " in
8137-462: The mouth of the San Lorenzo River in present-day Santa Cruz and Soquel Creek. Uypi territory was rich in fields and coastal terraces. Three known villages were Aulintak ("Place of Red Abalone", near the river mouth), Chalumü (about one mile northwest of Aulintak , present-day Westlake neighborhood), and Hottrochtac (one mile further northwest). They held kinship ties with the Aptos, Sayanta, Cajastaca, Chaloctaca, Cotoni, Pitac, and Chitactac. At
8240-419: The natural resources at hand. Animals in their mild climate included the grizzly bear , elk ( Cervus elaphus ), pronghorn , and deer . The streams held salmon , trout, steelhead, perch , and stickleback . Birds included plentiful ducks , geese , quail , great horned owls , red-shafted flickers , downy woodpeckers , goldfinches , and yellow-billed magpies . Waterfowl were the most important birds in
8343-469: The northern Monterey Bay area, living along the Pacific Coast and the coastal mountain range of the Santa Cruz Mountains with territories between Point Año Nuevo and the Pajaro River in present-day Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties . The term Awaswas is an exonym derived from the Mutsun language that may refer and translate to "north". It may have been used by the Mutsun to refer to
8446-612: The northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula down to northern region of Big Sur , and from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Diablo Range in the east. Their vast region included the San Francisco Peninsula, Santa Clara Valley , Santa Cruz Mountains , Monterey Bay area, as well as present-day Alameda County , Contra Costa County and the Salinas Valley. Prior to Spanish contact, the Ohlone formed
8549-427: The people's diet, which were captured with nets and decoys. The Chochenyo traditional narratives refer to ducks as food, and Juan Crespí observed in his journal that geese were stuffed and dried "to use as decoys in hunting others". Along the ocean shore and bays, there were also otters , whales , and at one time thousands of sea lions . In fact, there were so many sea lions that according to Crespi it "looked like
8652-482: The priests) of stealing . The people from the mission then decided to flee the mission, and they later arrived in a new mission. One of the only surviving first-person descriptions by a native Californian of life in a mission was given in an interview by Lorenzo Asisara in 1877. Asisara was born at Mission Santa Cruz in 1819. His father was one of the neophytes involved in the Quintana killing, and Asisara repeated
8755-500: The production of Monterey chert arrowheads and Olivella snail shell beads, the latter being used as currency throughout Indigenous California. Two known villages were Churmutcé (south of Oljons , present-day Pescadero ) and Mitenne (west of Chipletac ) at Whitehouse Creek. It was at Mitenne that the Portola Expedition first encountered the Awaswas on October 23, 1769. At the time of their first interactions with
8858-457: The punishment of laborers, Native Americans, and Native children. In 1818, the Mission received advance warning of an attack by the Argentine corsair (simply a pirate , from the Spanish point of view) Hipólito Bouchard and was evacuated. The citizens of Branciforte, several of whom were retired soldiers, were asked to protect the Mission's valuables; instead, they were later accused (by
8961-470: The region (called Costeño by the Spaniards, and later known as the " Ohlone "). Later, Yokuts people were brought from the east. The settlement was the site of the first autopsy in Alta California. It was one of the smaller missions, in the fourth military district under protection of the Presidio of San Francisco . In 1797, the secular pueblo (town) of Branciforte was founded across
9064-515: The region, with the founding of Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in June 1770. The slow conversion of the Awaswas began after the founding of Mission San Francisco de Asís in October 1776 and Mission Santa Clara de Asís in June 1777. Quiroste people appear among the early San Francisco Peninsula coastal groups baptized at Mission San Francisco, starting in 1787 and 1788. The Spanish called
9167-458: The replica chapel was adapted from an 1876 (19 years after the collapse of the building's front half) painting by the French painter Léon Trousset . The original painting hangs in the nave of the chapel. The concrete construction was done by parishioner Tranquilino Costella, an Italian immigrant, whose contractor stamp is still seen in the sidewalk in front of the mission. The small replica chapel
9270-468: The river overflowed its banks and flooded the mission compound. The mission was then relocated to the top of Mission Hill. After earthquake damage and years of neglect, this second mission fell into disrepair, and much of it, though not all, was removed to accommodate the construction of the Holy Cross Church in 1889. A scaled-down replica was constructed in the 1930s, which today functions as
