SANTA BARBARA COUNTY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT
NAPAMU’: A SACRED PLACE STUDY
FOR THE
ALISAL RANCH RESERVOIR PROJECT EIR
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
DRAFT
MAY 2014
ALBION ENVIRONMENTAL, INC.
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT
NAPAMU’: A SACRED PLACE STUDY
FOR THE
ALISAL RANCH RESERVOIR PROJECT EIR
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
DRAFT
MAY 2014
PREPARED FOR:
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT
DEVELOPMENT REVIEW DIVISION, ATTN. JOYCE GERBER
624 W. FOSTER ROAD, SUITE C
SANTA MARIA, CA 93455
PREPARED BY:
CLINTON BLOUNT, M.A.
THOMAS S. GARLINGHOUSE, PH.D.
ALBION ENVIRONMENTAL, INC.
1414 SOQUEL AVENUE, SUITE 205
SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA 95062
J2013-018.01
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to acknowledge the many people who assisted us in this study. Charles “CJ” Jackson
provided important historical perspective and help with access to Napamu’ and Alisal Ranch
property. We also appreciate the time the Applicant’s legal counsel, Richard Battles took to discuss
the Applicant’s perspective on the complex issues involved in this environmental review.
We are especially indebted to the staff at the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians for their
consistent help throughout our study. Sam Cohen, legal advisor helped find respondents and set
interviews at the beginning of the study, and we appreciate our candid conversations about the
project. Linguist Richard Applegate was particularly helpful as we navigated the J.P. Harrington
fieldnotes. His painstaking work with Harrington’s notes have made them an invaluable source of
primary ethnographic data for the Tribe. Kathleen Conti, Director of Museum Programs guided us
through portions of the Harrington materials that proved pivotal in our assessment of Napamu’.
Thanks are also extended to Margo Crabtree for her work photographing Napamu’, to Stella D’Oro
for preparing maps and figures, and to Cindy Convisser for help with editing and formatting the
report.
Most of all we wish to acknowledge the patience and help of the Tribal respondents who spoke with
us and traveled with us to Napamu’. It has been a singular pleasure to witness their dedication to
preserving and reviving Tribal traditions.
Clinton Blount
Thomas S. Garlinghouse
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. i List of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1.—Introduction........................................................................................................................ 1 Purpose and Goals ............................................................................................................................. 1 The Project ........................................................................................................................................ 2 Study Area ......................................................................................................................................... 6 Previous Cultural Resource Investigations........................................................................................ 6 The Project Team .............................................................................................................................. 6 A Note on Terms and Usage ............................................................................................................. 7 Regulatory Authorities and Guidance ............................................................................................... 7 Organization of the Report ................................................................................................................ 8 Chapter 2.—Research Methods .............................................................................................................. 9 Archival Investigations ..................................................................................................................... 9 Consultation and Interviews with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians ................................ 10 Interview Methods .......................................................................................................................... 11 Interviews ........................................................................................................................................ 12 Other Interviews, Consultation and On-Site Activities ................................................................... 12 Analysis Methods ............................................................................................................................ 13 Chapter 3.—Archival Research and Ethnographic Context ................................................................. 14 History of Ethnographic Research .................................................................................................. 15 The Chumash: Territory, Demography, and Language ................................................................... 22 Ynezeño Chumash ..................................................................................................................... 24 Religious Beliefs and Practices .................................................................................................. 27 Napamú ...................................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 4.—Existing Conditions.......................................................................................................... 36 Historical Alterations to Napamu’ .................................................................................................. 36 Historical and Recent Development near Napamu’ ........................................................................ 45 The Viewshed from Napamu’ ......................................................................................................... 45 Access to Napamu’ ......................................................................................................................... 45 Tribal Knowledge of Napamu’ ....................................................................................................... 53 An Incident of Recent Ceremonial Practice at Napamu’ ................................................................ 55 The “Chumash Renaissance” and the Significance of Napamu’..................................................... 55 Chapter 5.—Significance and Impact Assessment and Recommendations ......................................... 59 What is Napamu’?...................................................................................................................... 59 Is Napamu’ a Historical Resource? ........................................................................................... 60 Will the Reservoir Element of the Project have an Impact on Napamu’? Will the
Agricultural Activity Supported by the Reservoir Have an Impact on Napamu? ................. 61 Will the pipeline, pumps, and transmission line have an impact on Napamu’? ........................ 62 Will the project impact archaeological resources at Napamu’? ............................................... 62 Will the project impact access to Napamu’?.............................................................................. 63 Napamu’: A Sacred Place Study for the Alisal Ranch Reservoir Project EIR—DRAFT
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References Cited................................................................................................................................... 64 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Quad project location map. ..................................................................................................... 3 Figure 2. Aerial view of project area and adjacent landscape. ............................................................... 4 Figure 3. Project facilities....................................................................................................................... 5 Figure 4. Land use around Napamu’. ................................................................................................... 37 Figure 5. Existing roads and trails at Napamu’. ................................................................................... 38 Figure 6. Trail 1, east side of Napamu’. ............................................................................................... 39 Figure 7. Trail 3, west side of Napamu’. .............................................................................................. 40 Figure 8. Limestone outcrop on the north face of Napamu’. ............................................................... 41 Figure 9. Soil berm, right center, east flank of Napamu’. .................................................................... 42 Figure 10. Summary of quarrying and grading, 1928–2010, compiled by Curtis Muñoz.................... 43 Figure 11. Historical and current cross-section of Napamu’, compiled by Curtis Muñoz. .................. 44 Figure 12. Historical and current cross-section of Napamu’, compiled by Curtis Munoz. .................. 46 Figure 13. View of agricultural fields east to Napamu’. ...................................................................... 47 Figure 14. Access road and gate at Alisal Road. .................................................................................. 48 Figure 15. View of crest of Napamu’ and north to Solvang................................................................. 49 Figure 16. View to the northeast from Napamu’. ................................................................................. 50 Figure 17. View to the east of Napamu’. ............................................................................................. 51 Figure 18. Viewshed from Napamu’. ................................................................................................... 52 Napamu’: A Sacred Place Study for the Alisal Ranch Reservoir Project EIR—DRAFT
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CHAPTER 1.—INTRODUCTION
The Alisal Ranch is proposing construction of a small reservoir on Ranch property to provide water
for its existing agricultural operations. The reservoir is located immediately south of the town of
Solvang along the Santa Ynez River in Santa Barbara County, California. The project is just to the
west of a small hill that has been thought by many to be the Chumash shrine site Napamu’. In the
course of environmental review, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians (Tribe) has asserted that
the hill is in fact the shrine site Napamu’, that the hill is a significant historical resource of particular
importance to the Tribe, and that the proposed project would cause a significant adverse change to the
resource. This has caused Santa Barbara County (County) to prepare an Environmental Impact Report
(EIR), which will address, in part, the nature and possible significance of the resource, assess any
projects impacts, and propose mitigation measures that would reduce any impacts to less than
significant. Santa Barbara County contracted with Albion Environmental. Inc. (Albion) to conduct
this review and analysis, prepare this technical study, and assist in the preparation of the EIR.
The proposed reservoir project had been under environmental review for several years and has
emerged as a controversial undertaking. The Tribe appealed the findings of the Mitigated Negative
Declaration (MND) prepared by the County for the project, which was followed by an appeal by the
Applicant. These appeals raised a number of important questions about the resource itself, its
significance, and the potential impacts of the project. In addition, the Tribe has proposed a number of
mitigation measures that it believes would lessen the impacts of the project, which the Applicant has
questioned or considered inappropriate. Albion’s scope is therefore two-fold. Our task has been first
to conduct what might be considered a straightforward investigation of the site, its significance, and
project impacts, and second to address the numerous assertions and counter-assertions that have been
made in the course of environmental review.
Purpose and Goals
Albion’s scope of work included the following primary tasks:

Review and analysis of existing information on the project site and the site identified in
ethnographic literature as the sacred or shrine site Napamu’;

Development of a study area that considers the resource and potential project impacts;

Consultation and interviews with representatives of the Tribe and Applicant to provide
additional information about the potential resource and impacts, and;

Assessment of the potential effects of the project on the resource and propose mitigation
measures to reduce impacts to less than significant.
In order to meet these study goals, Albion addressed a number of related topics and issues that were
known at the time we began the study or that emerged as the study progressed. These included:

Resolving the much debated question regarding the actual location of Napamu’;

Determining the boundaries and physical characteristics of Napamu’;
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
Understanding and quantifying historical impacts to the site;

Placing Napamu’ in the context of the Tribe’s beliefs and ceremonial practices, and;

Determining, both independently and from the Tribe’s perspective, the impacts of historical
activities and development at Napamu’ and the surrounding area.
The Project
Alisal Ranch is proposing to build a small (less than 0.6 acre) reservoir at the eastern end of a large
terrace that is situated immediately south of the Santa Ynez River. The project is located just to the
east of Alisal road and is approximately 0.5 miles south of the central section of the town of Solvang.
The shallow reservoir would be fed from existing wells in the Santa Ynez riverbed, and would be
used to irrigate the long terrace to the west. Additional project components include an upgrade to the
current access road and an underground pipeline and overhead powerlines connecting to wells to the
east side of Alisal Road. The reservoir would sit approximately 300 yards to the west of the western
flank of the hill presumed to be Napamu’. The existing access road, which would be upgraded to allweather status, winds around the northern flank of the hill. The access road is currently used by waste
disposal trucks and service personnel to access a waste disposal site and water treatment facility at the
western end of the long terrace (see Figures 1 and 2).
The Applicant’s project (Figure 3) description is as follows:
The applicant proposes to construct and use an approximately 1.5 million gallon (4.7 acre ft), earthenlined agricultural water storage reservoir that would draw water from the Santa Ynez River. It would
be approximately 0.59 acres in area (160 ft x 160 ft), with a depth of 14 ft. Construction of the
reservoir would require approximately 26,600 cubic yards of cut and 22,300 cubic yards of fill,
assuming 20 percent shrinkage. The total area of disturbance during construction would be
approximately 1.6 acres. The proposed reservoir would be used to support year-round agricultural
operations on the same parcel. It would not be used to provide water for the property owner’s
neighboring parcels (i.e., Alisal Guest Ranch and River Course). The reservoir’s water would be
provided from an existing well located on the east side of the southern end of the Alisal Bridge. The
project would also include new overhead power supply lines with at least four power poles (PG&E),
water pumps, telemetry, controls, fencing, and a 240 square ft (8 ft high) equipment - pump - storage
area. The water pipeline route would extend from the well along the west side of Alisal Road and
would then follow the power line route westward to the reservoir. The reservoir area would be
accessed by a new 200 ft long by 16 ft wide all-weather road that would tie into an existing all-weather
road that currently serves the Solvang Municipal Waste Water Treatment Plant.
The project and Napamu’ are located in an area of moderate to heavy residential, recreational, and
agricultural uses. As noted, the project is situated at the eastern end of a long terrace that is currently
dry farmed. The area beyond the western end of the terrace holds both a waste disposal and water
treatment facility. The area to the north of the Santa Ynez River is composed of residential housing
developments, which occupy both the west and east sides of Alisal Road. The River Course golf
course and the Alisal Guest Ranch occupy the lands to the northeast and east of the project area and
Napamu’. The areas to the south and west of Alisal Road are dominated by a rising range of oak and
chaparral covered hills, which, along with the hill Napamu’, are part of Alisal Ranch’s seasonal
feeder cattle operation (Figure 1 provides a regional context for the project site and Napamu’).
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IF
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Figure 1. Project location map.
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Figure 2. Aerial of project area
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Legend
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Study Area
Albion initially defined the area under study to be the hill Napamu’, and considered the possibility
that the project elements comprising the area of the reservoir, road, and power connection to the
pumps in the Santa Ynez River (Figure 2) may be part of the resource area. Based on the
preponderance of evidence (as presented in Chapter 3 of this study) we concluded that the sharp hill
to the west of Alisal Road and just to the south of the Santa Ynez River is the shrine hill or site
Napamu’. We assumed at the outset that an adequate working definition of the sacred site of Napamu’
and its boundaries, pending a more fine-grained definition, included not only the hill itself but also
the saddle located along the hill’s southern flanks.
Our working definition of what is Napamu’ did not change in the course of the study. The evaluation
of sacred sites or places must take into account all components of the site. Sacred places such as
Napamu’ might also include trails to the hill, ceremonial preparation areas, specific areas of particular
importance, or view sheds. Such areas or places might be said to contribute to the significance of the
sacred place or in fact be an integral part of it. In such cases, a study area might extend well beyond
what was originally identified as the sacred site. Napamu’, however, has not seen active ceremonial
practice in several generations, perhaps since the Spanish Colonial era, therefore we have scant
information on all of the places and related resources that might have been part of the ceremonial
activities at Napamu’.
Our investigation did incorporate the project elements into the study area because of their potential to
impact Napamu’. We also considered development in the near vicinity of Napamu’ as part of our
assessment of cumulative impacts to the site.
Previous Cultural Resource Investigations
The project site has been the subject of two archaeological investigations. The first, a records search
and pedestrian survey conducted by Conejo Archaeological Consultants, revealed the presence of one
complex archaeological site, CA-SBA-832/H, within 0.5 miles of the project (Maki 2010). This site is
located along the east bank of Alisal Creek where it meets the Santa Ynez River, and directly east of
the hill Napamu’ and the reservoir project site. It contains both a prehistoric component (identified as
a prehistoric village) and a historic ranch house, the Yndart Adobe. The pedestrian survey resulted in
negative findings, although a single quartzite flake was found in a disturbed context. An extended
Phase 1 investigation was conducted by Applied Earthworks, Inc. (Haslouer 2010), comprising a
number of shovel test pits and 26 backhoe trenches in the reservoir, pipeline route and power pole
locations. This subsurface work did not reveal archaeological materials. The Phase 1 level of effort
led Applied Earthworks to conclude “the reliability of these results in assessing the presence or
absence of archaeological materials is considered excellent” (Haslouer 2010:6). The hill Napamu’ has
not been systematically surveyed for cultural materials, although Larry Spanne notes in his review of
the archaeological reports that a concentration of rocks near the peak of the hill may represent
maintenance of the shrine (Letter Spanne to Cohen, May 3, 2013:1-2). Both archaeological reports
include discussion of extensive limestone quarrying at and around the hill, noting that quarrying
began during Colonial times and continued well into the twentieth century. A review of historical
impacts conducted by Curtis Muñoz for the ApplicantXIII tracked quarrying through time and
concludes that quarrying had reduced the elevation of the top of the hill by 100+ feet.
The Project Team
The Albion team was headed by Clinton Blount, Principal and founder of the firm. He holds an M.A.
degree in anthropology from California State University, Sacramento, and was advanced to candidacy
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for a Ph.D. degree at University of California, Riverside. He has been active in California
ethnographic and ethnohistorical investigations continuously since 1974. He has completed 14
traditional cultural property studies in northern and central California and has worked with Chumash
communities since 1990. Tom Garlinghouse conducted the investigation of archival sources and
preparation of the ethnographic context section of the study. He holds a Ph.D. degree in anthropology
from University of California, Davis. His dissertation focused on the subsistence technologies of
prehistoric Gabrieliño (Tongva) peoples of southern California and he has, in recent years, worked
intensively with the J.P. Harrington ethnographic notes, the most important archival resource for the
present study. Stella D’Oro, M.A., provided graphics and photographic interpretation.
A Note on Terms and Usage
We refer throughout the study to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians as the Tribe, the capital
“T” identifying them as a federally recognized tribe. We refer to the hill under discussion as Napamu’
based on the well-founded assumption that this place is in fact the Napamu’ mentioned in the archival
sources, and believed by the Tribe to be Napamu’. Whenever possible we have used native terms for
places, practices, and objects and have followed the spelling provided in the Tribe’s Samala-English
Dictionary, A Guide to the Samala language of the Ineseño People (compiled with linguist Richard
Applegate).
Albion spoke with many respondents during the study and we have chosen to conceal the names of
those providing primary ethnographic information, concerns, and recommendations. Respondent
sources are identified in the text by a numeric superscript, which is rendered in Latin. The exception
to this are statements made by Tribal staff, speaking in their official capacities, such as Sam Cohen,
Government and Legal specialist, or Nakia Zavalla, Cultural Director.
Regulatory Authorities and Guidance
This study and the project EIR have been done to satisfy the requirements of the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), specifically those rules and guidelines provided at Public
Resource Code sections 21060 and 21084, and CEQA Guidelines section 15064, which address
historical and archaeological resources. We have also considered the Opinion of the Fifth appellate
district of the California Court of Appeal in MADERA OVERSIGHT COALITION, INC. V.
COUNTY OF MADERA, which addresses the status of traditional cultural properties under CEQA
rules for Historical Resources. Because of the ambiguity in CEQA concerning traditional cultural
properties and places of sacred and cultural significance to tribes, we have sought the guidance of the
California Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC). The NAHC maintains a sacred lands file
and possesses both expertise and responsibilities concerning the treatment of tribal resources within
California.
The project does not require an amendment to the County’s General Plan, therefore it is not subject to
the rules and guidelines for Senate Bill 18: Local and Tribal Intergovernmental Consultation. The
project is not a federal undertaking and is not subject to the rules and guidelines for the identification
and evaluation of Historic Properties under section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.
Section 106 does, however, recognize Traditional Cultural Properties as a type of Historic Property
and in National Park Service Bulletin 38 has provided valuable guidance for conducting studies of
such resources. We have followed these study guidelines in our research, a standard professional
practice, even though the rules for evaluation and assessment of effect do not apply in the absence of
a federal undertaking. It is our understanding the County has made an exhaustive review of all
possible federal connections to the project and has found no such connection.
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Organization of the Report
Chapter 2 of the study describes research methods. The study comprised a thorough archival review
of ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources, and field investigation. This latter task included an
investigation of the project site, and consultation with members of the Tribe, and finally an analysis
of project impacts.
Chapter 3 details our investigation of archival sources with specific reference to Napamu’. The sacred
site is well represented in the J.P. Harrington field notes, however, work with these complex materials
required considerable cross-reference of statements from Harrington’s informants. Using a variety of
sources, we place Napamu’ in the context of Chumash cosmology and sacred/ceremonial practice,
and identify places similar to Napamu’ within the Chumash ceremonial sphere.
Chapter 4 addresses the current conditions at Napamu’. This section includes a discussion of past
impacts to the site, current activities in the vicinity of Napamu’, and the Tribe’s perspective on the
site. We have used this section to discuss the Tribe’s programs for resurrecting traditional practices
and have framed the discussion in the context of identity formation processes, historical processes
that have affected the Tribe from the Colonial era to the present. The latter is critical to understanding
the Tribe’s interest in the preservation of sacred places.
Chapter 5, the final chapter in this study, provides our assessment of the projects effects on Napamu’.
We discuss our evaluation of potential effects, including cumulative effects, address each of the
Tribe’s mitigation recommendations, and provide mitigation recommendations based on Albion’s
analysis. We have presented our analysis in three sections, posed as a series of interrogatories: What
is Napamu’? Is Napamu’ a Historical Resource? How will the proposed project impact Napamu’?
What actions will reduce any impacts to Napamu’ to less than significant? We also address each of
the Tribe’s suggested mitigation measures in light of our findings.
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CHAPTER 2.—RESEARCH METHODS
Albion approached the investigation of the proposed project and the project’s possible impacts to
historical resources from several angles. The project has become controversial in the course of
regulatory review, principally because of the appeals to the original findings of the County’s findings
in the Mitigated Negative Declaration issued in 2013. Albion did not enter the investigation at the
initial stages of the cultural resource assessments; rather, our study began with a number of assertions
and counter-assertions already on record. While we proposed to approach work with a thorough reexamination of the historical and anthropological records, independent discussions with both the
Applicant and Tribal respondents, and neutral evaluation of the resource and project impacts, the
statements and assertions already on record did condition our investigation. We felt it was important
to address such topics as the history of traditional and contemporary uses of the site, historical
impacts to the site, and the Tribe’s mitigation recommendations directly in our investigation, so that
our work would provide an independent analysis of these, and similar matters.
Albion’s investigation was also conducted in an atmosphere of long-standing acrimony between the
Tribe and its interests in the greater Santa Ynez Valley and some members of the non-Tribal
community. We were reminded of these antagonisms throughout the course of the investigation,
particularly during interviews with both the Applicant and Tribal respondents. While these
antagonisms are peripheral to the investigation of the project, they were ever-present in the course of
our work and we remained alert to how they might influence both respondent responses and our
assessment of findings. This is another reason our findings and recommendations (Chapter 5) directly
consider the assertions posed by both the Tribe and Applicant in the extensive administrative record
for the project, since the administrative record reflects these conflicting attitudes.
Archival Investigations
Albion’s background research began with a review of the administrative record maintained by the
County. Important materials included the Phase 1 and Extended Phase 1 archaeological investigations
(Maki 2010; Haslauer 2010) and reviews conducted for the Tribe by Laurence Spanne (Spanne 2010;
2013). Also important were the appeals to the Mitigated Negative Declaration filed by the Tribe and
Applicant in February 2013. The administrative record also contains numerous letters and memoranda
addressing various points made in the major administrative documents. These materials provided
clear presentations of the positions of both the Tribe and Applicant, including their positions on the
laws and guidelines pertinent to the regulatory review.
The disagreements between the Tribe and some members of the non-Tribal Santa Ynez Valley
communities, which center on the Tribe’s development of its gaming interests and related economic
expansion, is well documented in local newspapers and the records of public meetings. We relied on
two publications that summarize the last 20 years of enmity in the Santa Ynez Valley. Gillis, who
takes a strong position on the benefits of the Tribe’s gaming and economic development, nonetheless
provides a thorough review of the controversy, in the context of the Tribe’s ongoing, and in many
ways revitalized, interest in traditional places and practices (Gillis 2012). Darian-Smith addresses the
social and economic processes inherent in the dramatic changes in tribal communities that have
developed gaming on tribal lands. Importantly, Darian-Smith focuses on the long-history of
stigmatization, discrimination, and misperception that these dramatic economic and social changes
have set in motion. She uses numerous examples from the public record of the controversy over the
Tribe’s casino, and plans for augmentation of Tribal lands (Darian-Smith 2004).
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The impacts of Spanish colonization, particularly the effects of the Franciscan missions on indigenous
communities has received considerable attention over the last two decades. The long held view that
the social, political and subsistence practices, and, significantly religious beliefs were suppressed or
supplanted in the Mission environment has been put to rest in the course of recent archaeological and
historical investigations. There is compelling evidence in the archaeological record (e.g., Voss 2008;
Panich 2013; Peelo 2010; Allen, et al. 2012) that traditional practices endured the Mission era, in the
context of new or even multiple identities created from traditional practices and beliefs and the
necessity of adapting to the rules of life and conduct under Spanish colonial rule. The historical
record is equally clear that indigenous practices did not disappear, but were adapted and transformed
as indigenous peoples negotiated both the Spanish mission system, and the Euro-American political
and economic institutions that followed. Lightfoot (2005) and Haas (2014), for example, address the
social and historical processes that influenced indigenous identities in the Colonial era. While Haley
and Wilcoxen (1997) have argued that much of present-day Chumash neo-traditionalism is invention,
many scholars would argue that modern expressions of tradition carry with them an immutable core
of traditional beliefs and practices. This discussion is particularly important in our evaluation of the
Tribe’s view of the significance of Napamu’ and the place Napamu’ and similar sacred places have in
the Tribe’s cultural renewal.
The ethnographic record is a rich source of information on Napamu’, similar places, and Chumash
ceremonial beliefs in general. John Peabody Harrington, an eccentric and obsessive early
ethnographer left a remarkable record of the Chumash of the Santa Ynez Valley. Working in the early
twentieth century with María Solaris, a gifted culture bearer, Harrington recorded the indigenous
language (Samala) in sufficient detail that the Tribe in association with a linguist XV has been able to
compile a dictionary and working guide to speaking Samala (Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians
2007). Harrington’s notes contain similar detail on important places, ceremonial practices, and
everyday life. Much of Harrington’s work with María Solaris was cross checked with other Chumash
informants, although the Solaris materials are the definitive guide to traditional life and geography in
the Santa Ynez Valley.
Albion reviewed the Harrington materials in their original form at the beginning of our investigation.
It became clear that the information relevant to Napamu’ was scattered throughout Harrington’s work
with Solaris and others. Fortunately the Tribe has commissioned a compilation of Harrington’s
interviews with María Solaris, including translation of several texts recorded by Harrington only in
Samala. The two volumes are closely held by the Tribe and have not been made available to the
public or the community of scholars in published form. Albion was granted access to the relevant
portions of these volumes, which greatly sped Albion’s research, but also provided material not
available to investigators simply examining Harrington’s generally available original notes.
Albion also reviewed the many publications on Chumash cosmology, ceremony, social organization
and history. Virtually all of these publications rely heavily on a reworking of or direct citation of the
Harrington material. A discussion of the Harrington material and the work of scholars that followed
Harrington is discussed in detail in Chapter 3.
Consultation and Interviews with the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians
A principal goal of Albion’s study has been to determine what Tribal respondents know about the
sacred site Napamu’, how the site was and is possibly still used, and the Tribe’s perceptions of
possible impacts from the reservoir project. We also wished to explore the Tribe’s recommended
mitigation actions as presented in the Tribe’s appeal to the findings of the Mitigated Negative
Declaration and explore any other Tribal recommendations and concerns. To do this, we worked first
with the Tribal administration to establish the goals of the project and develop protocols for working
with knowledgeable individuals in the Tribe. We then interviewed these individuals both off-site and
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at the project site and Napamu’. We also presented the study goals to the Tribe’s Elders’ Council and
later to the Tribe’s language study group. Several of the interview sessions were with groups of
several Tribal respondents during visits to Napamu’.
Interview Methods
Albion’s Principal Investigator, Clinton Blount used a standard anthropological interview technique
called the “structured open-ended interview”. Using this technique, the interview begins with a
number of general questions as a guide to the discussion and follows the lead of the respondent as the
interview proceeds. The interviewer keeps notes on productive interview topics but generally does not
interrupt the flow of the interview other than to clarify the responses, and only then as absolutely
necessary. The interviewer is careful to avoid leading questions, that is, questions that imply an
answer, or questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. The goal is to allow the respondent
to freely provide information on the topic, allowing the respondent to ponder a topic as long as
necessary, possibly jogging the respondent’s memory of people, places, and events.
The Principal Investigator kept extensive notes of the interviews, although none of the interviews
were recorded. These notes were later transcribed and details were filled in from the interviewer’s
memory. The information from one interview often sharpened the questions for the next interviews,
although the information from one respondent was never revealed to another. In this way, each
interview was an independent data gathering event and corroboration of information, or discrepancies
between respondents were determined after a cross-reference of the interviews.
Our guiding questions for the interviews were:

