| Imagine Lompoc a few hundred years ago...without streets,
without stores, without lights...it was a quiet world where the condors'
wings filled the air and mountain lion and grizzly roamed the chaparral
hills.
It was a tranquil world, and a good life. The Chumash
Indians lived from Malibu to San Luis Obispo in villages along the coast
and inland where the climate was gentle and the food bountiful.
The Chumash did not cultivate or raise any of the their
food. A major part of their diet was shellfish and other sea life.
Good hunters, the Indians tracked deer and other wild game. The versatile
acom was a staple. A whale stranded on the beach was an occasion for feasting.
Food was plentiful for these subsistence people.
The Chumash made no metal artifacts; everything they used
was made from stone, shell, bone wood, and plant fibers. Superb craftsmen,
they wove beautiful baskets and created superb wooden bowls.
Supreme achievement was the tomol, or canoe. An
ingeniously constructed and swift-moving boat for fishing and journeys
to the Channel Islands.
For shelter: well-built dwellings constructed on
a framework of poles and covered with the tule grasses. Several families
lived together in these houses which may have been as large as thirty
feet or more in diameter.
Music and games figured importantly in the lives of these
artistic, sensitive Indians. The Chumash belonged to one language group,
but spoke differing dialects in different districts.
At the time of the founding of the Missions, possibly
10,000 or more Chumash lived in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis
Obispo Counties. Few descendants remain. Scant records were kept and little
contemporary information is available. Gaps in our knowledge of the Chumash
are being filled by ongoing research in archaeology and anthropology.
Most of the various kinds of artifacts used are on view
in the Lompoc Museum. A stone bowl, a perfectly flaked arrowhead,
the replica of a mysterious pictograph tell a story of the Chumash Indians
of the past. |
