The last native speaker of the Chumash language died in 1965. Were he alive today, what kind of stories could that man have told? What horrifying memories could he recount of the total devastation of his people and their ancient culture that has been traced back at least 13,000 years. For more than a dozen centuries the tribes of Barbareno, Ynezeno, Obispeno, Purismeno and the interior Chumash lived in about 150 independent, autonomous villages from as far north as present day San Luis Obispo to as far south as Ventura. These indigenous peoples lived in a land so unblemished by human development, it must have literally been a heaven on earth.

This heaven on earth, our present day state of California, was first referred to in a 1510 Spanish romance novel that alluded to a mystical, magical island called California. In the novel the island connotes insularity coupled with riches. Immediately I am struck by the irony of this original allegorical depiction of the Golden State. It is almost as if those original fictional representations of the place were manifested by the greedy Colonial advancements of the Conquistadors.

Ciguatan is the name the indigenous peoples used to describe their paradise. There were an estimated 130,000 of them living in Ciguatan on the fateful date of September 28th, 1540, the day that Cabrillo first landed in San Diego. And there was no Christopher Columbus lie to propagate concerning this auspicious first landfall. Within five days of the Spanish galleons and their armed troops surrounding the present day harbor area of San Diego, the native Kumeyaay tribesmen attacked the alien intruders with much furor.

From the moment that Cabrillo first landed in this mythical land an extraordinarly thorough near extinction ensued. It was a land that the Spanish crown had in its crosshairs for expansion and natural resources. Instead of the commonly believed (or stuffed down children's throats as history) story that Columbus brought with him goodwill and embraced the native peoples of the Americas, it seems clear on closer inspection that the turkeys were stuffed with smallpox, syphilis, diphtheria, and measles. Without the proper anti-bodies to fight these never before seen ailments, the armed troops of the Spanish Missions had a lot less blood to spill because the fully strategic germ warfare was doing the job just fine.

Despite the romantic portrayals of California Missions in pathetically spineless history text books propagated in schools today, they were nothing more than coercive religious-based labor groups organized to primarily benefit the colonizer. The crown gave "authority" to convert the natives in a ten year period, and if they wouldn't convert, well then, they were enemies worthy of rifle blast and sword.

It is one of the most despicable time periods in our country's history, although our current neoconservative regime is working to become even more rancorous. There were between 18,000 and 22,000 natives in the aforementioned area in the central coast area prior to Spanish occupation. By 1831 there were 2,7888 Mission-registered Chumash tribal people. Small groups of escapees and surviving members of villages that were ransacked formed small vigilante bands that continued a strong resistance to the Spanish Inquisition. More than 100,000 or more than one third of the total indigenous population of California perished as a result of the Missions.

Now my visions are becoming clearer. The darkness that I sensed while meditating in the former site of the Chumash village on the Teardrop hike was historical "morphing" or recorded energies that languish in the actual fabric of the elements surrounding this once fateful site. When I asked my good friend who lead us on the hike about Chumash existence here, I was not surprised to hear him answer like this: "Oh, yeah, I came up here with a man who studies Chumash from the University. He found cave paintings and was talking about their culture. This was the last free village in this area. They were murdered here after a revolt at the Santa Barbara Mission. They had retreated up to this village and were followed by Spanish troops." Now I cannot specifically find research to annotate this last claim, but I don't need it. My intuition and psychic fields were tapping into this even before I had it affirmed through this discussion. That was it. That was what I felt. Shortly after the last recorded major revolt of free tribes in 1824 at the Santa Barbara mission, where Chumash burned many buildings in response to sexual assaults on native women in the Mission dungeons. This was a last blast of sorts. A final statement of pride -- NO, White Plague, we do not accept your culture for ours.

ER Harris

Sources: Santa Barbara Natural History Website; Professor Eduardo D. Castillo's webpage from the University of Cahuilia-Luiseno
Links: http://www.sbnature.org/, http://ceres.ca.gov/nahc/califindian.html