Are you familiar with the project site?

Are you familiar with the sacred site Napamu’?

If so, how do you know of it?

Are you aware of any current or past activities at Napamu’ including visits or ceremonial
activities?

Are you familiar with similar places and activities?

How would you characterize the significance of Napamu’ to yourself, and the Tribe?

What are the qualities of the place that make it important?

Based on the project description, how do you perceive the relationship between the project
and Napamu’ (detailed project descriptions were always provided to the respondent)?

Are you familiar with the Tribe’s mitigation recommendations, and if so, how do you
perceive the relationship between those recommendations and the project?

Do you have additional concerns or recommendations?
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Interviews
In late November 2013 Albion contacted the Tribal staff member that works directly with the Tribal
Elders Council XVI. That individual directed us to the Tribal legal advisor I who indicated that any
work directly with the Tribe could not start until Albion had met with the Elders Council. While
Albion and the County eventually met with the Council on March 3rd, 2014, the legal advisor was
able to arrange for interviews to start in early February.
Individual interviews began on February 4th and 5th with two Tribal elders III, XI. These interviews
resulted in significant information about the role of spiritual places such as Napamu’ to the Tribe, in
the context of the Tribe’s program to recapture and foster their traditional practices and Chumash
identity. This theme was echoed in subsequent interviews, although the Principal Investigator
continued to use the guiding questions in each individual, and later group interviews. We met next
with the Tribal Cultural Director IV, which led to a lengthy discussion of the importance of Napamu’
and similar sites to the Tribe. The Cultural Director then visited Napamu’ with Albion. A third Tribal
elder VI was interviewed on February 19th, again focusing on the significance of Napamu’ and similar
sacred places to the Tribe. An important and consistent theme in these interviews was the importance
of Harrington’s detailed ethnographic data and the link between these data and the Tribe’s interest in
traditional practices, including the Tribe’s interest in Napamu’.
Albion and County staff met with the full Elders Council on March 3rd. The County and Albion
presented the proposed project, as well as the goals of the investigation of the project site and
Napamu’. Albion asked for and was granted access to specific Harrington materials, mostly
translations of Samala texts about Napamu’, closely held by the Tribe. The Council directed Tribal
staff to assist in our review on-site of these notes and translations. That work was conducted under
Tribal supervision during the week of March 3rd. During this period, Albion maintained near daily
contact with the Tribal legal advisor and other Tribal staff.
Albion conducted three additional on-site interviews at the project and Napamu’. The first, the
morning of March 4th, was attended by several elders and one younger member of the Tribe, all active
in traditional activities III, V, VI, and VIII. A lengthy discussion of the site was held at the base of Napamu’
and then at the crest of the hill. The group discussed their perceptions of the impacts of the project.
The second on-site interview, March 5th, was attended by several members of the Tribal language
study group IV, VIII, IX, and X and the Tribe’s consulting linguist XV. This visit followed a similar course,
discussions at the base of the hill, followed by a visit to the crest of Napamu’. This same group IV, VIII,
and IX, with family members
requested a second visit the evening of March 5th to observe the orientation of
Napamu’ relative to the sunset and surrounding important landmarks.
Other Interviews, Consultation and On-Site Activities
Albion also consulted with an archaeologist XIV intimately familiar with local resources, a
representative of the Applicant XIII, an independent anthropologist who has written extensively about
the current status of the Tribe XVII, and the Tribe’s consulting linguist XV. Albion also maintained
contact throughout with Joyce Gerber, County archaeologist, and responded to three phone calls from
the attorney representing the Applicant. Discussions with the Applicant’s attorney focused on the
progress of the study and the regulatory authorities for the project (i.e., federal vs. state jurisdiction).
Albion also queried the California Native American Heritage Commission about the commission’s
Sacred Lands file and any prior recording of Napamu’ as a sacred site. We also asked the
Commission to clarify the status of sacred places relative to CEQA, other regulatory authorities,
pending legislation, and relevant court cases and opinions. Albion staff also visited the project site
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and Napamu’ independently several times to photograph the hill and proposed locations of project
facilities from several vantage points.
Analysis Methods
Albion’s primary goal in this study has been to determine if the proposed project will impact the
sacred site Napamu’. To do this, we approached the analysis in two phases. First, we reviewed the
sum of the archival and consultation data to determine if Napamu’ is a Historical Property under
CEQA. This assessment included consideration of those attributes of Napamu’ that constitute its
significance and potential eligibility for listing in the California Register of Historic Places. This
analysis has been complicated by the absence of specific wording in the Register identifying sacred
places, often referred to as Traditional Cultural Properties as a historic property type. The California
Register criteria have emphasized resources such as historic buildings and structures in the built
environment or important archaeological sites; however, the California Register criteria lack the
specific guidance for the identification and evaluation of Traditional Cultural Properties found in the
National Historic Preservation Act and the National Register of Historic Places. Our evaluation of
Napamu’ does consider those attributes identified by the Tribe as contributing to the significance of
the sacred site. Those ascribed attributes were fundamental to our assessment of whether the project
would cause a substantial adverse change in the significance of the sacred site.
Albion next evaluated each element of the proposed reservoir project, the reservoir, road construction
and improvements, pipeline, and transmission lines to determine if any or all would have an impact
on the site that would constitute a substantial adverse change. We first reviewed the well documented
physical impacts to Napamu’. We also examined historical and modern development in the nearby
environment, including an assessment of changes in the viewshed from Napamu’. Our goal was to
determine if past actions at or near Napamu’ have caused a substantial adverse change and if any
element of the proposed project would add to any adverse change. Our assessment considered
statements made by the Tribe about the impacts of the project, as well as the Applicant’s rebuttals to
the Tribe’s assertions.
As a final step of the assessment process, we identified those elements of the project that we believe
would create a substantial adverse change and proposed mitigation measures that we believe would
reduce these impacts to less than significant. We address each of the mitigation recommendations
suggested by the Tribe in the context of our assessment of the significance of Napamu’. Ultimately,
we developed a set of mitigation recommendations independently, which we believe directly address
the substantial adverse changes the project would cause.
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CHAPTER 3.—ARCHIVAL RESEARCH AND ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTEXT
A common lament among early ethnographers (e.g., Gifford 1926; Grant 1978:505; Johnson 1988:2;
Kroeber 1925:550) working in the Santa Barbara region of southern California has long been the fact
that the Chumash were among the first native Californian groups to undergo major cultural
disintegration at the hands of the Spanish. Despite exhibiting relatively high population densities,
complex political integration, a considerable degree of craft specialization and technological
innovation, and extensive exchange systems, Chumash society was irrevocably altered as a result of
the Spanish incursion into Alta California. Between 1769 and 1834, all the major Chumash villages,
which some scholars have estimated to have been approximately 150 separate native settlements,
were depopulated and the inhabitants relocated to the six Franciscan missions (i.e., San Luis Obispo,
La Purísima Concepción, Santa Inés, Santa Bárbara, San Buenaventura, and San Fernando) that were
established in Chumash territory. Severe demographic decline caused primarily by introduced
1
European diseases accompanied this resettlement of native populations at the missions. By the end of
the Mission Period, one estimate suggests that Chumash populations had been reduced to
approximately fifteen percent of their estimated levels at the beginning of Spanish colonization
(McLendon and Johnson 1999:vi). Consequently, by the time ethnographers and historians set out to
study the Chumash in the early twentieth century, little was known about the particulars of Chumash
culture, society, and cosmology. Writing in the early twentieth century, Kroeber (1925:55) famously
noted that “there is no group in the State that once held the importance of the Chumash concerning
which we know so little.”
Over the last several decades, however, there has been a major reassessment of this sentiment. It is
now widely acknowledged that, despite this catastrophic decline in Chumash populations, Chumash
culture and society were not completely obliterated at the hands of the Spanish (and later American
settlers). Many Chumash families survived, some gathering in communities near their former mission
grounds or establishing wholly new communities in certain little-traveled areas of the state. Many
supported themselves through agriculture, working on cattle ranches, or through traditional hunting
and gathering activities. Some of these communities relied on what could be remembered of the
political structures and social practices that had been in place during pre-mission times. Indeed,
McLendon and Johnson (1999:vi) note that certain aspects of Chumash ceremonialism survived the
Post-Mission Period and were practiced throughout the 1870s and beyond. Members of other
communities were forced to create new social forms, identities, and relationships that were expedient
to the current circumstances in which they found themselves.
At the same time, the disruptions to Chumash language, culture, and society that resulted from
contact with Euro-American civilization were real and varied, and much information concerning precontact Chumash culture was lost. However, with the pioneering ethnographic work of several
dedicated scholars, especially the indefatigable John Peabody Harrington, much has been learned
about the particulars of Chumash society and culture. Several lines of evidence have been used by
ethnographers, scholars, and the Chumash themselves to reconstruct Chumash culture. Historic
documents, informant interviews, ethnographic sources, archaeological investigations, linguistic
studies, and biological anthropology, among others, have all been used to create a fuller portrait of the
1
High infant mortality was the chief factor involved in this population decline. According to
McLendon and Johnson 1999:vi) nearly two-thirds of all children born at the missions died within the first five
years of life.
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Chumash than could have been conceived a century ago. While there remains a great deal more to be
learned, Kroeber’s pessimistic assertion can no longer be applied to the area of Chumash studies.
History of Ethnographic Research
The earliest documented descriptions of Chumash society come from the journals, diaries, and reports
of Spanish and European explorers, missionaries, civil authorities, and travelers. Juan Rodríguez
Cabrillo, who sailed up from Baja California in 1542, encountered numerous Chumash villages along
the Santa Barbara Channel region, and recorded a number of names for various aboriginal villages
and locales (e.g., Xucu [Rincon], Alloc [Goleta], and Limu [Santa Cruz Island], among others)
(Kroeber 1925:553). He also provided possibly the first description of the Chumash, noting that “they
were dressed in skins and wore their hair very long and tied up with long strings interwoven with the
hair, there being attached to the strings many gewgaws of flint, bone and wood” (quoted in Grant
1978:509). In the following years, a number of Spanish voyagers visited the region, including Pedro
de Unamuno in 1587 and Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeño in 1595 (Erlandson and Bartoy 1995;
Landberg 1965; Wagner 1929). Both provided brief accounts of the indigenous inhabitants of the
region. Significantly, Unamuno provided a description of a Chumash village in the Morro Bay region
of central California. Cermeño reportedly sailed into San Luis Obispo Bay and briefly visited San
Miguel and Santa Rosa islands (Landberg 1965:12). In 1602, Spanish navigator Sebastián Vizcaíno
was sent to Alta California by the Viceroy in Mexico City to map the coastline and search for suitable
harbors for Spanish galleons that had just crossed the Pacific from Manila in the Philippines (Mathes
1968). One of the voyage’s chroniclers, Father António de la Ascensión, wrote a lengthy account of
the voyage, and described various aspects of Chumash society, from plank canoes and houses to
chiefs and religious practices (Gamble 2008:40; Landberg 1965:12).
A series of overland expeditions during the latter half of the eighteenth century traversed Chumash
territory. The first of these was led by Gaspar de Portolá in 1769. He traveled north from San Diego
with nearly 70 men, eventually reaching San Francisco Bay near the end of the year. Included on the
expedition were Captain Pedro Fages, Miguel Costansó, the chief engineer, and Father Juan Crespi,
who was vouchsafed the task of officially documenting the journey (Bolton 1927). All three men kept
journals of the expedition. Fages, in fact, obtained a vocabulary of some 70 words of the Obispeño
dialect, a document which continues to play a role in Chumash language research (Klar et al.
1999:24). Costansó also furnished a detailed description of the expedition, and recorded numerous
encounters with native Californians. Near what is today the Ventura/Santa Barbara County line,
Costansó (Browning 1992:33) recorded a very large Chumash village.
We reached the coast and came in sight of a real town – situated on a tongue or point of land, right on
the shore, which it was dominating, and it seemed to command the waters. We counted as many as
thirty large and capacious houses, spherical in form, well built, and thatched with grass. We judged
from the large number of people that came out to meet us, and afterwards flocked to the camp, that
there could not be less than four hundred souls in the town.
Costansó (Browning 1992:33) went on to describe the inhabitants of the village, and some of their
special skills and aptitudes.
These natives are well built and of a good disposition, very agile and alert, diligent and skillful. Their
handiness and ability were at their best in the construction of their canoes, made of good pine boards,
well joined and caulked, and of a pleasing form. They handle these with equal skill, and three or four
men go out to sea in them to fish, while they will hold eight or ten men. They use long double-bladed
paddles and row with indescribable agility and swiftness. All their work is neat and well finished, but
what is most worthy of surprise is that to work the wood and stone they have no other tools than those
made of flint…
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Juan Bautista de Anza, who later became the governor of the Spanish province of Nuevo Mexico, led
a second land expedition through Alta California in 1775-1776. Like his predecessors, de Anza
passed through the Santa Barbara Channel region on his way to Monterey and San Francisco Bay and
recorded many aspects of Chumash society. In 1792, Spanish naturalist José Longinos Martinéz
traveled to the region on a government-sponsored botanical expedition (Simpson 1961). He wrote a
lengthy journal of the expedition and described various aspects of Chumash society, including village
life, house construction, domestic arrangements, subsistence practices, food preparation, and
commercial enterprises and trade. He also wrote some brief notes on Chumash religion (Simpson
1961). He was particularly impressed by what he believed to be vast differences between the
Chumash and other native Californians.
The plains of New California are inhabited by an infinite number of gentiles, and the mountains even
more so. What is more noteworthy among these natives is that their customs, character, vigor, and
talent should vary so greatly in the single district of the Santa Barbara Channel (quoted in Simpson
1961:51).
Other travelers who spent time in the region were George Vancouver and William Shaler. Vancouver
was a British naval officer who had served under James Cook during the latter’s second and third
Pacific voyages. In 1793, he sailed down the west coast of North America, reaching as far as southern
California and visiting Chumash villages at Point Conception. He also visited Mission San
2
Buenaventura and observed the mission neophytes, commenting on their habits, labors, and customs.
Shaler was an American trader who hailed from Connecticut and visited southern California on the
ship Leila Bird in 1804. The journal of his voyage, Journal of a Voyage between China and the
North-Western Coast of America, Made in 1804, contains some sketches of native life during the
Mission Period in California.
Another source of early information on Chumash peoples comes from mission records, the famous
mission registers and interrogatorios. The mission registers were detailed accounts of native
baptisms, marriages, burials, and other information used to keep track of the mission populations.
These were divided primarily into five major categories (Gamble 2008:42; Johnson 1988:48), each
one focused on a specific topic pertinent to mission life. In addition to being sources of contemporary
information on the lifeways of the mission neophytes, these registers also contain significant sources
of information on pre-Christian lifeways, having recorded such data as kin relationships, village of
origin, and the political status of the individual in native society. The interrogatorios, by contrast,
were a series of questionnaires that each mission was required to supply to Spanish civil authorities.
These were supposed to include not only information concerning the general treatment and condition
of the Indians at the missions, but also the pre-Christianized customs of the Mission Indians – “their
customs and disposition in their native state” (Kroeber 1908). Both of these sources have provided
modern scholars and ethnographers considerable information with which to reconstruct Chumash
populations prior to and during the period of Spanish colonization (Johnson 1988; Gamble 2008). For
example, an early account of Chumash religious beliefs was furnished by Father Ramon Olbés of
Santa Bárbara Mission in one of his interrogatorios (Engelhardt 1923).
However, it is generally considered that Gerónimo Boscana, a Franciscan padre who was stationed at
Mission San Juan Capistrano from 1814 to 1826, produced perhaps the most extensive description of
Mission Indian life, as well as writing a treatise on the Chinigchinich cult that dominated several
southern Californian groups during late and protohistoric times. Although he focused primarily on the
2
Vancouver’s diary is not particularly informative with regard to the region’s aboriginal inhabitants
(Landberg 1965:14), but the expedition’s botanist, Archibald Menzies, provided much detailed data.
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Luiseño and Juaneño speakers, who were the native inhabitants of the region, he nonetheless provides
a laudatory description of the Chumash.
Those [Indians] between Santa Barbara and Monterey differ considerably from these [at Mission San
Juan Capistrano] as regards their habits, being much more industrious, and appear an entirely distinct
race (Boscana 1978:24).
Gamble (2008:48) notes that these historic accounts are informative and significant because they
“provide the earliest glimpse of Chumash life before the impact of colonization drastically changed
the lifeways of the Chumash and other California Indians.” Specifically, they provide invaluable
insight into such indigenous behaviors as subsistence activities, the role chiefs in Chumash society,
and village demographics, among others. At the same time, these accounts are largely descriptive in
nature and uniformly suffer from the inherent ideological biases of the day. As Gamble (2008:41)
writes:
The most significant problems with all of these early documents are the preconceptions of the authors,
the most prevalent of which was a disrespect for indigenous religious and spiritual values and a belief
that the native peoples were intellectually inferior and had limited capabilities. The Spanish, hoping to
save the Indians from damnation, took a paternalistic view toward the Chumash. Most chroniclers were
in California in order to settle the region, and they were preoccupied with their own problems, such as
the native population’s resistance to colonization and the suitability of the landscape for European
settlement and agriculture.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, a number of scholars and nonprofessionals began to
turn their attention to the Chumash. Like the early Spanish chroniclers, many were impressed with