9373-555: The site. San Jose Ohlone remains were discovered in 1973 near Highway 87 during housing development. Some remains were removed during the construction of the highway. Mount Umunhum (Dove Mountain) is the physical foundation of Tamien Nation oral narrative of the Great Flood - Tamien Nation's most sacred landscape. 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
9476-483: The state's first governor, was an open advocate of exterminating local California Indian tribes. By all estimates, the Ohlone were reduced to less than ten percent of their original pre-mission era population. By 1852 the Ohlone population had shrunk to about 864–1,000, and was continuing to decline. By the early 1880s, the northern Ohlone were virtually entirely gone, and the southern Ohlone people were severely impacted and largely displaced from their communal land grant in
9579-449: The story his father had told him about those events. The front wall of the adobe mission, built in 1794, was destroyed by the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake . A wooden facade was added and the structure converted to other uses. A new wooden church was built next door in 1858. In 1889, the current Gothic Revival -style Holy Cross Church was built over (in the same orientation) part of the original sanctuary and cemetery. The cemetery wall
9682-489: The supervision of a native consultant. 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
9785-500: The time of their first interactions with the Spanish, the chief of the Uypi was Soquel ("Laurel Tree"). The Spanish identified Aulintak as an ideal settlement site for Mission Santa Cruz and renamed the people "San Daniel". By 1810, the Spanish began to call the Uypi tribe the Soquel tribe. At the southern edge of Uypi territory, bound by Aptos Creek and Monterey Bay at the western edge of their land, and eastward about halfway to
9888-535: 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. However, the arrival of Spanish colonizers to the area in 1769 vastly changed tribal life forever. The Spanish constructed missions along
9991-532: The typical pattern found in California coastal tribes. Each of the Ohlone villages interacted with each other through trade, intermarriage, and ceremonial events, as well as through occasional conflict. The Ohlone culture was relatively stable until the first Spanish soldiers and missionaries arrived with the double-purpose of Christianizing the Native Americans by building a series of missions and of expanding Spanish territorial claims. The Rumsien were
10094-518: Was accompanied by Franciscan missionaries, whose purpose was to establish a chain of missions to bring Christianity to the native people. Under the leadership of Father Junípero Serra , the missions introduced Spanish religion and culture to the Ohlone. Spanish mission culture soon disrupted and undermined the Ohlone social structures and way of life. Under Father Serra's leadership, the Spanish Franciscans erected seven missions inside
10197-400: Was built near the mission site in the 1930s and functions as a chapel of Holy Cross Church. Today's Plaza Park occupies the same location as the original plaza, at the center of the former mission complex. The complex at one time included as many as 32 buildings . The only surviving mission building, a dormitory for native acolytes, has been restored to its original appearance and functions as
10300-500: Was defined in 1993 and developed as a memorial and native plant garden. The current Holy Cross Church was built on the site of the original mission church in 1889, and it remains an active parish of the Diocese of Monterey . A section of stone foundation wall from one of the mission buildings and a few old headstones from the mission cemetery can be found directly behind the present Holy Cross Church. A reduced-scale "replica" chapel
10403-404: Was first discovered in 1978. Prior to any excavations an extensive archival research program was carried out. After no mention was found in the written record, the foundations were given the name the "Lost Adobe" . Archaeological excavations (from 1981 to 1984) indicated the presence of 18+ rooms structural foundations extending west toward the original church and cemetery. Artifacts found were
10506-476: Was not recognized by the Catholic Church. All who have looked into the matter agree, however, that baptized Indians who tried to leave mission communities were forced to return. The first conversions to Catholicism were at Mission San Carlos Borromeo, alias Carmel, in 1771. In the San Francisco Bay area the first baptisms occurred at Mission San Francisco in 1777. Many first-generation Mission Era conversions to Catholicism were debatably incomplete and "external". It
10609-655: Was very dominant. 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. 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
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