Ohlone

Map of the Costanoan languages and major villages

The Ohlone (also known as the Costanoan) refers to a group of Native Americans who have resided in what is now the south, west and east sides of the San Francisco Bay Area and Monterey Bay areas of California long before Spanish settlers arrived in 1769. Associated together because they spoke closely related languages and dialects, these people lived in roughly 50 distinct villages and village groups. Prehistorically, the Ohlone did not view of themselves as one group.

The incoming Spanish first referred to the native groups of this region collectively as the Costeños (the "coastal people"). Over time, the English-speaking settlers heard the Spanish name and Anglicized it into the name of Costanoan. For many years, the people were called the Costanoans in English language and records.

Since the 1960s, the term Ohlone has generally come to replace the term Costanoan to describe these people. The origin of the term Ohlone is not totally clear. Putting aside the many variant spellings of Ohlone, the word Ohlone once referred to a single village and tribe, out of many Native American villages in the region of San Francisco, namely the Ojlon.

Some of the Ohlone-Costanoan members still prefer to keep the name Costanoan rather than Ohlone, or to revitalize the word Muwekma, the word for the people in East Bay Chochenyo and Tamyen.

Description

Replica of Ohlone Hut in the graveyard of Mission Dolores, San Francisco.

The Ohlone had fixed village locations, moving temporarily to gather seasonal foodstuffs like acorns and berries. The Ohlone people lived in the central California coastal areas between Big Sur and the current location of the Golden Gate Bridge on the San Francisco Bay, prior to Spanish contact, consisting of a complex association of about 50 or more different villages with about 100 to 250 members each. The groups interacted through trade, intermarriage and ceremonial events. Their basket-weaving skills were notable, as well as their dancing, crafts and ornamentation.

The Ohlones were mainly hunter-gatherers, and in some ways harvesters. "A rough husbandry of 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 Indians told early explorers in San Mateo County." The Ohlone's staple diet consisted of crushed acorns, grass seeds and berries, while hunted game, fish and seafood (including mussels and abalone from the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean), were also important to their diet. They had abundant diet of wild plants and animals, abundant through careful work (and spiritual respect), and through some active management of all the natural resources at hand. Animals in their mild climate included the grizzly bear, elk (cervus elaphus), antelope and deer. The streams held salmon, perch and stickleback. Birds included plentiful ducks, geese, great horned owls, red-shafted flickers, downy woodpeckers, goldfinches, and yellow-billed magpies. Along the ocean shore and bays, there were otters, whales, and at one time there were thousands of sea lions, so many that it "looked like a pavement" to the incoming Spanish people.

In general, along the bayshore and valleys, the natives made dome-shaped houses of woven or bundled mats of tule rushes, 6 to 20 feet in diameter. In hills and where Redwood trees were accessible, conical houses were also made from Redwood bark attached to a frame of wood. One of the main village buildings, the sweat lodge was dug into the ground, its walls made of earth and roof of earth and brush. They built boats of tule to navigate on the bays.

Generally, men did not wear clothing in warm weather. In cold weather they donned animal skin capes or feather capes. Women wore deerskin aprons, tule rush 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.

History

Some archeologists suggest that these people migrated from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River system and arrived into the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area about 500 A.D., displacing or assimilating earlier Hokan-speaking populations of which the Esselen in the south represent a survival. Recent carbon datings of shell mounds in Newark and Emeryville suggest the villages on these locations were established three to four thousand years ago.

The Mission Era

The Ohlone people lived a relatively constant life until 1769, when the first Spanish explorers, soldiers and missionaries arrived from southern California with the purpose of Christianizing the Native Americans by building a chain of missions and to facilitate colonization. Spain claimed present-day California as its colony, and began to build a chain of missions, arriving in Ohlone territory in 1769. The Franciscan mission chain was founded under leadership and vision of Father Junípero Serra and the military control was led by Gaspar de Portolà and Juan Bautista de Anza.