what they considered the “uniqueness” of Chumash culture. Working with surviving Chumash who
could remember mission life or had knowledge of traditional Chumash practices related to them by
elders, these scholars compiled linguistic, historical, and ethnographic data, much of which either
went unpublished or was published in obscure journals. These researchers included Alexander Taylor
(1860-1863), Leon de Cessac (in Heizer 1951), Alphonse Pinart (in Heizer 1952), Oscar Loew (in
Gatschet 1879), Stephen Bowers (1877, 1897), Richard Gould (Yates and Gould 1887), Henry
Henshaw (in Heizer 1955), and Lorenzo Yates (Yates 1887, 1891). Pinart, a French ethnographer and
philologist, wrote several Chumash vocabularies during his visit to California in the 1870s. His
publications, which include sections on Purisimeño, Ynezeño, and some island dialects, were
subsequently acquired by the Bancroft Library, at the University of California, Berkeley.
Henry W. Henshaw, who worked with John Wesley Powell at the Bureau of American Ethnology
(BAE), was particularly scrupulous in his attention to Chumash lifeways. As a member of the United
States Geological Survey, Henshaw, along with other scholars like C. Hart Merriam and Grove Karl
Gilbert, embarked on a series of expeditions to the west coast and California in the 1880s. Although
he was an ornithologist by training, Henshaw nonetheless took a keen interest in the indigenous
inhabitants of the state, and was particularly interested in indigenous languages, Chumash among
them. He wrote several monographs in which he compiled lists of Chumash words that he learned
from Chumash informants (Heizer 1955). Indeed, Henshaw is credited with the first use of the term
“Chumash”, which he reportedly derived from a mainland Chumash word (either Mi-tcú-mac or Tcúmac) that possibly referred to the inhabitants of Santa Rosa Island (Grant 1978; Klar et al. 1999:21;
3
Powell 1891) . The term was subsequently used by Powell in his 1891 monograph “Indian Linguistic
Families of America North of Mexico,” which appeared in the 7th Annual Report of the Bureau of
3
Prior to the use of the term “Chumash”, the indigenous inhabitants of the Santa Barbara Channel
region were simply referred to collectively as the “Santa Barbara Indians” (Latham 1856; Powell 1891).
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American Ethnology for the Years 1885-1886. Henshaw also compiled several monographs on
Chumash material culture (1885, 1887) as well as a translation of Cabrillo’s 1542 voyage along the
coast of California (1879).
Juan Estevan Pico, a Ventureño Chumash who was one of Henshaw’s major and most articulate
informants, produced a Chumash orthography that modern scholars (e.g., Klar et al. 1999:25) have
praised as “amazing, [and] completely accurate.” It contains information on vocabulary, grammar,
and pronunciation. In addition to the orthography, Pico also produced a document presenting
information regarding the location and names of Chumash villages throughout coastal Santa Barbara
and the Channel islands. In all, he listed the names of over 100 Chumash settlements distributed along
this region, though he did not include any towns north of Point Conception (McLendon 1999:14).
With the advent of anthropology as an academic discipline, a number of scholars began to gather data
on California Indians, including Chumashan-speaking peoples. Famous American anthropologist
Alfred Kroeber visited the Chumash region in 1901. He spent most of his time in the Santa Ynez
Valley, where he gathered information on the Ynezeño language from native speakers of the area
(Milliken and Johnson 2003: 42). Most importantly, though, he included a lengthy chapter on the
Chumash in his Handbook of the Indians of California (Kroeber 1925). Noting the esteem with which
the Spanish (e.g., Costansó, Boscana, Crespi, and Longinos) held the Chumash, he went on to
describe, with the limited information available to him at the time, certain aspects of Chumash culture
such as territory, village location, chieftainship, burial practices, dwellings, canoe construction and
handling, and a very brief section on religion. He also wrote extensively about Chumash material
culture, describing various wooden implements, basketry, stone implements, shell artifacts, and shell
beads. In addition to their mention in the Handbook, Kroeber also produced studies on the Chumash
language (1904, 1910) and placename data (1916).
From his base of operations at the University of California, Berkeley’s Anthropology Department,
Kroeber was integral in the early 1900s in sending out a new generation of students and researchers to
study the culture of Native Americans in California. Scholars such as Julian Steward, Edward
Gifford, Duncan Strong, Philip Drucker, Cora Du Bois, and others were part of the Culture Element
Distribution Survey, whose stated aim was to produce a comprehensive survey of Native American
cultures and to record the pre-contact lifeways of these groups for posterity. It was widely believed in
anthropological circles during the first half of the twentieth century that this information had to be
obtained rapidly because the repositories of such indigenous knowledge (i.e., tribal elders) were dying
out. As Lightfoot (2005:32) has commented:
Kroeber recognized the urgency of undertaking his “salvage” program; the ravages of Western
civilization had left no Indian community untouched by the early twentieth century. Rather than
initiate participant observations about the daily lives and cultural practices of people residing in
contemporary native communities, Berkeley ethnographers chose to employ “memory culture”
methodology, designed explicitly to mine information about past native cultures. They conducted
interviews with a few native elders from each tribal group, requesting them to recount memories of
their youth and to recite stories of the old days, stories handed down from their grandparents’ and
parents’ generations. The ethnographers asked about oral traditions concerning historical events,
myths, legends, and religious and political practices. A concerted effort was made to record linguistic
information, through word lists and even sound recordings, that could be used to classify distinctive
languages and dialects.
Edward Gifford, who was interested in the social organization of native Californians, briefly
discussed Chumash social organization in a number of different monographs (1916, 1918, 1926). In
the Santa Barbara Channel region, however, among the first investigators of Chumash culture were
archaeologists rather than ethnographers. These archaeologists (e.g., Rogers [1929]; Woodward
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[1934]; Heizer [1938a, 1941, 1952, 1955]; Orr [1943]; et al.) conducted systematic excavations of the
numerous and highly visible shell middens that occupied large segments of the coastline. They
uncovered a plethora of artifacts and conducted the first regional chronological sequences for the
region. Heizer was particularly tireless in his studies of Chumash culture, compiling monographs on
such diverse topics as plank canoes (1938a, 1940), “spear throwers” (1938b, 1945), fishhooks (1949),
and language (1952).
Without a doubt, however, the most important Chumash scholar was John Peabody Harrington, who,
from 1915 until his retirement, worked for the BAE at the Smithsonian Institution. While Kroeber and
his students were gathering information for the Culture Element Distribution Study, Harrington was
busy at work conducting his own studies. A reclusive and secretive scholar, Harrington spent nearly
forty years studying native Californians, including the Chumash with whom he felt a particularly
close affinity. In fact, the Chumash were studied more thoroughly by Harrington than any other native
Californian group (Mills and Brickfield 1986:1). Although Harrington had expressed interest in
Chumash culture as early as 1902 (during his academic studies with Kroeber), his formal Chumash
studies did not begin until 1912 (Hudson et al. 1977), three years before he was officially hired by the
BAE to conduct ethnographic research. He reportedly continued his Chumash studies for over a
decade, though, over the course of his life, he frequently returned to the Chumash material to edit,
update, and compile. According to Johnson (1988:8), Harrington amassed over 200,000 pages of field
notes on the Chumash. He studied literally every aspect of Chumash culture and society, from
material culture, economics, and social organization to political structure, language, and religion. He
also amassed voluminous notes on Chumash myth and folklore. The majority of Harrington’s
information was gleaned from intensive interviews with living Chumash informants, most of whom
were elderly individuals still fluent in the Chumashan languages. He reportedly relied on nine
principal Chumash informants (Johnson 1988:8), though the number of total informants he
interviewed was approximately twenty-five people. However, arguably his most important informants
were Fernando Librado, an elderly Ventureño man, and María Solares, an Ynezeño woman.
Many scholars agree that Fernando Librado Kitsepawit was Harrington’s most knowledgeable
informant (Blackburn 1975; Hudson et al. 1977). Both the place and time of Fernando Librado’s birth
have been subjects of minor controversy. Scholars such as Blackburn (1975) and Hudson et al. (1977)
place his birth in 1804 or 1805, and claim that he was born on Santa Cruz Island. By contrast,
Johnson and McLendon (1999:37) and Johnson (1982:135) claim that he was born at Mission San
Buenaventura in 1839. This latter date and place were arrived at through an investigation of mission
records. Johnson (1982), Blackburn (1975), Hudson (1979), and Hudson et al. (1977) have provided
brief biographical sketches of Fernando Librado. According to Mission San Buenaventura registers,
his parents were born on Santa Cruz Island but were both brought to the mainland for baptism at
Mission San Buenaventura. Fernando came to manhood after secularization and spent the latter part
of his life living on ranches in Lompoc and Las Cruces, both in Santa Barbara County. His primary
language was Ventureño but he was also fluent in Cruzeño and Ynezeño, and apparently somewhat
conversant with Purisimeño. He died of apparent heart failure in 1915 (Johnson 1982:133).
Harrington first met Fernando Librado in 1912 and, quickly realizing that the man was a wealth of
information on vanished Chumash culture, spent the next several years (until Fernando Librado’s
death) mining as much information as he could. Fernando was particularly well-versed in such topics
as aboriginal political organization, plank-canoe construction, and ritual, but he was also
knowledgeable in Chumash stories and myths. In the introduction to his book, The Eye of the Flute,
Hudson et al. (1977:3) write of Fernando Librado:
[He] proved to be the proverbial mine of information, capable of drawing rich and detailed vignettes of
people, places, and events encountered during more than a century of robust living. Songs and
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ceremonies, padres and shamans, Indians and whites – it was all there, dredged up from memory and
laboriously recorded in Harrington’s sprawling handwriting on page after page of cheap paper.
According to Johnson (1982:135-136), the date of Fernando Librado’s birth [1839] places him in the
“third generation” of Chumash to come of age after the initial Spanish colonization of Alta California.
During his life, he witnessed the further disintegration of Chumash society and culture as Mexican
gave way to American hegemony. Consequently, his knowledge of pre-contact Chumash society was
not firsthand but based on information told to him by others. According to Haley and Wilcoxon
(1997:774[footnote]; information received from John Johnson, 1994), Fernando Librado apparently
received much of his information about traditional Chumash society and culture from his grandfather,
a man named Raymundo T’umu, and an older ranch hand named Silverio Qonoyo.
María Solares was Harrington’s primary Ynezeño informant. She was born at Mission Santa Inés
4
sometime in the early 1840s (possibly 1842). Her father was Chumash and her mother Yokuts. She
5
spent most of her life in the Santa Ynez Valley and died in 1922 (Blackburn 1975:18) . Her father’s
family was reportedly from the village of Calahuasa (also spelled Kalawashaq), a large village
located in the vicinity of Calabazal Creek on the south bank of the Santa Ynez River (Johnson
1988:96), and southeast of the modern town of Santa Ynez. María’s paternal grandfather was
apparently involved in the 1824 mission revolt, and may have been an ‘antap. Maria was married to
Manuel Solares, the son of Rafael Solares. Rafael Solares had worked with Leon de Cessac, while the
latter conducted archaeological and ethnographic investigation of the Santa Barbara channel region in
the 1870s for the French government. A number of photographs taken by de Cessac in the late 1870s
6
depict Rafael in the regalia of an ‘antap. According to Father Zephyrin Engelhardt (1932:27), who
wrote a history of the Franciscan missions in California, Rafael Solares also served as the alcalde of
Mission Santa Inés, and later as the first leader of the Santa Inés Reservation tribal council.
Harrington encountered María in 1914 and worked with her for several years, apparently until her
death. She was particularly knowledgeable on the subject of mythology (Blackburn 1975:19), and
provided Harrington with a wealth of data pertaining to Chumash stories and legends. Equally
impressive was her knowledge of the Ineseño language, which she spoke fluently. She also spoke
Spanish and had a solid grounding in several other Chumash dialects, such as Barbareño and
Purisimeño (Applegate 1974:188). Like Fernando, however, María Solares’s information regarding
pre-contact Chumash lifeways and mythology, given the date of her birth, would necessarily have
been based on information provided to her by older friends and relatives. There has also been some
speculation that some of her stories may have had a Yokuts origin, having been relayed to her by her
mother and maternal kin (Haley and Wilcoxon 1997:770). Equally, given Maria’s upbringing in the
Franciscan mission of Santa Ynez, it is possible that some of her stories may have been influenced by
Christian elements and themes. By the same token, Applegate (1975:190-191) has written:
Harrington recorded many of the narrative texts in 1914 from Maria Solares of Santa Ynez, then quite
advanced in years. She first heard these stories in childhood, perhaps around 1840 or so, when there
were still a few “old Indians” around who had actually participated in aboriginal culture before the
founding of the mission. Considering how closely the speech patterns revealed in these texts agree with
what little is known of neighboring tribes, and how distinct the Chumash patters are from the
European, the possibility of acculturation in these texts seems quite low.
4
5
6
According to Blackburn (1975:19), however, Maria’s mother, Brigida, was half Yokuts.
Gelles (2013:114) places María’s death in 1923.
Many of these photographs are currently housed at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, France.
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Unfortunately, Harrington published very little of the data generated during his more than forty years
working as an ethnographer. After his death, his Native American collection, which by one estimate
(Hudson et al. 1977:2) numbered approximately 400 archive boxes, contained a disorganized and
scattered collection of notes, documents, lists, transcripts, and other bits of information, much of
which was written on cheap paper, but also transcribed on things such as napkins, paper plates, and,
reportedly, even bottles. His only published monographs on the Chumash include a 1911 article in the
American Anthropologist, which focuses on Chumashan placenames of San Luis Obispo, the 1942
publication Culture Element Distributions, XIX: Central California Coast, which was published by
the University of California, Berkeley, and his write-up of the Burton Mound excavation (1928) for
7
the BAE. According to Blackburn (1975:7), Harrington’s 1942 monograph was written at the
request of Kroeber, and contained a brief checklist of Chumash material items.
In the years immediately following Harrington’s death in 1961, the 400 boxes of Harrington’s
ethnographic material were transferred to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Anthropological
Archives. Later, some of this material, especially the California-based field notes, was loaned to the
University of California, Berkeley’s Linguistic Department, and placed under the supervision of
8
Professor Mary Haas. Here, especially, the material was “rediscovered” by a new generation of
scholars, many of whom immediately recognized its significance (Hudson and Blackburn 1982-1987;
Mills and Brickfield 1986:III/xi). This led to an efflorescence of interest in Chumash studies, and set
the stage, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, for a flurry of publications focusing on Chumash culture.
One of the first researchers to use Harrington’s Chumash material was Stephen Craig, who produced
two monographs on Chumash basketry (Craig 1966, 1967). Linda King (1969) subsequently used
Harrington’s material to interpret a Late Holocene Chumash mortuary assemblage at the Medea
Creek site in the Santa Monica Mountains. Noting differences in the grave constituents of some
individuals, especially children, she argued that the assemblage represented a society organized
9
hierarchically, with elites and commoners. Chester King, who wrote numerous monographs and
scholarly papers on Chumash culture, as well as his 1981 dissertation, was similarly impressed with
Harrington’s material and made use of it to interpret aspects of Chumash social and political life.
Two scholars who made particularly extensive use of Harrington’s material in the 1970s and 1980s
were Thomas Blackburn and Dee Travis Hudson, both of whom worked at the Santa Barbara
Museum of Natural History. Unlike the majority of previous researchers, these scholars began to
focus their energies on the non-material aspects of Chumash culture, such as ideology and religion.
Blackburn produced a book of Chumash myths, stories, and legends called December’s Child: A
Book of Chumash Oral Narratives (1975), which gathered together many of the stories that several
informants related to Harrington (but which had remained unpublished). Most of these stories were
told to Harrington by Fernando Librado or María Solares. Hudson edited a book (along with
Blackburn, Rosario Curletti and Janice Timbrook) that compiled a number of the conversations
between Harrington and Fernando Librado. Called The Eye of the Flute, it was published in 1977 and
contains cosmological, ritual, and religious observations primarily of the Ventureño Chumash.
7
David Banks Rogers, who was also involved in the excavation, wrote an additional and separate
account of the excavation.
8
Since 1986, most of Harrington’s extensive Chumash field notes have been transferred to 35mm
microfilm and are available to researchers at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Anthropological Archives
and various local repositories in California.
9
Patricia Martz (1984) revisited the site (as well as several other sites) and made very similar
observations regarding status distinctions in Chumash society. She demonstrated that, during the ethnohistoric,
the Chumash were organized on an incipient Chiefdom level of social organization.
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Together, Blackburn and Hudson (1982-1987) also produced a voluminous, five-volume
compendium of Chumash material culture, which focused on several different aspects of Chumash
lifeways, including food procurement, shelter, clothing, trade, and ceremonial paraphernalia, among
others. Hudson et al. (1978) also published a monograph on Chumash canoe building. He also wrote
an historical account of the Chumash revolt of 1824 (1976), as well as treatises on astronomy (1984)
and utilitarian objects (1977). Hudson and Underhay’s (1978) book on Chumash cosmology and
religion, Crystals in the Sky, remains one of the most comprehensive treatises to date on the more
esoteric aspects of Chumash religion and ideology.
Another scholar who made ample use of Harrington’s material to compile ethnographic and linguistic
information on the Chumash was Richard Applegate, a native language specialist who received his
Ph.D. from the Linguistics Department at U.C. Berkeley. His dissertation, “Ineseño Chumash
Grammar” (1972), used Harrington’s vast linguistic notes to reconstruct the Samala language. He also
produced the only dictionary of its kind on the Samala language. In a series of academic papers, he
also investigated the Datura cult (1975a) and Chumash placenames (1974, 1975b), many of which he
attempted, based on available ethnographic, archaeological, historical, and other information, to
locate on the landscape. In his 1974 paper, for example, he was able to locate a number of different
placenames in the Chumash region, and delve into the etymological origins of many of these
placenames. Etymologically, he discovered that placenames may be based on geographical features
(such as local flora and fauna or unusual features on the landscape), associated with activities within
historical memory, or refer to incidents from Chumash legend and mythology (1974:190). Since
2003, Applegate has also begun teaching interactive Samala language classes at the Santa Ynez
Cultural Center, an impressive program that has done much to revitalize not only interest in the
language but also interest in Chumash culture.
Easier access to the Harrington archives since 1986 has stimulated a number of publications focusing
on Chumash society and culture. John Johnson, of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, has
made particularly extensive use of these notes (as well as mission registers), and produced a number
of publications (1982, 1986, 1988, 1990, 2001, 2007, et al.). Especially notable is his 1988
