From the Ventura County Star:

T.O. turns 40 | Chumash influence lingers

LONG AGO VILLAGES / CONEJO VALLEY’S EARLY RESIDENTS WERE PEACEFUL

By Kitty Dill kdill@VenturaCountyStar.com

July 30, 2004

If sage and chaparral could whisper, what tales they might share with their landscape sentinels, the oaks.

Their whispers from thousands of years ago would mix with the sounds of the Conejo Valley's earliest inhabitants, who anthropologists call the Oak Grove people because of their dependence on oak trees as part of a basic food supply.

The whispers would blow over the Chumash, said to be some 30,000 strong from Monterey County southward, including the Channel Islands. They were expert traders and skilled in basketry, woodworking and canoeing, living along the coast and inland. Their diet included acorns.

Though the original villages are gone, the lifestyles and contributions of the Chumash are displayed in two cultural centers in the Conejo Valley.

"We've been in a renaissance for the last 15 or 20 years," said Julie Tumamait, who presides over monthly gatherings at one center. "We're learning a culture that was pretty much stripped away."

Forty years ago, when the city of Thousand Oaks first put itself on the map by incorporating, little remained in the Conejo Valley to remind residents of the Chumash.

As the city has become known for its open space, the community has also developed resources that reach back to the native peoples who appreciated that open space, too.

To bring the Chumash to life, Tumamait dons full regalia and presents Chumash artifacts and replicas at special events throughout the county.

An Ojai resident, Tumamait says Chumash is a short form of Michumash, generally translated as "place of the islanders" and refers to Channel Islands dwellers.

Chairwoman of the Chumash Barbareno-Ventureno Band of Mission Indians, Tumamait presides over monthly gatherings at the Oakbrook Regional Park Chumash Interpretive Center in Thousand Oaks.

Nestled in the city's eastern hills, the Oakbrook center sits on 425 acres and offers an American Indian museum. Visitors can take a nature walk to its Chumash Village, and further on, inspect caves containing ancient pictographs.

The valley's second resource center is across town, near an old Chumash trade route that cuts through the Santa Monica Mountains. The Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center stands amid rolling, grassy hills near the top of Sycamore Canyon, a natural connection between the Conejo Valley and the Pacific Ocean.

These days the winds that blow through Satwiwa seem kind as the center marks its 25th year in partnership with the National Park Service. Satwiwa, which means "the bluffs," offers a gallery, bookstore and cultural presentations and sits in the shadow of magnificent Boney Mountain. While Satwiwa initially focused on the Chumash, it has since embraced all other ethnic groups, she said.

"At Satwiwa, we have dances and talks," said Jan Cleary of Thousand Oaks, Satwiwa's program coordinator. "We're happenin' now."

But that popularity wasn't always so for the American Indians who inhabited the Conejo Valley.

Charlie Cooke, hereditary chief of the Chumash, spent most of his life in Ventura County. In an interview recorded Jan. 30, 1985, by the Conejo Valley Historical Society, Cooke spoke of five major Chumash groups, each with its own location and dialect "but they all were very close."

The Chumash lived next to nature, taking what they needed from the environment. The Chumash trade route cut through the Santa Monica Mountains and Sycamore Canyon, near a Chumash village and sacred Boney Mountain overlooking Newbury Park.

"The Chumash has always been a friendly, happy, welcoming culture and considered wealthy because of trading" habits, Cleary said. "We didn't have to be warriors because we had everything to sustain ourselves."

That shifted with the arrival of European civilization, first in 1542 via Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who sailed along the coast, followed six decades later by explorer Sebastian Vizcaino. In 1769, California was folded into the Spanish Empire as Father Junipero Serra and Capt. Gaspar de Portola launched an expedition to colonize and convert the Indians into Roman Catholics and Spanish citizens. Missions fostered development of the ranchos, huge Spanish estates.

In 1803, two grants were carved out, Rancho Simi and Rancho El Conejo, the latter 48,672 acres given to two Santa Barbara Presidio soldiers, Ignacio Rodriguez and Jose Polanco.

In 1822, with Army officer Jose de la Guerra petitioning the government for Polanco's claim, the land began transferring among owners.

By 1848, with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo, the Chumash were woven into the Spanish-Mexican culture.

Cooke said the Spaniards took people from the Conejo Valley to missions in Ventura and San Fernando. The Chumash did not go willingly into the mission environment, where they were identified as Mission Indians, said Cleary.

Today, while missions are part of elementary school curricula, information on the Chumash may be tougher to come by. While some have called the Chumash extinct, the tribe's culture is alive and thriving, said Cleary.

"It's not only OK to be Native American but very popular to be Indian," said Cleary, herself of Yaqui and Mohawk heritage. She said she believes contemporary Chumash have "made a great deal of progress" raising consciousness.

Still, she said, "the average person thinks that every Indian wants to put up a casino. Not so."

In the 15 years Tumamait has been re-creating ancestral portraits, she's seen an increase in those researching their heritage.

"They don't want stereotypes; they want the truth," Tumamait said. "It's exciting to see."