This Spanish encroachment into the California coast and Bay Area disrupted and undermined the Ohlone social structures and way of life. Under Father Serra's leadership, the Spanish Franciscans erected seven missions inside the Ohlone region, and brought most of the Ohlone into these missions to live and work. In date order, the missions erected inside Ohlone region were: Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo founded in 1770, Mission San Francisco de Asís also known as Mission Dolores, 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 de Guadalupe, founded in 1797, and Mission San Juan Bautista founded in 1797. These Indians were called Mission Indians and also neophytes, baptized with new Spanish names, and were blended with other Indian ethnicities such as the Coast Miwok transported from the North Bay into the South Bay missions.

For the first 20 years, the missions accepted a few converts at a time, slowly gaining a population. Then in November, 1794 through May 1795, an extra large wave of Indians were baptized and moved into the Missions of Santa Clara and San Francisco, inluding 360 people to Mission Santa Clara, and the entire Huichun village populations of the East Bay to Mission San Francisco. This migration was followed almost immediately by an epidemic in March 1795 and starvation, then alarmingly high death and runaway statistics all in the same year. When fleeing the missions, the Fransicans sent neophytes and soldiers to go round up the runaway "Christians" from their relatives, and bring them back to the missions. Thus illness spread inside and outside of the mission.

For 60 years in the missions, the Ohlone population suffered greatly due to cultural shock and disease, vulnerable to foreign diseases to which they had little resistance, in the restricted and crowded living conditions of missions. Almost all moved to the missions. Cloistering of the women contributed to a lowered birth rate, and the mother's illnesses caused many stillborns and infant deaths. Syphilis has been identified and it causes miscarriages fifty percent of the time, and high infant mortality. Arguably the "worst epidemic of the Spanish Era in California" was known to be the measles epidemic of 1806: "One quarter of the mission Indian population of the San Francisco Bay Area died of the measles or related complications between March and May of 1806."

Secularization and Survival

In 1834, the Mexican government ordered all Californian missions to be secularized and turned their lands over to the Mexican government. Mission leaders attempted to protect and give some of the lands back to the Indians, but most lands were turned into Mexican-owned rancherias. The Indians became the laborers and vaqueros (ranch hands) of Mexican-owned rancherias. They eventually regathered in multi-ethnic rancherias, along with other Mission Indians such as the Coast Miwok, and northwest Yokuts and Patwin. Many of the Mission Indians went to work at Alisal Rancheria in Pleasanton, and El Molino in Niles. Communities also formed in Sunol, Monterey and San Juan Bautista. In the 1840's a wave of U.S. settlers enroached into the area and California became annexed to the United States. The new settlers brought in new diseases to the Indians.

The Ohlone lost the vast majority of their population between 1780 and 1850, due to abysmal infant mortality rates, diseases and social upheaval associated with European immigration into California. By all estimates, the Ohlone were decimated to less than ten percent of their original pre-mission era population. By 1852 the Ohlone population had diminished down to about 1000 and continued to decline. By the early 1880s, the northern Ohlone were virtually extinct and the southern Ohlone people severely impacted and largely displaced from their communal land grant in 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.

The last fluent speaker of an Ohlone language, Rumsien speaker Isabel Meadows, died in 1939. Some of the Mutsun Ohlone today are attempting to revive the language.

The Mutsun and the Muwekma are among the small surviving groups of Ohlone. The Esselen Nation also describes itself as Ohlone/Costanoan, although they historically spoke an entirely different Hokan language. Their tribal council claims enrolled membership by currently approximately 500 people from thirteen extended families, approximately 60% of whom reside in Monterey and San Benito Counties.

Divisions

There were eight major divisions/subgroups of the Ohlone. Note that "Language group designations are spelled as commonly found in English language publications... however many tribal, village and personal names which are not commonly found in literature present a problem. They were written by Spanish settlers who were trying to capture the sounds of languages foreign to them."