10
dissertation on Chumash social organization . Other notable publications, which have used
Harrington’s material in one way or another, include Timbrook’s (1990, 2007) studies of
ethnobotany, Hollimon’s (1990, 1997) investigation of Chumash gender dynamics, McLendon and
Johnson’s (1999) study of kinship and geneaology, and Klar’s (2000) treatise on Chumash language.
Currently, the Harrington archives, officially called The Papers of John Peabody Harrington in the
Smithsonian Institution, 1907-1957, are housed at the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological
Archives (N.A.A.) in Washington, D.C. The Chumash field notes, like all of Harrington’s field notes,
are organized into “Reels,” which in turn are arranged into numbered “Frames”. These frames contain
Harrington’s written field notes and are consecutively numbered. There are a total of 96 separate
Chumash Reels, divided into the different Chumash languages (e.g., Ineseño, Ventureño, Barbareño,
etc.). The Ineseño material is contained on 12 Reels, and the pages number over 9,000.
The Chumash: Territory, Demography, and Language
At the time of the first European contact in the late sixteenth century, the San Luis Obispo, Santa
Barbara, and Ventura regions (as well as the northern Channel Islands) were home to the Chumashanspeaking peoples, considered one of the most complex hunter-gatherer societies on earth (Arnold
10
Johnson’s data revealed that, contrary to previous researchers, the Chumash were organized into
matrilineal clans who practiced matrilocal postmarital residence.
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1992; Brown 1967; Colten 1993; Gamble 2008; Johnson 1988; King 1990; Kroeber 1925; Landberg
1965; Price and Brown 1985; et al.). They had economic and socio-political systems unusually
complex relative to most ethnographically known hunter-gatherers. With populations living in settled
villages, the Chumash reportedly had pronounced status differentiation and were organized into
several simple chiefdoms, each one occupying a geographically defined area. These chiefdoms were
united by a common culture and language, but were only loosely united politically, their alliances
constantly shifting. Kroeber (1925:550) reports that the “Spanish were disposed to regard the
Chumash as superior to the other tribes of California.”
Kroeber (1925:551) placed the entire Chumash population at between 8,000 and 10,000 people. Later
ethnohistorians considered Kroeber’s assessment too low, and argued for higher numbers. Cook and
Heizer (1965:21), for example, estimated that the 1770 population of the mainland Channel area was
between 18,000 and 22,000. Brown (1967), meanwhile, estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000
Chumash occupied the Santa Barbara Channel region at the time of European contact. Whatever the
exact figure, the Chumash were certainly among the most numerous of any native group in
ethnohistoric California (Johnson and McLendon 1999:29).
Chumash territory encompassed the coastal stretches and inland valleys of what are now Ventura,
Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties, as well as parts of Los Angeles County. They also
occupied the northern Channel Islands (i.e., Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel).
Several prominent villages were distributed throughout this region, including Humaliwo (Malibu),
Shisholop (Ventura), Syukhtun (Santa Barbara), Mishopshnow (Carpinteria), and Nipumu (Nipomo).
This territory, of course, was not necessarily conceived of by the Chumashan-speaking inhabitants of
the region as an area with clearly demarcated boundaries, nor apparently, did the Chumash think of
themselves in regional terms as a unified nation possessing a single, homogeneous political, cultural,
and linguistic identity (Johnson and McLendon 1999:29; Klar et al. 1999). It is much more likely, as
with many native Californian groups, that identity was derived from affiliation with family and,
especially, village. As Kroeber (1925:832) noted:
Political conditions in southern California are obscure, but are likely to have been generally similar to
those of north central California. Among the Chumash, towns of some size were inhabited century
after century, and these undoubtedly were the centers if not the bases of political groups.
Johnson and McLendon (1999:29) express a similar sentiment.
…the peoples who today are called the Chumash Indians were not organized as a unified nation
throughout their original territory. The basic political unit was a named town which was in some cases
organized with other such towns into federations. These towns were permanent and there is evidence
of their persistence over centuries. The people who inhabited these towns had no single name for
themselves.
Underscoring the importance of place as a signifier of identity in Chumash culture, Applegate
(1974:191) has pointed out a particular practice common to the Chumash languages, viz., of
designating groups of people after places, rather than naming places after people (e.g., England,
‘Land of the Angles’). This was frequently done by using village names. For example, the inhabitants
of the village of Muwu, a location in present day Point Mugu, were called ‘atap-muwu, or literally
‘people of muwu’ in the Ventureño language. He notes that:
In fact, the names for various peoples can nearly always be translated as ‘inhabitant of’ plus some
village name….Locally, these terms refer very specifically to the inhabitants of a particular village,
rather than to a larger tribal identity (Applegate 1974:191).
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For many years, the Chumash language was considered part of the larger Hokan family of languages
(Dixon and Kroeber 1913, 1919; Haas 1964; Sapir 1920, 1925), but recent research (e.g., Campbell
1997; Golla 2007; Klar and Jones 2005; Mithun 1999) suggests that Chumash may not in fact be
related to Hokan. This research suggests that Chumashan, as it is currently designated, is an isolate
not related to any other aboriginal California tongue. Different Chumash communities spoke different
dialects. It is on the basis of these dialects, in addition to geographical considerations, that the
Chumash were originally divided by ethnographers (e.g., Grant 1978; Kroeber 1925) into six main
linguistic groups: Ventureño, Barbareño, Ynezeño, Purisimeño, Obispeño, and the island dialects
(such as Cruzeño). The Ventureño and Barbareño occupied the narrow coastal plain from Point
Conception to Punta Gorda in Ventura, with the former situated near present day Santa Barbara and
the latter near Ventura. The Ynezeño occupied the middle and upper drainages of the Santa Ynez
River, whereas the Purisimeño and Obispeño occupied the coastal zone on the north and west of Point
Conception. Chumash also occupied the three largest of the four northern Channel Islands (i.e., San
Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz).
In a more recent appraisal of the Chumashan language family, Klar et al. (1999) and Klar and Jones
(2005) posit a total of three major branches of the Chumash language: Northern Chumash, Island
Chumash, and Central Chumash. Each of these had one of more associated dialects. For example, the
Northern Chumash had at least two dialects, whereas the Central Chumash had possibly four major
dialects and several associated subdialects. The Island Chumash, on the other hand, had a single
dialect but an unspecified number of subdialect divisions. Central and Island Chumash were relatively
closely related (to the extent that they could be grouped into a single category, Southern Chumash),
while Northern Chumash was widely divergent, and “profoundly different from its southern sisters”
(Klar and Jones 2005:371).
Regarding the antiquity of the language (and its various dialects), Klar and Jones (2005:371-72) make
the following statement.
Chumashan is an old family, but since written records are lacking for any of its dialects prior to the
eighteenth century, no absolute dating is possible for the family. The clear divisions, especially
between Northern Chumash and Southern Chumash, and the subsequent divergence of Southern
Chumash into Central and Island divisions, suggest a sufficient time depth for three “daughter” groups
to diverge widely and for the Central dialects to show an internal family relationship pattern of their
own. A minimum (conservative) time depth of fifteen hundred to two thousand years for the Central
group is not unlikely; the split between Northern and other Chumashan groups likely happened mush
earlier. There is some internal evidence for a “pre-Proto-Chumash” stage, but how much more time
depth this adds is unknown.
Interestingly, recent genetic research has provided an additional line of evidence for a possible very
early presence of the Chumash in the region. Using mitochondrial DNA, Johnson and Lorenz (2006)
have argued that the Chumash may have been among some of the earliest migrants to the New World.
Ynezeño Chumash
The Chumash occupying the Santa Ynez Valley are known as the Samala or Ynezeño (the spelling
Ineseño is also used), this latter designation being derived from the name of the nearest Spanish
Mission, Santa Ynez, which was founded in 1804. The community now refers to itself as the Santa
Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, or more familiarly the Samala Chumash. The Ynezeño Chumash
represent one of the interior divisions of the larger Chumash cultural family, and spoke a Chumash
dialect that was apparently most closely related to Barbareño (Kroeber 1925:552). While specific
tribal boundaries have been notoriously difficult to decipher, the traditional geographic territory of the
Ynezeño has long been thought to have centered along the Santa Ynez River and its tributaries (Grant
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1978; Kroeber 1925), an area encompassing approximately 50 miles from east to west and perhaps 20
miles north to south. The Santa Ynez River is a 75-mile long river that runs east to west, originating
on the northern slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains north of Carpinteria. It empties into the Pacific
Ocean just west of Lompoc, at the unincorporated community of Surf, north of what is now
Vandenberg Air Force Base.
Estimates of Ynezeño population are much lower than those of the coastal Chumash groups, such as
the Barbareño and Ventureño. Padre Esteván Tapís, who accompanied Captain Felipe de
Goyocoechea on an expedition to found a mission in Ynezeño territory, noted in two letters (1798,
11
1804) no less than 14 Indian rancherias within several miles of the eventual site of Mission Santa
Inés (Johnson 1988:101). Tapís estimated the population of each rancheria by counting the total
number of houses and assuming that each house could hold four people. Using this method he
estimated a population of approximately 1200 inhabitants of the Santa Ynez Valley. Johnson (1988)
conducted his own study of Santa Ynez Valley populations and village sites using several different
sources, including the letters of Tapís, Harrington’s notes, and archaeological evidence. His data are
generally in accord with Tapís, though Johnson (1988:98) counts a total of 15 Ineseño villages within
12
the Santa Ynez watershed.
Mission Santa Inés was founded on September 17, 1804, by Padre Esteván Tapís. Its location, in the
modern town of Solvang, California, was chosen because it was halfway between Mission La
Purísima Concepción and Mission Santa Bárbara. The mission site was located just north of the Santa
Ynez River near three Ineseño villages, Alaxulapu, Kalawashaq, and Anaxuwi. The largest of these,
Kalawashaq, reportedly had thirty houses (Haas 2014:21). The spot was ideal in many respects; it
was well-watered, contained ample pastureland for livestock, and good soils for growing wheat and
barley. Like many California missions, Santa Ynez boasted a large herd of cattle and sheep, and an
elaborate irrigation system. In 1819, a water-powered grist mill was constructed in an effort to
increase agricultural production.
The native population at Mission Santa Inés experienced periods of “boom and bust,” as the mission
padres brought in new converts only to witness many of their deaths as devastating epidemics reduced
overall numbers. In the first four months after its founding, 112 people from the surrounding region
were baptized (Haas 2014:23). Many of these came from the most prominent Ineseño villages,
including Kalawashaq, Tepepsh, Zonxon’ata, Soxtonokmu’, and ‘Aqitsu’mu (Johnson 1988:96). And
in the following years, a number of Chumash neophytes, many of whom had been born in the Santa
Ynez Valley but were living either at Mission Santa Bárbara or Mission La Purísima, returned to live
at Mission Santa Inés, further swelling population numbers. In 1806, however, a measles epidemic
swept through the mission, killing scores of neophytes. Chumash from Santa Rosa Island were
brought in to bolster population numbers in 1815. According to mission records, in 1816 the
neophytes lived in eighty tile-roofed adobe structures in a village near the mission and, at the height
of their population, numbered over 700 individuals (Haas 2014:24). Unfortunately, another epidemic
swept through the neophyte population between 1816 and 1818, killing off scores of neophytes (Haas
2014:24). The neophyte village nonetheless persisted until 1855, when it was apparently forcibly
abandoned. Many of the inhabitants of this village resettled at Zanja de Cota, a location a few miles
east of Mission Santa Inés (and the present location of the headquarters for the Santa Ynez Band of
Chumash Indians).
11
The Franciscan missionaries used the term “rancheria” to designate a village, multi-village territory,
or the inhabitants who occupied such.
12
Johnson (1988:95-99) indicates that there were a total of 22 Chumash villages located within the
Santa Ynez Valley, although at least seven of these were likely occupied by Purisimeño speakers.
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The years between the abandonment of Mission Santa Inés and the early years of the twentieth
century were difficult, even perilous for the population that had survived the Colonial era. The
seminal event that perhaps more than any other marks the break between absolute mission and
Mexican rule is the Chumash Revolt of 1824. Gelles cites the growing dissatisfaction among the
indigenous populations at the missions as an underlying cause of the revolt.
One instance is the Chumash revolt of 1824, which began at Mission Santa Ynez. The reasons for the
revolt are disputed--one version is that there was a rumor that the Spaniards were going to massacre
the Indians, while another is that a Chumash man visiting from another mission was flogged--but it is
clear that the mistreatment and coercion of the Chumash had gotten much worse a few years before the
revolt. Whatever the reason, the revolt spread to Mission La Purísima and Mission Santa Bárbara.
After a pitched battle in Santa Barbara between some three hundred Chumash men and the Spanish
military stationed at the Presidio, the Chumash fighters joined their women and children who had fled
inland to the San Joaquin Valley, along with fugitives from the other two missions (Gelles 2013:21).
The revolt coincided with a general movement toward emancipation of the indigenous population
from the status of a fully subjugated people or neophytes to one of citizenship under Mexican law.
The demand for emancipation grew in the late 1820s and early 1830s as Indians exercised their right
to petition for freedom, although the process was slow and the results uneven (Haas 2014:140-149).
The consensus of the Indians seeking freedom appears to have been, first, the right to freely return to
native territories or in the least claim some lands under the control of the missions. The Emancipation
and Secularization decree of 1834 set in motion the end of the mission control of lands formerly
owned and managed by the missions but the actual freedom sought by the former neophytes was
limited. Haas notes that:
The decree ended the condition of neófia [neophyte] but restricted the freedom of those emancipated
by placing controls over their labor, ease of movement, and community life at the missions. Curtailing
liberties further, the law called for a non-Indian administrator to oversee the missions, in contrast to
earlier plans that called for elected Indigenous leaders to take charge of the Indian pueblos and
secularized missions. The “public good” that the labor of former neophytes supported included
producing enough to provide for the salary of mission administrators and other salaried supervisors
(Haas 2014: 158).
Thus, while the population was freed from the near absolute control of the mission system, the
Indians’ daily lives remained subject to the strictures of the Mexican governments and local
administrators. Further, the long-sought share of the lands that became available after the
secularization of the missions eluded them, going instead to non-Indian petitioners in the form of land
grants. The Indians remained a subjugated people, with limited agency or the rights that would afford
them some degree of self-determination.
The advent of the American period and California statehood in 1850 provided little change. The
families that had returned to the Santa Ynez Valley after the revolt of 1824 and had eventually been
forced to abandon the neophyte village at the mission in 1855 found refuge and work at the large
ranches that were created from the Mexican land grants. As during mission times, the Indian
community remained at the bottom of the social and economic strata in the Santa Ynez Valley, and it
was not until 1901 that the community of families, five or six, from the village at the mission were
granted recognition and a small 127 acre reservation. Gelles (2013:42) notes that the reservation
population remained small well into the 1960s, but was a gathering place for family members and
others living elsewhere. The Reservation remained an impoverished pocket in the Valley throughout
this period until the federal government began to build subsidized housing, and the community was
supplied with potable water and electricity (Gelles 2013: 52). Families began to move or return to the
reservation at this time and the economic fortunes of the Tribe began to improve markedly with the
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advent of first high-stakes bingo in the 1980s and later full-scale gaming at a flourishing casino-resort
on the Reservation. The Tribe presently has around 150 fully recognized members, and has assumed a
significant role in local social and economic activity, as well as a leading role in statewide Native
American policy and development.
Religious Beliefs and Practices
In the early part of the twentieth century, Kroeber noted, in his Handbook of the Indians of
California, that the status of knowledge concerning Chumash religion was virtually non-existent,
writing, “It must be plainly stated, in fact, that our ignorance is almost complete on Chumash religion,
on the side of ceremony as well as belief and tradition” (Kroeber 1925:567). Like so many aspects of
Chumash culture, Spanish missionization had done much to obliterate any vestige of pre-colonial
ideologies, religious beliefs prominent among them. In fact, the Spanish padres had been especially
active and relentless in their attempts to eradicate native Californian beliefs, viewing such beliefs as
impediments to inculcating a Spanish and Christian worldview in their native charges (Hudson and
Underhay 1978:20). Expression of native beliefs and esoteric knowledge frequently resulted in, at the
least, public ridicule and, at the most, harsh physical punishment. As a result, while the Chumash
13
religion continued to be practiced throughout the nineteenth century , it was usually done
clandestinely and without fanfare, and apparently, away from the Spanish padres.
Fortunately for later ethnographers, elements of traditional Chumash religious beliefs and practices
survived the Mission Period despite attempts by the Spanish to eradicate them. As Hudson and
Underhay (1978:24) point out:
…many of the old beliefs and practices survived the Mission Period, continuing on into the late 1870s
(when the last ceremony was publicly performed). These practices had essentially died out by the turn
of the century in conjunction with the passing of the last ‘antap practitioner, surviving only in the form
of memories held by the last few Chumash who witnessed them. These survivors were to pass on
fragmentary and cryptic references to Harrington regarding astronomy, beliefs, and rituals, as well as
many other topics which went unrecorded in the Spanish documents of the time.
Harrington played a pivotal role in this rediscovery, though his role was somewhat indirect (Hudson
and Underhay 1978:24-25). He never synthesized the data into a cohesive document nor attempted an
analysis or interpretation of Chumash religious life. Nonetheless, the data he did collect, as scattered
and fragmentary as these were, proved invaluable to later researchers and ethnographers who were
interested in the subject (e.g., Applegate 1977, 1978; Blackburn 1975, 1976; Hudson and Underhay
1978; Hudson et al. 1977; Lee 1977). Indeed, the Harrington material provided the main source of
information that later ethnographers used to understand and reconstruct Chumash religious life.
According to Harrington’s Ynezeño informant María Solares, the Chumash universe was divided into
three separate but nonetheless inextricably linked worlds (Blackburn 1975; Hudson and Underhay
1978). These were arranged one above the other. Each was flat and circular and “floating” in a
timeless, formless abyss. The upper world, called ‘Alapay or ‘Alapayashup, was occupied by a
variety of anthropomorphized celestial objects, or “sky people,” which included Sun, Moon, Morning
Star, and the planets and stars. Each of these was an important, powerful deity; Sun was especially
prominent in this pantheon, and may have been considered the supreme supernatural being.
13
According to Hudson and Underhay (1978:24), the last public Chumash religious ceremony was
performed in the 1870s.
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Without doubt the sun had great mythological, cosmic, and ritual significance for the Chumash,
particularly in view of their conception of a universe in which Sun was a powerful supernatural being
capable of giving life, warmth, and light, or of bringing death (Hudson and Underhay 1978:61).
Sun was perceived of as male and, among the Ventureño Chumash at least, was called Kakunupmawa
(Hudson and Underhay 1978:51). The upper realm was also occupied by supernatural beings who
figured prominently in Chumash myths and legends, including a giant eagle (Golden Eagle), whose
wing beats caused the movement of numerous celestial objects, and Sky Coyote. The middle world,
called ‘Itiashup, was occupied by human beings and contained all the physical and material wants a
living population required. It was reportedly supported by two immense serpents, who through their
bodily movements caused earthquakes. The middle world was personified by Sup, the earth goddess,
14
a deity that was originally interpreted as the sole Chumash deity. In the remote past, the middle
world was also the home of the “First People” who were the precursors of the Chumash. Unlike the
Chumash, however, these First People combined both human and animal traits; in fact, when the
Chumash arrived in the middle world, the First People had been transformed into the plants and
animals that occupied the middle world. Finally, C’oyinashup, the lower world was occupied by
another set of supernatural beings called Nunashish, who, unlike the sky people, were considered
wholly malevolent.
It is tempting to ask to what degree this conception of the Chumash universe was influenced by
Christian themes, especially the tripartite division of a Heaven, Earth, and Hell. As noted, María
Solares was born at Mission Santa Inés and presumably, under the tutelage of the padres, was brought
up with a good understanding of Christian theology. At the same time, a number of María’s relatives
were well-versed in Chumash traditional lore. Her father-in-law, for example, a man named Rafael
Solares, was reputed to be an ‘antap (Blackburn 1975:19), a member of the elite religious cult that
dominated Chumash society. He may have imparted to her his knowledge of traditional Chumash
cosmology. María was undoubtedly also influenced by her uncle, a man named Ignacio Talinawit,
who was equally knowledgeable about Chumash religious matters (Haley and Wilcoxon 1999:221;
Richard Applegate, personal communication, 3/28/2014). It is thus possible that María Solares’s
conception of the Chumash universe may have been a blend of traditional Chumash belief, as told to
her by Rafael and Ignacio, and Christianity, as taught to her by the padres of Mission Santa Inés.
Distributed throughout the Chumash universe was an impersonal, supernatural power. Indeed, like
many indigenous groups worldwide, the Chumash, from what can be gleaned from the ethnographic
and historical sources, were animatists; they believed that the physical world was suffused with an
overarching supernatural power, or force, that resided in all things and could be manipulated by
certain skilled practitioners for positive or negative purposes. The most skilled manipulators of this
power in Chumash society were members of the ‘antap cult. This was a religious cult whose members
were the predominant repositories of Chumash religious lore, esoteric knowledge, and ceremonial
15
practices. They were responsible for organizing religious ceremonies, among other duties. During
14
Father Olbés of the Santa Barbara Mission, in one of his interrogatorios of 1813, not only believed
that Sup was the sole Chumash deity but that he was male. This goddess was worshipped as Achup or Chupu by
the Purisimeño Chumash.
15
There is some speculation that the ‘antap cult was a relatively recent development in Chumash
society. Hudson et al. (1977:4, 11) consider its antiquity as extending back no earlier than the sixteenth century.
They further speculate that it was possibly a “revitalization” cult associated with the arrival of the Spanish and
the consequent disruption and stresses visited upon aboriginal populations.
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16
public rituals, members of the ‘antap met in a sacred ceremonial enclosure, called a siliyik , to
perform rites and dances. In addition to its religious duties, the ‘antap cult served a sociopolitical role
in Chumash society; for example, by sanctioning the selection of a successor to a deceased chief. In
an even larger but perhaps unintended role, Blackburn (1976:237) argued that the ‘antap cult played
an important integrating function in Chumash society by acting as a “supra-organizational
framework,” which cross-cut local loyalties of family, kinship, and even village and linked people
together throughout the Chumash region. At the same time, the ‘antap organization was intensely
hierarchical and elitist, its members occupying favored positions in the society, positions that carried
religious, social and political rights and privileges. Indeed, it has been argued that the most important
political leaders in Chumash society were all members of the ‘antap (Bean and Vane 1992:46).
One of the most important religious duties of the ‘antap society was the prosecution of the Winter
Solstice Ceremony, an event that was designed to “coax” the sun to return to the earth after its winter
17
hiatus . This ceremony involved both public and private aspects. The public aspects, which usually
involved a large gathering of people, included the sunstick ceremony, gift-giving, singing, praying,
and dancing. The sunstick was composed of a wooden shaft and a round stone disk, the latter painted
green or blue and apparently represented the sun (Hudson and Underhay 1978:66). The disk was
placed on one end of the shaft, while the other end was stuck in the ground, so that, once erected, the
sunstick stood upright with the disk on top. The sun priest, called paha, then performed a special rite
aided by several ‘antap assistants. This rite involved prayer, dancing, and a public address by the
paha, which contained predictions about the coming year. The erection of the sunstick usually
occurred on a mountain top. Once the ceremony was concluded, the sunstick was left in place for the
remainder of the Winter Solstice Ceremony; it was finally taken down at the conclusion of the
Ceremony and another stick, this one adorned with feathers, was erected in its place. This latter stick
was called a spon kakunupmawa, which translated as “sun pole” (Hudson and Underhay 1978:66).
There are several references to this object in the ethnographic literature (Geiger and Meighan
1976:58) and in Harrington’s field notes. María Solares (quoted in Hudson and Underhay 1978:67)
described the pole as about one yard high, painted red and black, and made of willow. The pole was
usually supported by piling rocks around the base of the pole. Feathers were attached to the top, and
made to stand upright.
Mountains and hill tops were especially important in Chumash cosmology and held to be places on
the landscape that contained especially potent concentrations of supernatural power (Applegate 1974;
Bean 1976; Blackburn 1976; Hudson and Underhay 1978). According to Applegate (1974) and
Hudson and Underhay (1978:40-41), two of the most sacred peaks in Chumash cosmology were
‘Iwihinmu’, Mount Pinos, and Toshololo, Frazier Mountain, both located in the Transverse Ranges of
Ventura County. María Solares (as quoted in Harrington Screen 9/326b) also notes the special
importance of ‘Iwihinmu’, considering it a very sacred spot and the scene of several supernatural
occurrences. Several other hills and mountains are mentioned as sacred in Chumash religion,
including ‘Owotoponus, Grass Mountain, Napamu’, “ascending place,” and Lisamu’, Morro Rock,
among others.
In at least one of the Harrington field notes, María Solares makes the point that ‘Owotoponus is equal
in sacred importance to ‘Iwihinmu’. Quoting María Solares, Harrington wrote: “[The ancient people]
16
According to Fernando Librado, the term siliyik was also used to describe the mythical elite
governing council made up of twenty men that formed in ancient times. The term apparently means “a council
of officials” (Hudson et al. 1977:17).
17
Both María Solares (quoted in Hudson and Underhay 1978:67-68) and Fernando Librado (quoted in
Hudson et al. 1977:55-56) mention the importance of this ceremony.
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considered ‘Iwihinmu’ and ‘Owotoponus as equal; they have the same power” (9/489). ‘Owotoponus,
which translates as “adorned with plumes,” has been identified with Grass Mountain (Applegate
1974, 1975), which is located north of Solvang and Los Olivos, and southwest of Figueroa Mountain.
Its distinctive, pyramidal shape can be viewed from miles away, and no doubt played a role in its
importance in Chumash cosmology. It features in a series of stories that María Solares told
Harrington. In one of these (9/174), María mentions that ‘Owotoponus was a sacred place at which
offerings were made. She mentions the top of the mountain contained a shrine and that “a feathered
pole of ‘meq,’ [yucca] stood there.”
Indeed, it was on such mountains and hill tops that shrines were often erected and dedicated. These
shrines were called either shawil or chwashtiwi’l (Applegate 1975). Blackburn (1975:343; 1976:104)
spells the word sawil, and defines it as a “ceremonial enclosure [or] shrine.” Harrington also notes
that María Solares sometimes uses the word us’akwas to designate a shrine, though the word literally
means “offering place” (personal communication, Richard Applegate 3/23/2014). These shrines,
according to Blackburn (1976:104), were places “in which sacrifices of money, seeds or down were
made or ceremonies were held.”
One of the first descriptions of a shawil was made by a padre from Mission San Buenaventura, who
was responding to one of the numerous interrogatorios of the early 19th century.
In the vicinity of their rancherias and in some spots in the mountains they had certain places which
were kept well cleared, swept, and adorned with beautiful plumages fastened to poles. These sites in
time came to be regarded as their sacred places. They would come together there in their necessities
and for pilgrimages….At the end of their supplication they would employ the simple and plain mark of
respect of offering beads, acorns, and other seeds in order that the Invisible One might look upon them
and be propitious to them (Geiger and Meighan 1976:58).
Candalaria Valenzuela, who was one of Harrington’s Ventureño informants, provided a further
descriptions of a Chumash shrine on the summit of San Cayetano Mountain in modern-day Ventura
County (quoted in Hudson and Underhay 1978:69). She noted that the site contained a feathered pole
supported by small rocks around it base. Offering included goose down, beads, and various foods.
The site was reportedly visited during the winter solstice and during other times of the year. Each
year, she also noted, the pole was renewed.
Napamú
Napamu’ is listed by a number of scholars as a sacred hill in Chumash cosmology (Applegate 1974,
1975; Blackburn 1975; Craig 1979; Haley and Wilcoxon 1997, 1999; Hudson and Underhay 1978).
Etymologically, the name Napamu’ is an Ineseño/Samala word meaning “place of ascent” or
“ascending place.” The name is a combination of two words, the first napay “to go up [a slope],” and
the second, a locative suffix, mu’, meaning “place where” (Richard Applegate, personal
communication, 1/21/2014). The loss of the final ‘y’ in napay is a common pattern of sound shift in
Chumashan. The slightly longer, but very similar term, ‘Anapamu’ is, according to Applegate
(1975:26), a Barbareño word also meaning “ascending place.”
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Perhaps the first reference to Napamu’ , outside of the Harrington field notes, is Applegate’s 1974
reference, contained in his article Chumash Place Names, where he writes:
Harrington was particularly interested in placenames. In addition to simply asking about placenames or
reeliciting older lists…Harrington took his informants around to get firsthand information on
placenames. Some of his manuscript material includes sketched maps and detailed accounts of these
trips. A typical field note entry reads: “napamu’ is the sharp hill immediately west of the southern end
of the Solvang river bridge [sic]. On top of this hill was an ‘usakmu [shrine] (Applegate 1974:188).
This quotation from Harrington is especially explicit in its reference to the hill’s location, being
“immediately west of the southern end of the Solvang river bridge [sic].” This location compares
favorably with the location of the prominent hill just east of the proposed reservoir site. In the same
article, while discussing the story of a supernatural serpent, Applegate notes that the serpent’s
residence is located at a cave in the Santa Ynez Valley. This cave, moreover, is located at Napamu’
(or ‘anapamu’ in the quotation). Like the previous quote, Applegate supplies locational information,
establishing that the hill is located on the southern side of the Santa Ynez River, southwest of
Solvang. He writes:
This cave is in the northern cliff of the hill ‘anapamu’, ‘rising place,’ on the south side of the Santa
Ynez River just southwest of Solvang. The name of the cave is not given. There was a shrine on top of
this hill, an ‘usakmu’; in the old days it was marked by a feathered pole (Applegate 1974:201).
Blackburn (1975) also mentions Napamu’ in a number of stories, or what he calls “narratives,” that
appear in his book December’s Child. These stories include “The Serpent Woman” (Narrative 63),
“Meeting the Devil at Santa Inez” (Narrative 96), and “Two Men Fly at Santa Inez” (Narrative 101).
All of these stories take place in what is now the Santa Ynez Valley, and were derived from
Harrington’s Ineseño field notes. Interestingly, there are a number of versions of these stories in the
original notes; Harrington wrote them down in either English, Spanish, or Samala. Further, the
information contained in each version differs slightly with each version. Narrative 63, which appears
in Harrington’s field notes (9/404), tells of a wealthy young man from the village of Kalawashaq
(located at Calabazal Creek) who encounters a female goddess in the form of a serpent. The scene
takes place below a hill in Santa Ynez. The hill is not named in the version Blackburn published
(Blackburn 1975:254-255); however, in the Samala version the hill is identified as Napamu’, and
considered a place at which lime was quarried. Narrative 96 is a story told to María by her
grandfather, Ignacio, about meeting the devil – characterized as a horseman dressed in black – during
a midnight ride in Santa Ynez. In the published version, Blackburn (1975:292) locates the meeting
place between Ignacio and the devil at Napamu’. Finally, Narrative 101 takes place at a lime quarry a
18
In this article, Applegate (1974) uses the terms Napamu’ and ‘Anapamu’ interchangeably. In his
1975 article, however, which is a listing of Chumash placenames throughout Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San
Luis Obispo counties, Applegate distinguishes between ‘anapamu’, which he notes is a Barbareño word, and
‘napamu’, which is an Ineseño word, though he contends that the two words mean essentially the same. He has
recently moderated this position by stating that both spellings (Napamu’ and ‘Anapamu’) were used in Samala,
but that Napamu’ was simply a more common rendering of the term (Richard Applegate, personal
communication, 3/28/2014).
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short distance south of the Santa Inés Mission. In Blackburn’s published version the name Napamu’
is not referenced. However, in the Samala version, Harrington is explicit about the location being
19
Napamu’, which he writes is a “sharp hill by Yndart’s” (9/404).
In a cultural resource assessment for the Alisal Ranch that was conducted in 1979, Craig identifies the
hill directly west of the Santa Ynez River Bridge and south of Solvang as Napamu’. He notes that it is
a sacred place in Chumash cosmology with a ceremonial shrine (sahwil’) that functioned as a dancing
ground (Craig 1979).
At the time these monographs were written, in the 1970s, these scholars had access to Harrington’s
field notes, especially when they were housed at Berkeley’s Linguistic Department, and before they
were turned over to the Smithsonian. At that time, the bulk of Harrington’s notes were not catalogued,
nor were they organized in the current Reel/Frame citation format developed by the Smithsonian.
According to Applegate (personal communication, 1/21/14), the notes were in loose manila folders,
20
which in turn were placed in boxes . Individual pages in the folders were not numbered; instead,
Harrington numbered the folders. Consequently, the authors were not able to cite the pages directly,
and many of the quotations appearing in these early monographs did not have direct citation
information. For example, no citation for the quotation from Harrington that appears on page 188 of
Applegate’s 1974 article (i.e., “napamu’ is the sharp hill immediately west…”) is given, save for the
fact that it is from Harrington’s field notes. At our request, Applegate searched Reels 7, 8, and 9 for
this quote but was unable to locate it. Similarly, our own search for this quote failed to locate its
origin in the Ineseño material to which we had been given access. The quote, however, does appear in
the documents that the Applicant sent us at the beginning of the project, though there is no
information given regarding just exactly where (i.e., Reel/Frame) this quote appears in Harrington’s
Chumash field notes. The document in question is a photocopy of a page of Harrington’s notes. It is
titled, “Napamu’, Harrington Notes, Archaeological Reports: Source Documents.” The context of the
document suggests that Harrington was taking notes while on a placename excursion through the
21
Santa Ynez Valley, specifically along Alisal Canyon, and that his informant was named “Ignacio.”
They were apparently traveling south from Solvang on a “county road,” which, from the descriptions
given in the notes, is now Alisal Road.
A close examination of the document reveals at least two possibilities concerning the origin of the
quote. The first possibility, suggested by Applegate (personal communication, 3/28/2014), is that the
information was likely provided by Maria’s uncle, Ignacio Talinawit, who was apparently
knowledgeable about Chumash shrines. The other, more remote possibility, is that the quotation
occurs somewhere in the Barbareño material, and that it was likely given to Harrington by either
Juliana Ignacio or Luisa Ignacio, two of Harrington’s Barbareño informants. Applegate, however,
19
The Yndart Ranch was an early name for the Alisal Ranch. Ulpiano Yndart (1828-1902) was a
Basque immigrant who purchased the ranch south of Solvang, which was originally called Rancho Nojoqui. He
ran cattle on it until a terrible drought in the 1860s forced him to sell. The Yndart Adobe, which was the
residence of Ulpiano and his family, was located on the eastern side of Alisal Creek directly across from the hill
(Napamu’) (Craig 1979). Subsequent owners of the ranch included the Pierce family (1868-1907), Charles E.
Perkins (1927-1943), and the Jackson family (1943-present).
20
Applegate (personal communication, 1/21/14) comments that these boxes roughly corresponded to
Reels.
21
Mention is made in the notes that Harrington and his informant “went up alisal canyon [sic], taking
the county road to Gaviota. The sycamore trees along this canyon are the alisal from which the canyon was
named.” The word “alisal” is a Chumashan word meaning, “grove of sycamores.”
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does not think this likely. He notes that it would have been unlikely that Harrington would have
brought Barbareño speakers into Ineseño territory to identify significant Ineseño places. If this is the
case, then the quotation appears somewhere in the Ineseño material other than Reels 7, 8, or 9.
Interestingly, at the bottom of the page, the informant seems to indicate that the hill immediately east
of the county road was called “nescit.” He also informs Harrington that, to his knowledge, there were
no hills east of the county road that contained shrines (us’akmu’).
Similarly, it is likely that Craig (1979) had access to this same quote when he wrote his assessment of
cultural resources for the Alisal Ranch. His description of Napamu’s location parallels the location of
the hill shrine in these notes. His description of the hill as a “dancing ground” can also be found in
these notes.
Inf. [informant] knows no hill east of the county road where there was an u’sakmu or where dances
were held on top.
Although, as noted, the authors locate Napamu’ in the Santa Ynez Valley, Applegate (1974:196 and
1975:26) notes that the name ‘Anapamu’ is also the location of a hill in Santa Barbara. In his 1974
article, Applegate (1974:196) wrote:
The only such placename to be preserved is ‘anapamu’, “rising place,” the name of a hill both in Santa
Ynez and Santa Barbara; Anapamu is now a street name in Santa Barbara.
Moreover, in his 1975 article, An Index of Chumash Placenames, Applegate lists the name
‘Anapamu’ as a Barbareño word meaning “ascending place,” and its location as a “hill in Santa
Barbara, now a street name Anapamu.” In the same article, he distinguishes Napamu’ as an Ineseño
word and that it is a “shrine-hill at the mouth of Alisal Creek, just south of Solvang.” Applegate is
clear that the name ‘Anapamu’ (or Napamu’) is the name of both a hill in Santa Ynez and Santa
Barbara.
However, the original reference to Napamu’ occurs in Harrington’s Chumash field notes. Napamu’ is
mentioned several times in the Ineseño material and at least once in the Ventureño material. In the
Harrington field notes, María Solares mentions Napamu’ in seven different passages (i.e., 7/037a,
7/164, 8/087b, 9/404[3], and 9/590a). The relevant passages are as follows:

Reel 7/037a (one entry):
At a place a short distance south of the Mission Santa Inez is a bank where they made lime for building
the mission….The place where they got the lime is called Napamu’; ‘ataq [“at the cattails’] is Cañada
del Alisal, near the lime quarry.

Reel 7/164 (one entry):
Maria says that ‘Anapamu’ is a hill at Santa Ynez near the bridge.22 There used to be a sa’wil
“shrine” on top. The name means the same as snapay “he ascends.” The street name in Santa
Barbara is the same and Maria and Juan Justo know the origin of the name.
22
A California Highway Bulletin from 1913 (Vol. 1, No. 2) mentions that a bridge, which was
constructed from a “combination of wood and steel,” crosses the Santa Ynez River near the mouth of Alisal
Canyon.
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
Reel 8/087b (one entry):
Napamu’ “where one goes up,” they do not say ‘anapamu’.

Reel 9/404 (three separate entries):
Workers were breaking rocks at Napamu’, the sharp hill by Yndart’s [a shrine-hill at the mouth of
Alisal Creek]. There’s good lime there. They break up the rock and it rolls down to the bottom by itself.
There were lots of men working below and they made a kiln….They were gathering up the broken
rocks and were putting them in the kiln to burn them. The workers up above were digging the lime and
those below were receiving the rock. They used it to whitewash the church in ‘Alaxulapu [Santa Ynez].
At that time there were many sugerbush bushes at Napamu’. They grow straight, big ones like this
(gesture) there at the river beside Napamu’.
Napamu’ was there; so he lay down below, at the mouth of the canyon. It was heavy brush, very dense.