Ohlone Language Divisions from North to South:

Division	Also Called	Location and Details
Karkin	Carquin	Resided on the south side of the Carquinez Strait. The name of the Carquinez Strait derives from their name. Karkin was an Ohlonean dialect quite divergent from the rest of the family.
Chocheño	Chochenyo, Chocenyo	Resided in the East Bay, primarily in the western portion of what is now Alameda County.
Ramaytush	San Francisco	Resided between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific in the area which is now San Francisco and San Mateo County. The Yelamu grouping of the Ramaytush included the villages surrounding Mission Doloras, 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.
Tamyen	Tamien, Santa Clara	Resided on Coyote and Calaveras Creek. (Linguistically, Chochenyo, Tamyen and Ramaytush were very close, perhaps to the point of being dialects of a single language.)
Awaswas	Santa Cruz	Resided lived on the Santa Cruz coast between Pescadero and the Pajaro Rivers. Santa Cruz bands included the Sokel, who lived at Aptos, and the Chatu-mu, who lived near the current location of Santa Cruz. (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.)
Mutsun	San Juan Bautista	Resided lived along San Benito River and San Felipe Creek
Rumsen	Rumsien	Resided from the Pajaro River to Point Sur, and the lower courses of the Pajaro, as well as the Salinas and Carmel Rivers.
Chalon	Soledad	Resided on the middle course of the Salinas River.

Villages and Tribes

The original tribes of people who spoke the Costanoan languages, and their village locations are listed as known. Please note these are standand modernized spellings of tribal names, other spellings exist:

Achista (tentatively included Acsaggis) - Santa Cruz Mountains, Present-day Boulder Creek and Riverside Grove Ahwaste Alson - low marshlands at sourthern end of San Francisco Bay Altahmo (also spelled Altagmu) - see Ssalson Aleitac - see Ssalson Ansaime (also spelled Ausaima) - east side of San Felipe sink on Pacheco Creek Aptos - Shores of Monterey Bay from Aptos east, halfway up Pajaro River Asirin - Coast Ranges east of Santa Clara Valley Aulintac (also spelled Auxentac) - along Coyote Creek Cajastaca - north or northeast of Watsonville, near the Pajaro River Causen - (aka Patlans) - Sunol Valley Chaloctac - around Loma Prieta Creek on crest of Santa Cruz Mountains Chalon Chiguan - Pacific Coast of San Francisco Peninsula Chipuctac- Canada de Osos area northeast of Gilroy Chitactac - Santa Cruz Mountains and/or Santa Clara Valley Churistac - cover term for cluster of villages in the mountains east of Morgan Hill Cotegen - Pacific Coast south of Half Moon Bay Cotoni - Pacific Coast at present-day Davenport Huchian - large area of East Bay shore, from Temescal Creek to present-day Richmond Huchiun-Aguasto - East Bay on Southeast shores of San Pablo Bay Junas - probably Hospital Creek drainage of Diablo Range Kalindaruk Karkin (also spelled Carquin) - on both sides of Carquinez Straight, Port Costa, Martinez and Benicia area Lamchin - present-day San Mateo County, Bay shore from Belmont south to Redwood City and valleys to the west Luecha - Southeast of Livermore Matalan - Santa Clara Valley from Coyote to Morgan Hill Mutsun (also spelled Mutsin) Oljon - Pacific Coast on lower San Gregario Creek and Pescadero Creek Olpen (also known as Guemelentos) - interior hills and valleys in Santa Cruz Mountains, La Honda creek, Corte de Madera Creek Pala (also known as Polenos) - mountaints of Hall's Valley between Santa Clara Valley and Mount Hamilton Partacsi - possibly the Saratoga Gap area Pelnan - western part of Livermore Valley, from Pleasanton to Dublin

Pitac - possibly San Martin area or else part of Unijama in the Gilroy area Pruristac - One mile from the Pacific Coast in San Pedro Valley, near San Pedro Creek, present day Pacifica Puichon - near present-day Menlo Parl, Palo Alto and Mountain View Quiroste - Pacific Coast from Bean Hollow Creek to Ano Nuevo Creek Ritocsi - Santa Clara Valley at Upper Guadalupe River and central Coyote Creek Romonan Rumsen Santa Ysabel - eastern Santa Clara Valley and Upper Calveras Creek Sayanta - Scotts Valley, Glenwood and Laural areas (part of Mexican grant Arrollo de Sayante) Seunen - Northwest side of Livermore Valley Souyen - Marshland of Livermore Valley and up Tassjara Creek into southern foothills of Mount Diablo Ssalson (tribe) - had 3 villages (Altagmu, Aleitac and Uturbe) - along San Mateo Creek in San Andreas Valley Ssaoam (with subgroup named Yulian) - Brushy Peak and Altamont Pass Tamyen (also spelled Tamien) - tentatively Santa Clara Valley along Guadalupe River and west through Cupertino Taunan - mountainous parts of Alameda Creek and Arroyo del Valle south to Alameda-Contra Costa county line Tayssen - large area of eastern Coast Ranges east and southeast of Santa Clara Valley Timigtac - half mile from Pacifica Coast, on bank of Calera Creek, present day Pacifica Tomoi - in the general area of Pacheco Pass Tuchayune Tuibun - mouth of Alameda Creek and Coyote Hills area, eastern shore of San Francisco Bay Tulomo Unijaima (also spelled Unijaimas) - Gilroy and Carnadero areas Urebure - San Bruno Creek south of San Bruno Mountain Uturbe - See Ssalson Uypi - present-day City of Santa Cruz Wacharon Werwersen Yelamu group - a group of several on the northern San Francisco Penninsula Chutchui - near Mission Creek in San Francisco Sitlintac - near Mission Creek in San Francisco Petlenuc - near the Presidio in San Francisco Amuctac - unknown location in San Francisco Yulian - see Ssaaoam

Population

The Ohlone's population in 1770, around the time of missionary settlements, was estimated from 10,000 at minimum, up to 26,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area alone.

Sherburne F. Cook describes radically changing indigineous populations in California that declined from 1769 through 1900, in the Summary and Conclusions of his posthumously published book, The Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970. Cook stated in part: "Not until the population figures are examined does the extent of the havoc become evident."

Ohlone Subgroups in 1770 estimated by Cartier.

Subgroups	Location	Est.Population
Karkin	South edge of Carquinez Strait	200
Chocheño	East side of San Francisco Bay	2,000
Ramaytush	San Mateo and San Francisco Counties	1,400
Tamyen	Southwest side San Francisco Bay and Santa Clara Valley	1,200
Awaswas	From Davenport to Aptos in Santa Cruz Co.	600
Mutsun	Pajaro River, San Benito River and San Felipe Creek	2,700
Rumsen	Salinas, Lower Carmel and Sur Rivers	800
Chalon	Upper Salinas drainage	900

Note: These population counts by Cartier are not supported by other anthropologists (are not confirmed facts).

Costanoan as County Group VI estimated by Cook

Year	1880	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940	1950	1960	1970
Population	459	131	134	286	587	646	1,452	4,588	17,017

Mythology

Ohlone/Costanoan mythology centered around the Californian culture-hero of the Coyote trickster spirit, as well as Eagle and Hummingbird. Coyote spirit was clever, wily, lustful, greedy, and irresponsible. In their mythology, the Coyote was responsible for the creation of mankind, under the direction of Eagle, and taught mankind the arts of survival. He competed with Hummingbird, who despite his small size regularly got the better of him. Their creation story began with a world covered entirely in water, apart from a single peak (Mount Diablo in the northern Ohlone's version) on which Coyote, Hummingbird, and Eagle stood.

Etymology

Costeños was the Spanish explorer and missionaries' word meaning coastal people, that was Anglicized over time to become Costanoan.(The suffix "-an" is an English-settlers Americanization).