Reel 9/590a (one entry):
Opnow is the same shape as Napamu’ [a hill near Santa Ynez]—only bigger.
Collectively, these entries strongly support the idea that Napamu’ is the hill immediately east of the
proposed reservoir site, and just west of the Santa Ynez River bridge. María Solares identifies
Napamu’ as a “hill” twice [7/164, 9/404] and as a “sharp hill” [9/404] once. She says that there used
to be a shrine, a sa’wil, on top [7/164], and that the hill is located a “short distance south of the
Mission Santa Inez” [7/037a]. It is “by Yndart’s” [9/404], which was the large rancho that operated
on what is now Alisal Ranch during the mid-nineteenth century and was located just east of Alisal
Creek (see footnote number 19 on page 21). She further establishes that the hill is situated beside a
river [9/404] and a riverbank [7/037a], and that it is located “near the bridge” [7/164]. María Solares
mentions that the hill and the surrounding bank were good sources of lime [9/404, 7/037a]. The hill
just east of the reservoir was a source of lime for the building of Santa Inés Mission [7/037a], as well
23
as functioning as a lime quarry during the early part of the twentieth century. This lime quarry,
moreover, is situated near Cañada del Alisal [7/037a], which is Alisal Canyon.
María Solares was not the only informant of Harrington’s who mentioned the term Napamu’, and
placed it near Alisal Canyon in the Santa Ynez Valley. In a conversation between Harrington and
Fernando Librado in 1913 concerning Point Conception as a “gateway” for departing souls in their
journey to the land of the dead, Harrington [69/0750-0751] wrote:
Said dead went to the west. Did not go to Pt. Concepcion. No ghosts or anything about Pt. Concepcion
as far as he has ever heard. On the other side of the Yndart Ranch [near Mission Santa Ines] there is a
picacho [peak or summit] and that is the real ‘anapamu. This word means “al suvidero.” Napamu =
“suvidero.” Makinapamu = “nuestro suvidero”—place you go up. F. [Fernando Librado] appears not
to know the S.B. [Barbareño] word sha’wil. It was a place for adoration for dead and alive.
An additional line of evidence demonstrating the great likelihood that Napamu’ is the hill directly
west of the Santa Ynez River Bridge is worth investigating. Although this has been discussed
elsewhere (see Laurence Spanne Letter, March 25, 2011), it seems pertinent to explore it here in the
23
The Alisal Quarry, which was located on the south side of the Santa Ynez River one mile south of
Solvang, was a significant source of lime and was operated at various times by the county between 1928 and
1941 (Division of Mines 1950).
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context of the current discussion. Of particular importance is the notion that the hill was (and
apparently still is) is a good source of limestone. As described by Maki (2010), who investigated
geological maps of the region (Dibblee 1943, 1988), the major limestone deposit in the vicinity of
Mission Santa Inés is located along the riverbank and the northern face of the hill directly west of
Alisal Road. Outcroppings of this formation can clearly be seen from the road that winds along the
northern base of the hill. Maki (2010) identifies these deposits as part of the “basal limestone of the
Monterey Shale.” Dibblee (1988) describes them as Tranquillon Volcanics on the Solvang Geologic
Quadrangle. These deposits were the primary focus of limestone quarrying activities that go back at
least to the Mission Period and continued well into historic times.
Taken together, all of these lines of evidence suggest the very real possibility that the hill immediately
to the east of the reservoir project is Napamu’, the hill sacred in Chumash cosmology.
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CHAPTER 4.—EXISTING CONDITIONS
The reservoir project site and the shrine site Napamu’ are located just southwest of the intersection of
the Santa Ynez River and Alisal Road and south of the town of Solvang, California (Figures 1 and 2,
Chapter 1). While the hill Napamu’ is not prominent in relation to the surrounding mountainous
terrain, the hill is a prominent landmark and is visible from many parts of Solvang and from the east,
southeast and west. The elevation at the base of the hill is approximately 400’+ MSL and the crest of
the hill is approximately 535 MSL. Land use immediately surrounding the hill to the west is
agricultural, to the north residential, and to the east a mix of recreational and residential development
(Figure 4). A graded dirt road follows the northern flank of the hill, and a ranch road crosses the
saddle that marks the southern flank or edge of the hill (Figure 5).
The hill itself is relatively bare, with sparsely scattered oaks (Quercus spp.), although the western
face of the hill supports a dense cover of live oak (Quercus agrifolia) and chaparral (oaks, manzanita,
and associated shrubs). Our study took place in the early spring of an extreme drought year;
consequently, the vegetation was relatively sparse. However, in normal years the hill is covered with
annual grasses. The hill is grazed during the winter and spring months as part of Alisal Ranch’s
feeder cattle operation XIII. Two well-worn trails lead to the top of the hill. The first, Trail 1, leads
directly up the east face of the hill, while the second, Trail 2, is a more gentle tract up the west slope
of the hill (Figures 6 and 7 ). Trail 2 is probably a combination cattle and pedestrian track, while Trail
1 appears to be strictly pedestrian. Other less distinct cattle tracks crisscross the hill from all sides.
Historical Alterations to Napamu’
The hill Napamu’ has been the site of limestone quarrying since the Mission era. Ethnographic
sources (cf. Chapter 3) indicate that the limestone deposit at Napamu’ was quarried by Mission Santa
Inés for limestone whitewash and possibly building materials. Limestone quarrying continued well
into the 1950s XIII with the materials used in road construction throughout Santa Barbara County XIII.
Evidence of quarrying can still be seen on the north face of the hill (Figure 8). A representative of
Alisal Ranch XIII, whose family has owned the property since 1943 related the following. Quarrying at
the hill resulted in two deep pits on the east face of the hill. These filled with water and became
gathering spots for local teenagers. The County considered the ponds a public hazard and remediated
the ponds early in the 1970s. The respondent believed that a portion of the hill was graded and the
resulting material used to fill the ponds. An unnatural berm is visible on the east flank of the hill that
likely is a result of the County’s remediation (Figure 9).
Curtis Muñoz, a land use planner working on behalf of the Applicant prepared a review of quarrying
activities based on a comparison of historical aerial photographs dating from 1928 to 2010. Muñoz’s
review was thorough and we have reproduced his summary graphic indicating quarrying, grading, and
road construction on and around Napamu’ (Figure 10). Muñoz also compiled historical ground level
photographs to estimate the effect of quarrying and quarry pond remediation on the height of the hill.
He estimates that the crest was originally between approximately 650’ and 600’ MSL, but that
quarrying and subsequent grading had reduced the crest to approximately 535 MSL. Again, we find
Muñoz’s methods to be comprehensive and based on appropriate sources, and we have reproduced his
summary cross-section of elevations as Figure 11. It appears from Muñoz’s analysis that the crest of
the hill was markedly reduced sometime in the early 1970s, corroborating the Alisal Ranch
representative’s account of the County’s use of hilltop soils to fill the quarry ponds.
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File name: Figure_4.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Solvang
Mission Santa Ines
ta Y
nez
Ri
ve
r
oad
San
al R
Water treatment plant
Alis
River Course Golf Course
Agricultural field
Napamu’
Alisal guest ranch
Google Earth aerial accessed March 31, 2014. Imagery from April 18, 2013.
0
1,750
Figure 4. Land use around
Napamu’.
3,500
Feet
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_5.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Legend
Ranch road
Trail
Google Earth aerial accessed March 31, 2014. Imagery from April 18, 2013.
0
200
Figure 5. Existing roads
and trails at Napamu’.
400
Feet
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_6.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 6. Trail 1, east side
of Napamu’.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_7.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 7. Trail 2, west side
of Napamu’.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_8.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 8. Limestone outcrop on
the north face of Napamu’.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_9.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 9. Soil berm, right center,
east flank of Napamu’.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_10.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Albion Environmental, Inc.
Figure 10. Summary of quarrying
and grading, 1928-2010,
compiled by Curtis Munoz,
source: Alisal Ranch.
File name: Figure_11.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Albion Environmental, Inc.
Figure 11. Historical and current
cross-section of Napamu’,
compiled by Curtis Munoz,
source: Alisal Ranch.
Historical and Recent Development near Napamu’
Agriculture dominates the area to the west of Napamu’. The large terrace to the west is currently dry
farmed by the Alisal Ranch (Figures 12 and 13). The field is accessed by the dirt access road that
exits Alisal Road and skirts the northern base of Napamu’. A water treatment facility, managed by the
County, is located at the western end of the agricultural field and a waste disposal facility is located
well to the west of the field. Both of these facilities are hidden from view by mature stands of oaks.
The access road (Figure 14) leading from Alisal Road is well traveled by waste disposal trucks and
personnel servicing the water treatment plant, as well as Alisal Ranch staff. The road is gated but left
unlocked for authorized travel during work hours and locked after hours. The area between Alisal
Road and the entrance gate is frequently used for parking, presumably by hikers, joggers, and
bicyclists using Alisal Road. Truck traffic at the entrance gate and along the road generates
considerable noise, although the road itself appears to be well maintained and dust appears to be
under control.
The area to the north and northeast of Napamu’ is dominated, in the far distance, by the commercial
district of Solvang, and in the near distance by residential development to the east and west of Alisal
Road and north of the Santa Ynez River (Figure 15). The Santa Ynez River, Alisal River Bridge and
the River Course public access golf course are the most visible developments to the northeast (Figure
16). The Alisal Ranch Guest Ranch golf course and sparse residential development and roads are
visible to the east (Figure 17).
The Viewshed from Napamu’
While the landscape in the near vicinity of Napamu’ is dominated by historical and recent
development, the crest of the hill provides a commanding view of the Santa Ynez Valley. The view to
the east and west includes the Santa Ynez River basin. The hill also provides views of the distant hills
to the north and east, a view of some importance to Tribal respondents, as will be discussed below.
We have calculated that the hill provides unobstructed views over 270 degrees, with only the southern
view blocked by the higher ridges trending up from the hill to the south (Figure 18). The view to the
west is partially blocked by well-established chaparral and oaks of various heights. The view to the
west would include a partial view of the proposed reservoir, and almost the entirety of the agricultural
fields now dry farmed, but irrigated in the future with water impounded at the reservoir. The
transmission lines crossing the southern flank of the hill would be clearly visible from the crest of the
hill and would likely be a dominant element in the view to the south.
Access to Napamu’
Alisal Ranch maintains strict control over access to Ranch property, including the project site and the
hill Napamu’. Albion and respondents from the Tribe were granted permission to visit the site for the
purposes of this investigation, however a Ranch representative XIII indicated that under normal
circumstances access to Ranch property is restricted to Ranch staff and County and waste
management personnel servicing the water treatment plant or dumping waste. The Ranch is routinely
patrolled by Ranch staff, and based on Albion’s experience during the study, Ranch staff are vigilant
in their enforcement of this no-trespass policy. Based on the well-worn trails on the west and east
faces of Napamu’ people do hike to the top of the hill, presumably without Ranch permission.
The Tribe believes that it does not have permission to visit Napamu’. Several respondents stated that
they understand that Napamu’ is on private property and did not wish to visit the site without Ranch
permission IV, VIII, IX. One respondent VIII noted that visiting Napamu’ as part of this investigation might
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File name: Figure_12.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 12. View of agricultural
field to west from Napamu’.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_13.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 13. View of agricultural
fields east to Napamu’.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_14.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 14. Access road and
gate at Alisal Road.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_15.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 15. View of crest of
Napamu’ and north to Solvang.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_16.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 16. View to the northeast
from Napamu’.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_17.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Figure 17. View to the east
of Napamu’.
Albion Environmental, Inc.
File name: Figure_18.ai, J2013-018.01, Stella D’Oro, 17April2014
Solvang
Mission Santa Ines
ta Y
nez
Ri
ve
r
oad
San
al R
Water treatment plant
Alis
River Course Golf Course
Agricultural field
Napamu’
Alisal Guest Ranch
Legend
Viewshed
Google Earth aerial accessed March 31, 2014. Imagery from April 18, 2013.
0
1,750
Figure 18. Viewshed from
Napamu’.
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Feet
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be the only time she would have access to the site and asked for a second visit in order to bring her
children to the top of the hill. Several respondents III, V, VI expressed a very different view stating that
Napamu’ has been an important spiritual place for several thousand years and remains so today, thus
making private ownership in the modern era a transient condition in the long view of Chumash
history. When questioned, respondents did not believe the Tribe had petitioned Alisal Ranch for
permission to visit the site, other than the Tribe’s request for access as mitigation for the impacts of
the proposed project. The Alisal Ranch representative XIII stated in a discussion with Albion that the
Ranch discourages trespass for safety reasons, particularly the potential for fires that could easily
sweep ranch property to the south and west. The Ranch representative dismissed the mitigation
recommendation for access stating, “I do not want them up there”. He clarified this remark explaining
that the Ranch policy against trespass applied to all potential visitors, and was not addressed
specifically to the Tribe.
Tribal Knowledge of Napamu’
Primary among Albion’s research questions are the two related questions: what does the Tribe know
of Napamu’ and how do they know of it? Answers to these questions are directly related to how the
Tribe uses the site (if they in fact do), the significance the Tribe ascribes to Napamu’, and how the
proposed reservoir project might impact those attributes of the site that contribute to its significance.
Since our assessment of the importance of the site considers the Tribe’s attribution of significance, we
endeavored to learn how the Tribe knows of Napamu’, and how the Tribe perceives the site in the
context of other places of similar sacred importance.
The Tribes’ knowledge of Napamu’ and the probable past uses of the site, as well as its place in
Chumash religious practice, derive from the detailed texts left by María Solaris via J.P. Harrington.
We did not discern any knowledge of Napamu’ having been passed from person to person, nor did we
find continuity of traditional practice at Napamu’. We did find, however, that the Tribe views the
Solaris texts as direct testimony and the same as continuous oral tradition. We expand on this concept
below, in our discussion of the Chumash “renaissance”, although it is important to understand how
the Tribe views and reveres the Solaris texts.
María Solaris, as discussed in Chapter 3, was groomed by her immediate ancestors as a bearer of
Chumash culture. From an early age she was apparently segregated from her peers and taught the
Samala language, Tribal history, local places of traditional and sacred importance, and traditional
practices.
The striking level of detail in her work with J. P. Harrington testifies to the depth of her knowledge.
The Tribe has invested considerable effort in organizing and translating the Solaris texts and
rendering them understandable to anyone in the Tribe who is interested in traditional places and
practice. One respondent VI referred to the texts as “a gift”, and many others refer to the texts as
though María were speaking to them directly. Even though there are several generations separating
María Solaris from current Tribal members, she is routinely referred to as “Grandma” or simply
María, and phrases such as “María (or Grandma) tells us…” One Tribal Elder XI stated emphatically
that the texts are allowing the Tribe to “grasp what we had lost”.
The Tribe’s reverence for the Solaris texts and the immediacy of some Tribal members’ relationship
with María Solaris is born out in their traditional practice at Grass Mountain, ‘Owotoponus, a place
the Tribe believes has similar spiritual qualities as Napamu’, and a history of use. Tribal practitioners
comb the Solaris texts for every detail as guidance for activities at ‘Owotoponus, including how the
sacred site is to be approached and when and what activities take place. During Albion’s visits with
Tribal respondents to Napamu’ we noted the same attention to what María had related about
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Napamu’. The story of the serpent (cf. Chapter 3) was repeated, the respondent’s children were
admonished to behave in the manner they believe María would have found appropriate, and
respondents spent considerable time establishing a visual connection with other sacred places
identified in the Solaris texts.
While Albion found no evidence of current or recent ceremonial practice at Napamu’, save for a
single event (discussed below), Tribal respondents were able to state the ways in which Napamu’ was
probably used, and how it might be used if the Tribe did include Napamu’ in its spiritual and
ceremonial practices. We believe the Tribal responses to questions such as “what would have
happened at Napamu’?” or “How would Napamu’ be used now?” were based in part on the guidance
from the Solaris texts and ongoing spiritual practice at places such as ‘Owotoponus.
Tribal respondents, particularly two elders V, VI indicated that religious observances at Napamu’ could
24
be individual rather than strictly communal. One respondent V noted that an individual or many
might come to Napamu’ and that “one person might come to pray for the community”. Another VI
stated that an individual might come simply to commune, “someone might come up, sit for a while,
be quiet, and wait for the spirits to come and visit”. Another VIII noted that one could “feel the energy
at the site and that takes care of the people”, adding that the power of the site is the result of
“thousands of years of prayers”, “there is an investment of prayers”, and Napamu’ is a “depository of
prayers”. Another III stated that visits to Napamu’, presumably by individuals, are important for
“keeping the balance in the community”. These descriptions of individual spiritual practice indicate to
us that respondents believe there is perceived benefit for the individual, and, importantly, individual
practice is undertaken for the well-being of the Tribe as a whole.
Several respondents described the more formal traditional practices that might take place at Napamu’.
Again these activities are largely described in the context of the Solaris texts and ongoing practices at
‘Owotoponus. One respondent IX commented that the sacredness ascribed to Napamu’ would qualify
it as an ideal location to carry out the Winter Solstice Ceremony. Other respondents noted that
placement of prayer poles at the summit of the hill would be an important way of honoring Tribal
traditions and religious beliefs. One respondent VI noted that “energy” could be placed into the poles
that are later erected at the site. The respondent likened it to lighting a candle in church. The same
respondent related that often women made the prayer poles and that for the practitioners to feel
comfortable, the poles should be left in place for seven days, at which time they are removed. Placing
prayer poles at a sacred site is also a time to pray, pass stories and Tribal history along to children,
learn the language, make tools, give offerings and sit quietly and interact with the power and spirits
that are inherent in the sacred site, and simply “give people time to do what they need to do-just to be
at the place” VI.
Another respondent III described ceremonial visits to sites such as Napamu’ as follows. The poles and
ceremonies could be of individual or even family importance. The poles were naturally colored, or
could be colored to indicate a particular family. The poles are “like a tombstone, prayers are sent off”
and the poles are collected after one year and burned. The respondent also noted that ceremonial
practice at a sacred site did not always require placement of prayer poles, “the spirit of the place is
important, we might go there, maybe up to three days, and just be at the place”. This same respondent
also noted that the walk to the site is an important part of the ceremonial practice.
24
This sentiment is directly paralleled in the María Solares texts. In commenting about the function of
religious shrines in Chumash society, Harrington writes, “She [Maria Solares] commented that the s’hawi’l
[shrine] was for all, just like the church. It is for all who want to deposit things there. And those who do not
want to go do not, just as some neglect to go to mass” (Harrington 8:086a).
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Several respondents III, IV, VI, VIII, IX, and XI also described their difficulty gaining access to sacred places,
since many, like Napamu’ are on private property. While the Tribe is able to conduct ceremonies at
‘Owotoponus, which is on public lands, they have had to arrange walking access through private
property. They noted that prayer poles left at ‘Owotoponus had been vandalized, however, they saw
limited possibilities for visiting other sacred places that might be less visible and prone to vandalism.
Some Tribal members are activity seeking access to other sacred places, certainly a reason for the
Tribe’s interest in Napamu’, which among the sacred places in the vicinity is by far the closest to the
Reservation and adjacent to a major road.
An Incident of Recent Ceremonial Practice at Napamu’
In early February 2014 a prayer pole and offering were placed at the crest of Napamu’, slightly to the
west of the high point of the hill. The pole was discovered by the Alisal Ranch, who then made
contact with the Tribe. The attorney XIV for the Ranch summarized the event as follows (email
correspondence, applicant’s attorney to Clinton Blount February 21, 2014).
As we recently discussed, on February 8 or 9 an unknown person installed a pole with feathers and a
message on the hill believed to be the shrine site adjacent to the location of the proposed Alisal
reservoir. Because of the Chumash Tribe’s interest in the site, before removing the pole or taking any
other action, I contacted each of you to see if you knew anything about the matter, the possible
significance or cultural sensitivity associated the pole, and whether there is anything [Alisal Ranch]
needed to be aware of so they could respond appropriately. I also contacted [Tribal legal advisor I] to
discuss the matter.
By email on February 13, [he] advised me that [Tribal Elder III] …was “claiming the pole on behalf of
our people.” [The Tribal Elder] asked us to let him know where he could pick the prayer pole up.
On the morning of February 15, [Alisal Ranch representative XIII] met [the Elder] at the base of the hill
near the reservoir site. [He] was accompanied by two young men. They invited [the Alisal Ranch
representative] to join them and he accepted. They began by burning some herbs at the base of the hill
and then walked to the summit where they held a brief ceremony. They removed the pole and [the
Ranch representative] accompanied them back down. [The Tribal Elder] did take note of the fact that
smoking had been done at the site and he picked up bottle caps that had been left there.
When Albion and Tribal respondents visited Napamu’ several days later we noted a “prayer bundle”
consisting of raptor feathers and what we assume to be a small attached bag of herbs or tobacco. The
prayer bundle was gone at our next visit the following week. We did not attempt to learn who had
erected the prayer pole or left the offering.
The “Chumash Renaissance” and the Significance of Napamu’
Early in our study a Tribal Elder said the following, with emphasis, “This is the way we are. That was
the way it was. What was is not the same as it is now”. This seemingly simple statement leads directly
to a number of questions about the “authenticity” of current expressions of spiritual beliefs,
ceremonial practice, and the significance of “sacred places” such a Napamu’. How closely do modern
beliefs and practices have to mimic what is known of traditional (i.e., recorded ethnographically)
practices to be considered genuine? Are beliefs and practices genuine if there is an admixture of other
religious practice or dogma? Are ceremonial practices legitimate if they have been “rediscovered”
after some hiatus in those practices? Are modern expressions of spirituality simply masking
economic, social, or political agendas? And, most importantly, can spiritual significance be ascribed
to a place such as Napamu’ when there is no evidence of traditional practice in living memory and the
place itself has been significantly altered?
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Much has been made of the “renaissance” or revitalization of Chumash identity and traditional
practices, particularly the interest of the Santa Ynez Band in their traditions, Tribal history, and
language. Because the Tribe’s cultural revitalization programs are coincident with the development of
casino gaming, there have been questions about the legitimacy of the Tribe’s interests; that is, is the
Tribe’s primary goal economic expansion, based on claims to traditional places outside the
reservation.
Paul Gelles, in his defense of the Tribe’s casino gaming, details the considerable animosity between
the Tribe and local interest groups over the Tribe’s casino gaming facility and related economic
expansion (Gelles 2013: 62-68). Gelles, based on his own interviews, notes that Native American
identity carried a social stigma that was sufficiently pervasive to cause Tribal members to selfidentify, at least to the outside community, as anything but Native American. Further, Gelles
chronicles the social and economic status of the Tribe, from the establishment of the Reservation to
the advent of first high-stakes bingo, and later full-scale casino gaming. He tells the story of how
members of an impoverished reservation, with lack of basic services, limited educational
opportunities, and employment at the lowest levels of the labor market, eventually rose to levels of
social and economic prominence (2013:42-48; 62-68). Gelles marks the beginning of the
revitalization of the Tribe as the 1960s. Referencing his interviews with Tribal Elders, Gelles writes:
A strong wave of cultural revitalization began in the late 60s and early 70s with the work of [Tribal
leaders] Anthony Romero and Pete Cowheart Zavalla, who were influenced by the burgeoning civil
rights movement, including the American Indian Movement (AIM), found across the country
(2013:50).
Also, Gelles summarizes the path from stigmatization and marginalization to revitalization,
emphasizing relative elements of continuity of practice and rediscovery, as follows:
Some Chumash tell me that despite the intense cultural pressures to abandon any identification with
things Indian, some indigenous culture, though fragmented, continued on in the ‘50s, including
“sweats” (purification through sweat lodges), songs, wearing of regalia, and ceremony. But others
stress that by that time-after two centuries of cultural suppression and the last half of that “passing” as
Mexican for survival-there was little left for the cultural revivalists of the ‘60s to build on. Rather they
had to use the anthropological and historical record to revitalize the culture (2013:50).
Casino gaming assumes an important and sustaining role in the revitalization (and rediscovery)
process. Gelles notes that with gaming revenues the Tribe was able to develop a range of
improvement programs, chief among them the elimination of persistent poverty, creation of
educational opportunities for Tribal youth, health care, and importantly, well-funded and managed
heritage initiatives such as language preservation, exploration and revival of traditional practices, and
purposeful investigation of important places in the Tribe’s traditional landscape.
Eve Darian-Smith, in her nation-wide review of Native American casino gaming singles out Santa
Ynez as a case-study, examining the changing relationships between the Tribe and surrounding
community, emphasizing the enabling role of gaming revenues in cultural revitalization and pride in
identity.
During the past decade [ca. 1990s to early 2000s], however, the federally recognized Chumash tribe
[Santa Ynez] has dramatically altered its status of deprivation and hardship. Today, the Chumash
Casino ‘has obliterated poverty, and the tribe is getting newfound respect’ (Santa Barbara News-Press,
December 28, 2001). These changed circumstances have enabled the recognized Chumash tribe to
revitalize and promote its cultural heritage and this self-confidence has seeped into the consciousness
of other Chumash peoples.
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So, despite the economic setbacks resulting from no recognition [of other Chumash groups] by the
federal government, there is a revitalization of interest in Chumash culture, traditional customs, and
local politics by all Chumash tribes as well as local non-Indians. No doubt the success of the casino
has played a part in this resurgence of activities and identity politics (2004:76).
Brian Haley and Larry Wilcoxen (1997) address the issues surrounding revitalization in their case
study of the traditional basis for the significance of sacred places at and near Point Conception. In
their widely cited, and we believe, often misrepresented article, their focus is very much on the often
questionable enabling role anthropologists have played in Native American identity politics. They
skillfully chronicle the co-opting of, and in some cases, invention of Chumash identity and traditional
practices by groups with, at best, dubious ancestral and cultural ties to the recognized Chumash
communities. While taking some anthropologists to task for their role in perpetuating, in the public’s
mind, these dubious claims, they do distinguish between these groups, who they call Traditionalists
and other Chumash. Haley and Wilcoxen note that:
…local anthropologists have promoted the creation of a new religious philosophy and its classification
on the traditional side of the dichotomy. They have facilitated the empowerment of Chumash
Traditionalists at the expense of other Chumash, who come to be viewed as non-traditional through the
logic of oppositional classification alone (1997:762).
In the years since Haley and Wilcoxen published their article, many of the Traditionalist claims of
authority or even biological ancestry have received public scrutiny, as has the “new religious
philosophy” with its admixture of environmental policy and politics and “New-Age” beliefs. The
unfortunate consequences, we believe, of this very public debate over the legitimacy of some
Chumash claims has led many to conclude that any cultural practices or places that are rediscovered
or emphasized anew during revitalization are purely inventions and suffused with spurious, and
politically fashionable environmental agendas or New Age, Christian, and other religious elements—
in other words, illegitimate, and without merit in the environmental review process.
Our investigation affirmed what Gelles reported from his conversations with Tribal members: the
Tribe is keenly aware of the benefits of cultural revitalization to the Tribe. The Tribe has invested
time and resources in establishing the legitimacy of their revitalization or rediscovery of traditional
practices and places. The Tribe’s language preservation and revival program serves as a good
example of how revitalization is managed within the Tribe. The language program focuses on
reestablishing Samala as a spoken language rather than a collection of names of objects or everyday
phrases, and the Tribe ascribes importance to the fact that some members are investing time in their
pursuit of fluency.
The Tribe is equally concerned about re-establishing traditional cultural practices and identifying and
preserving traditionally important places. They have consciously legitimized those efforts through
zealous attention to the detailed anthropological record, to the extent that they have virtually erased
the generations between the time J.P. Harrington collected Samala texts from María Solaris and the
present day. The Tribe considers the ethnographic record as legitimate, an unbroken generation to
generation oral tradition or continuity of practice. Again, the Tribe has invested time and resources to
ensure that the ethnographic record is complete and accurate, is accessible to the Tribe, and is a
central element in Tribal preservation programs and policy.
Our interviews with several Tribal respondents III, IV, VI, VIII, and XI in particular revealed that many Tribal
members are both cognizant and accepting of how and why their identity as an indigenous people has
changed through time. To paraphrase our respondent, that is how we were then, this is how we are
now. Several of our study respondents addressed this matter directly, recognizing that the Tribe’s
passage through the Spanish Colonial and Mission era required adaptation and resilience, survival
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strategies that we believe suffuse Tribal identity from Mission times through to the Tribe’s modern
era of revival and resurgence. Historian Lisbeth Haas summarizes these adaptations and changing
identities in her recent discussion of Indigenous histories in the California and Mexican mission
systems.
Part of the ability to survive came from the way Indigenous leaders and communities influenced how
Catholicism and Spanish practices would be understood. At Santa Ines, Indigenous godparents, often
recently affiliated [with the Mission] themselves, played important roles in the induction of their
relatives and villages into the mission.…They became weavers of the garments they wore; generations
came to possess an enormous range of skills related to the new economy and remained engaged in
different aspects of traditional economies.
Elders passed down versions of the histories of their political defeat…They imparted various kinds of
Indigenous knowledge at the missions, and they addressed the reality of the moment through their
narrations produced in painting, sculptor [sic], and in dance, song and ritual. With their bodies and
voice, they used Indigenous means to rectify conditions. Drawing on native logic, they bought new
elements into their society that influenced Indigenous cultural practices and produced a relationship to
new things, such as the horse, that fostered the community’s well-being (Haas 2014:183).
Respondents in our study VI, XI, in particular revealed how they managed their own identities, first to the
outside community as non-Indian and then within the Tribal community. These same respondents
discussed their personal histories as both Tribal members and participants in the non-Tribal economy
and institutions. We believe the process of maintaining a personal Tribal identity during the postmission era is much the same as the adaptive and assimilative processes Haas sees in the mission
record. Tribal members attended school and worked largely in the community that surrounded the
Reservation yet maintained a separate identity based on their shared histories, histories that included
both what was passed down from the distant past and all the accommodations of the Mission and
post-Mission eras. As one respondent XI said “we always knew who were, even though I had to say I
was something else at school”. This same respondent remarked “Now [because of the current
economic success of the Tribe] we can be who we really are and we can grasp what we lost”.
We believe the significance the Tribe ascribes to Napamu’ reflects both the shared Indigenous history
of the Tribe, and processes of Tribal renewal and revitalization. Napamu’ and sacred places like
Napamu’ are well represented in the detailed ethnographic record, and therefore are, if nothing more,
emblematic of the distant, pre-Mission time. Napamu’ is equally emblematic of the Tribe’s interest in
preserving and renewing traditional practices at sacred places. As one respondent V stated, knowing
about and preserving Napamu’ creates balance for the Tribe. Another VIII said “we do this
[understanding sacred places] for the health of the Tribe”. As Haas notes, citing the work of two
Indigenous scholars, Maria Brave Hart and Phillip Gone:
Both argue that, in healing from historical and generational trauma, it is important to reclaim
Indigenous heritage, identity, and spirituality. [Philip] Gone points to the distinctive [different] cultural
psychologies of space and place commonly found in native and Western thought, and to the
importance of Indigenous spaces to establish individual and collective well-being (2014:183).
We believe the reverence in which Tribal members hold Napamu’ is a sincere reflection of the
Tribe’s interest in both Tribal renewal and the well-being and balance of the community.
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CHAPTER 5.—SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
Albion has prepared its assessment of the significance of Napamu’ and potential impacts of the
reservoir project based primarily on the following:

The testimony provided Tribal respondents;

The historical and ethnographic record as it relates to Napamu’, similar places, and traditional
practices;

The County of Santa Barbara’s Administrative Record, particularly the appeals and
supporting documentation from both the Tribe and Applicant; and,

CEQA and guidelines for the application of CEQA with regard to Historical Resources.
We have also considered numerous scholarly discussions of the history of the Tribe, other Chumash
communities, and the revival of traditional practices by the Tribe, other Chumash communities, and
other Native American groups. We understand that the reservoir project is not a federal undertaking
and is not subject to the authority of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), however, we
have made reference to the guidance provided under Section 106, the NHPA implementing
regulations, specifically the guidelines for the identification and assessment of traditional cultural
properties contained in National Park Service Bulletin 38. We have done this because neither CEQA
nor the State Office of Historic Preservation under the authority of CEQA have provided guidelines
for the investigation of places of traditional importance to tribes. The National Park Service does
provide those study protocols and we have used them as generally accepted methods in our
investigation. Finally, we have considered the opinion of the State Court of Appeals, fifth Appellate
District in the matter of MADERA OVERSIGHT COALITION V. COUNTY OF MADERA, since
that opinion addresses the status of traditionally important places under CEQA.
We have framed our assessment and recommendations in a series of questions. We have done this
because the administrative record for the project already contains numerous assertions and
recommendations, and we believe it is important to address each major topic in light of both the
evidence resulting from our study and CEQA regulations and guidance. Each section contains some
or all of the following: a statement of the positions and recommendations in the administrative record,
a summary of our findings relative to that topic or topics, our independent assessment of impact, and
recommendations for reducing project impacts to less than significant.
What is Napamu’?
Our investigation of the archival record and discussions with tribal respondents provided strong
evidence that the sharp hill near the south west corner of the Alisal Road Bridge over the Santa Ynez
River is the sacred site Napamu’. We present our evidence for this finding in Chapter 3, and include a
discussion of the difficulties in interpreting the ethnographic record. We are confident, however, that
this hill is the best fit to the descriptions in the ethnographic record and that there is no other location
in the near vicinity that matches the location in the archival record and we do not concur with the
Applicant’s assertion that there are plausible alternatives for the location of Napamu’ (e.g., Letter
Howell Moore & Gough to John Karamitsos, January 10, 2011).
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We have defined Napamu’ as the hill itself; that is, the hill to the base of the hill to the west, north,
and east, and to the low point of the saddle to the south. Many traditional sacred places are one part of
a complex of interconnected sites and locales, all of which contribute to the efficacy of a traditional
practice. A site such as Napamu’ may have in times past been linked to ritual preparation areas,
places where special plants were collected and then used in ceremonies, or commonly, trails to a
sacred place. Because there is no active ceremonial practice at Napamu’ and the ethnographic record
is silent on this matter, we do not know if other locales were part of the ceremonial practice at
Napamu’. We have therefore restricted our definition of the boundaries of Napamu’ to the hill itself.
Because we lack evidence of other locales that may have been part of the ceremonial practices at
Napamu’, we do not believe that Napamu’ is, in and of itself, a cultural landscape, or part of a cultural
landscape. We did identify Napamu’ as one of a few highly important ceremonial sites, however each
of these is at some distance from Napamu’ and we did not identify links between these sites, other
than that they are or were places where similar ceremonial practices occurred.
Is Napamu’ a Historical Resource?
Our investigation leads us to believe that Napamu’ as defined above is a Historical Resource under
Section 5024.1 of the California Public Resources Code (PRC). Our opinion is based on our finding
that Napamu’ is eligible for listing in the California Register of Historical Resources under criterion
1: [Napamu’] “is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad
patterns of California’s history and cultural heritage”. We find that Napamu’ is a well-documented
traditional and sacred place that has occupied an important place in the cosmology and traditional
religious practices of the Indigenous community that is now the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash
Indians; that Napamu’ has been considered and used as a place of ceremonial practice for hundreds,
and possibly thousands of years; and that the qualities that contribute to Napamu’s significance to the
Indigenous peoples are still present at the site, despite a lack of traditional use during the modern era.
Because places such as Napamu’, often referred to as Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs), are not
identified as a potentially eligible property under CEQA, we looked to a recent opinion rendered by
the Court of Appeals of the State of California, Fifth Appellate District in the matter of MADERA
OVERSIGHT COALITION, INC, et al. v COUNTY OF MADERA. The Court found that even
though traditional cultural properties are not “automatically” considered a Historical Resource under
CEQA, they are part of the environment. The Court’s opinion states, “Nevertheless, when traditional
cultural properties are not historical resources but otherwise constitute a part of the environment, we
conclude they are subject to the general rules regarding the discussion of (1) impacts to the
environment and (2) related mitigation measures (Opinion filed September 13, 2011:48).
Finally, because Section 5024.1 of the PRC explicitly cites and replicates the criteria for eligibility for
inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, we looked to the implementing guidelines for
those eligibility criteria, as they apply to TCPs, published as National Park Service Bulletin 38.
Bulletin 38 cites a requirement of minimum age of 50 years (common to all eligible properties), and
notes the importance of the integrity of the relationship between the property and the beliefs and
practices of, in this case, the Tribe.
Assessing the integrity of the relationship between a property and the beliefs or practices that may give
it significance involves developing some understanding about how the group that holds the beliefs or
carries out the practices is likely to view the property. If the property is known or likely to be regarded
by a traditional cultural group as important in the retention or transmittal of a belief, or to the
performance of a practice, the property can be taken to have an integral relationship with the belief or
practice, and vice-versa (Parkier and King 1990, as revised 1992, 199811).
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In the foregoing chapters we have demonstrated the integrity of the relationship between the place
Napamu’ and the beliefs and practices of the Tribe, and that these beliefs are both ancient in origin
and find expression in the modern-day lives of tribal members.
Continuity of actual practice at Napamu’ has been raised with regard to Napamu’. Again, while
CEQA is silent on these detailed elements of significance and California Register eligibility, we
looked to guidance provided in Bulletin 38.
The fact that a property may have gone unused for a lengthy period time, with use beginning only
recently, does not make the property ineligible for the [National] Register. For example, assume that
the Indian referred to above [an unnamed tribe using a peak for spiritual communication] used the
mountain peak in prehistory for communication with the supernatural, but was forced to abandon such
use when it was confined to a distant reservation, or when its members were converted to Christianity.
Assume further that a revitalization of traditional religion has begun in the last decade, and as a result
the peak is again being used for vision quests similar to those carried out there in prehistory. The fact
that the contemporary use of the peak has little continuous time depth does not make the peak
ineligible; the peak’s association with the traditional activity reflected in its contemporary use is what
must be considered in determining eligibility (Parker and King 190, as revised 1992, 1998: 18).
Will the Reservoir Element of the Project have an Impact on Napamu’? Will the Agricultural Activity
Supported by the Reservoir Have an Impact on Napamu?
The proposed reservoir will be partially visible from the crest of Napamu’ and fully visible from other
portions of the hill, the entirety of which we have defined as the resource. Further, the reservoir
would be fully visible from the most likely point of access to the crest of the hill, the trail on the
western flank and side of the hill. Several study respondents III, V, VI remarked that the reservoir would
add to an already crowded viewshed from the hill and would impact any traditional practice on the
hill. The Tribe Appeal filed February 2, 2102, has requested installation and maintenance of
landscaping to block the view of the reservoir.
Other study respondents IV, VIII, IX noted that one of the important qualities of the upper portions of
Napamu’ is the view afforded of other sacred places around the Santa Ynez Valley and the view to
the west at sunset.
We believe that the viewshed from Napamu’ is an important component of any traditional practice at
the site, and that the reservoir would add another modern element to the viewshed, cumulative to
modern residential, commercial, and recreational development to the north and east. Therefore we
concur partially with the Tribe’s recommendation that landscaping should be installed on the upper
western face of the hill to block the view of the reservoir, to the extent possible. We believe that
installing low-growing, natural vegetation in sparsely wooded areas on the western side of the crest of
the hill would mitigate the impact of the reservoir on the viewshed from Napamu’ to less than
significant. We do not envision any practical means of blocking the view of the reservoir from other
areas of the hill.
The archaeological inventories, including Phase 1 subsurface exploration of the reservoir site, led to
the conclusion that cultural deposits were not present and that further archaeological investigation
was not necessary, other than in the highly unlikely event that cultural materials are discovered during
construction. We have reviewed the methods and findings of the two archaeological investigations
and based on Albion’s archaeological work in similar contexts, concur that there is a very low
likelihood that cultural materials will be present at the reservoir site. We therefore do not concur with
the Tribe’s recommendation of full-time Tribal monitoring during construction of the reservoir, or the
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road and other facilities in the immediate vicinity of the reservoir. We do recommend that full-time
Tribal monitoring occur if materials are discovered that require archaeological treatment.
The reservoir will allow Alisal Ranch to convert the long field to the west of Napamu’ from dry to
irrigated farming. This will likely increase activity at and around the field. Several respondents III, V, VI
remarked that “this just means more people around here”, although we were unable to see how this
increased activity would impact Napamu’ and any traditional practice at the site. We believe that the
greatest human intrusion, both auditory and visual will be the ongoing truck traffic exiting Alisal
Road, circling the northern base of Napamu’, and moving along the southern edge of the agricultural
field to the water treatment plant and waste disposal site. We concur with the respondents’ statements
about increased activity; however, we believe increased agricultural activity will be minor and only
slightly incremental to already busy and noisy uses of the road, activities which are not project
related.
Will the pipeline, pumps, and transmission line have an impact on Napamu’?
Pumps that will supply water to the reservoir will be located within the Santa Ynez riverbed to the
east of (across) Alisal Road. We do not believe that the pumps will be visible from Napamu’ and the
noise generated by the pumps will be insignificant. Therefore we do not believe that the pumps will
impact Napamu’.
The pipeline and transmission lines between the pumps and the northeast side of the reservoir will
cross the eastern flank of Napamu’ between the hill and Alisal Road. The pipeline and transmission
lines will then traverse the saddle that marks the southern boundary of Napamu’ as we have defined
it. The pipeline will be underground, however, the transmission line as now planned will be above
ground. We believe that the above ground transmission line will become the dominant element in the
near viewshed from the crest of Napamu’. The transmission line and pipeline will be either within the
Historical Resource or at the very southern border of the resource. And the transmission line will have
a significant visual impact on the resource, from the crest of the hill, from the two known entrance
trails, or when Napamu’ is viewed from the vantage of Alisal Road or other nearby locales. This
impact will affect the qualities that contribute to the significance of the resource, specifically the
appreciation of and reverence for Napamu’ as a significant ceremonial and spiritual site and
repository of sacred power for the Tribe. We recommend therefore that the transmission lines be
placed underground between the reservoir and the pumps in the Santa Ynez riverbed to reduce the
visual impact of the transmission lines to less than significant. If placing the transmission lines
underground is not feasible, we recommend a design alternative that would place the lines well to the
south or north to reduce the visual impact of the lines. In this regard we concur with the
recommendation of the Tribe to place the transmission lines underground (Santa Ynez Band of
Chumash Indians, Appeal:7).
Will the project impact archaeological resources at Napamu’?
The archaeological survey (Maki 2010) and Extended Phase I investigation (Haslauer 2010) did not
reveal the presence of cultural materials. We concur with these investigators’ finding that no further
archaeological investigation or monitoring is required at the site and do not concur with the Tribe’s
request for full-time monitoring during the construction of the project facilities (Santa Ynez Band of
Chumash Indians Appeal: 5–7). We concur with the investigators’ standard disclaimer that there is
always the possibility of encountering cultural materials in such environments, and that if materials
are discovered during project construction, full archaeological investigation and treatment should
resume, with full Tribal participation.
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Will the project impact access to Napamu’?
Alisal Ranch has maintained for several years a no-trespass policy for Ranch lands including
Napamu’. This policy was affirmed during our conversation with a Ranch representative XIII. While
we are not certain on this matter, we do not have direct testimony from Tribal respondents that
anyone from the Tribe has approached Alisal Ranch for access to Napamu’ other than the
recommendations made by the Tribe as part of the review of the reservoir project. We know of one
incident of clandestine traditional practice at Napamu’, although it is possible that Napamu’ has been
visited at other times without the Ranch’s knowledge or permission.
None of the project facilities will alter physical access to Napamu’, should access be granted to the
Tribe by Alisal Ranch. Both trails to the crest of the hill would remain unobstructed, nor would other
points of access, including overland access around the eastern flank of the hill be obstructed.
Therefore we do not believe that the project will impact the present well-established routes visitors
have used to visit the crest of the hill.
The reservoir, pipeline, transmission line, and increased agricultural activity will create changes in the
viewshed from the crest of Napamu’ and the appearance of Napamu’ from other nearby vantage
points. These project impacts will alter the elements of Napamu’ that make it significant to the Tribe,
specifically the spiritual power ascribed to Napamu’ by the Tribe, and the place of Napamu’ in the
small number of such sacred sites and locales in and around the Santa Ynez Valley. We understand
the Tribe’s interest in gaining access to Napamu’, however we do not see granting of access as
mitigation for the impacts discussed above. We look to the policies and actions set forth in the Santa
Ynez Valley Community Plan (SYVCP) as a potential remedy for the Tribe’s interest in access. The
SYVCP recognized the importance of access to traditional sacred places (Policy HA SYV-4) and
recommends continued consultation to ensure access to sites (Action HA SYV-4.3).
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