The name Ohlone might have derived from a Spanish rancho called Oljon, and referred to a single band who inhabited the Pacific coast near Pescadero. The name Ohlone may have also come from the name of an Indian village or site near modern-day Half Moon Bay. Oljone, Olchones and Alchones are spelling variations of Ohlone found in San Francisco mission records..

Language

The Ohlone-Costanoan language family was a member of the Utian linguistic group. Their languages were close in relation to each other, or dialects according to Milliken, roughly equivalent to the way languages of the Romance family have the same roots; i.e. it is as if French was spoken in Berkeley, and Portuguese in Monterey.

Native Names

The native people were described as coming from or belonging to certain tribes (bands) or villages and tribelets, or languages (as assigned by ethnolinguists), and also named by symbolic words from their native language. Although we have a list of names, the exact spelling and pronuncations are not entirely clear. Ethnoists sometimes resort to making artifical boundaries as well.

Many of the tribal and languistic designations come from the California Mission records of baptism, marriages and death. Some names have come from Spanish and Mexican settlers, some from early Anglo-European travelers, and of course, some from Native American "informants". A few names were gleened from diseño of Mexican land grants made in California prior to the Mexican-American War. In addition, a large untranscribed trove of material is available for research in the records of Clinton H. Merriam housed at the Bancroft Library, and more material continues to be published by local historical societies and associations.

Spelling and Pronounciation

Correct pronuncations of native words are tenuous at best. Many of the original sounds were first heard and copied down by Spanish missionaries using Spanish as a reference language, subject to human error, later translated into English and Anglicized over time. Spelling errors crept in as different missionaries kept seperate records over a long period of time, under various administrators. In spite of this, we have some clues. The Ohlone researchers Kroeber, Merriam and others interviewed Native "informants" and were able to get some pronuncations from word lists. Ethnoligists have used this to some advantage to create phonetic tables giving some semblence of languages. (See Languages below)

Native Words

A partial table of words comes from Indian Names for Plants and Animals... by Clinton Merriam. Merriam was primarily a naturalist (so chided by some), but gathered impressive data on California Indians, and his research endorsed by modern Research Guide. His list is tedious, over 400 words. The words were accompanied by a picture to help insure accuracy, but Heizer noted the errors prone in the system of interview. The Indian words listed are by "phonetic English" pronunciations. Some special marks do not translate; they may require additional treatment by ethnolinguists. The Indians had no written language that we know of.

Selected Costanoan Words by Merriam

Word	Schedule #56	Schedule #57	Word Number
Salmon	Oo'-rahk	Hoo"-rah-ka	247
Abalone	Oo==ch	Hah-shan	254
Rewood (Sequoia sempervirens)	-	Ho-o-pe	280
Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia)	Yū'Ks	You-kish	296
Big round tule (Scirpus lacustris)	Rōks	Ró-kus	409

Legend:

• Word - refers to the English word in question.
• Schedule - means one (1) or more interviews, with possibly one (1) or more persons.
• Word Number - Merriam numbers his words for easy reference.

Linguists and Historians

The main ethnographers and historians of Ohlone ethnography and their linguistics at first were: Alfred L. Kroeber who researched the California Indians with a few publications on the Ohlone from 1904 to 1910; Clinton H. Merriam who researched the Ohlone in detail from 1902 to 1929; John P. Harrington who researched the Ohlone languages from 1921 to 1939. Other research was added by Robert Cartier, Madison S. Beeler, and Sherburne F. Cook in the past 75 years, to name a few. In many cases, the Ohlone names vary in spelling, translation and tribal boundaries, depending on the source. Granted each tried to understand and interpret the data of a complex society and half dozen dying languages.

There was noticeable competion and disagreement: Clinton H. Merriam and John P. Harrington produced much in-depth Ohlone research in the shadow of the highly published Alfred L. Kroeber and both competed in print with Kroeber's historic published works. In the Editor's Introduction to Merriam (1979), Robert F. Heizer states "both men disliked A. L. Kroeber". Letters between Merriam and Harrington attest to this situation. Merriam is also decribed as "being jealous of Kroeber," and "seems to have had it in for Ronald D. Dixon".

Recent Ohlone historians that have revisited all facts are Lauren Teixeira, Randall Milliken and Lowell J. Bean. They note the availability of mission records allow for continual research and understanding.

Notable Ohlone People

• 1777 - Chamis of the village Chutchui, on June 24, 1777 at the age of 20 became the very first neophyte to join the Mission San Francisco de Asís.
• 1777 - Xigmacse, A Yelamu chief, at the time of the establishment of the San Francisco Mission.
• 1779 - Charquín, given the baptimal name of Francisco in the same year, appears to have been the leader of the first band of runaways in 1789. Exiled to San Diego, mistakenly taken to Mexico City. Final whereabouts unknown.
• 1782 - Mossués, captain of the village Pruristac in 1782, famous for his alliance with the Mission San Francisco de Asís.
• 1801 - Liberato Culpecse, ancestor of the present day Muwekma Tribal community
• 1807 - Hilarion and George (their baptismal names) were two Ohlone men from the village Pruristac who served as alcades (Mayors) of the San Francisco Mission in 1807. As such, they were at the beginning of a long line of Mayors of San Francisco.
• 1823 - Pomponío was a famous outlaw leader, that along with his band, raided the missions. Evading authorities, he was captured in Marin County, then executed in Monterey. At least, a creek and road are named after him.
• 1893 - Pedro Evencio believed to be the last San Mateo Indian. His son José Evencio lived at Coyote Point until WWII; final whereabouts unknown.
• 1939 - Isabel Meadows, died 1939, the last fluent speaker of an Ohlone language, Rumsien.
• 1950s - Andrés Osorio, of Half Moon Bay, said to be the area's last "Indian", possibly Tulare or Mexican.

See also

• Native Americans in the United States
• Spanish missions in California
• Utian languages

References

• Bean, John Lowell and Lawton, Harry. Some Explanations for the Rise of Cultural Complexity in Native California with Commentss on Proto-Agriculture and Agriculture, included in Native Californians: A Theoretical Retrospective, 1976.
• Beeler, Madison S. Northern Costanoan, International Journal of American Linguistics, 1961. 27: 191-197.
• Brown, Alan K. Indians of San Mateo County, La Peninsula:Journal of the San Mateo County Historical Association, Vol. XVII No. 4, Winter 1973-1974.
• Brown, Alan K. Place Names of San Mateo County, published San Mateo County Historical Association, 1975.
• Cartier, Robert, et al. An Overview of Ohlone Culture; 1991; De Anza College, Cupertino, California. Reprinted from a 1991 report titled "Ethnographic Background" as prepared with Laurie Crane, Cynthia Janes, Jon Reddington, and Allika Ruby, ed.
• Cook, Sherburne F. The Conflict Between the California Indian and White Civilization, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1976. ISBN 0-520-03143-1. Originally printed in Ibero-Americana (1940-1943).
• Cook, Sherburne F. The Population of the California Indians, 1769-1970. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, June 1976. ISBN 0-520-02923-2.
• Margolin, Malcolm. The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay Area. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1978. ISBN 0-930588-02-9.
• Merriam, Clinton Hart. Indian Names for Plants and Animals among Californian and other Western North American Tribes Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1979. ISBN 0-87919-085-X
• Milliken, Randall. A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910 Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1995. ISBN 0-87919-132-5 (alk. paper)
• Teixeira, Lauren. The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area, A Research Guide. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1997. ISBN 0-87919-141-4.

External links

• Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation
• Costanoan-Ohlone Indian Canyon Resource
• [1]
• An Overview of Ohlone Culture
• Overview of Yelamu Ohlone
• Historic Background
• Chochenyo revival
• Chochenyo revival
• Chochenyo revitalization
• Mutsun revitalization
• Grammar of Mutsun
• Muwekma Ohlone denied recognition - 6 Sept 2002
• A day in the Ohlone life.