Why did the chumash trade for steatite

The bigger and fancier the bead the more it was worth. They were worth more depending on how hard they were to make and how often it could be used.

The Chumash were superior traders that would always be searching for a good bargain. The Chumash were well known traders who exchanged items all the way up to Arizona and the Mountain Region! The Chumash were the main suppliers of the shell economy, which made amazing canoes that other tribes would die for. The Chumash were traders that ran the trade of the coast.

California Indians. Search this site. Map of Tribal Groups. Maidu Clothing and Appearance. Maidu Hunting. Maidu Trading. Miwok Clothing. Miwok Indians Food. Miwok Hunting. Cahuilla Food. Cahuilla Roles. Mojave Villages. Mojave Tools and Weapons. Fun Facts About the Mojave Indains. Yurok Villages. Yurok Food.

Yurok Clothing. Yurok Crafts. Yurok Customs. Pomo Food. Pomo Shelter. Pomo Tools and Weapons. Sometimes whale bones or vertebrae could be used for furniture or supports. Each village had a chief or wot , who was its leader. The wot usually had a council of advisors. Sometimes there were groups of villages organized together under a paqwot , who was a major chieftain.

In the village there would usually be a temescal or sweat house. It is a closed building dug into the earth with a small door. In the middle a fire was built in order to create a hot atmosphere that would encourage sweating. Like other California Indians, the Chumash people would use the temescal like a sauna, to cleanse and refresh themselves.

After spending time in the temescal, they would often bathe themselves in cold water. The Chumash were very talented artists. Some of the most striking examples of their culture are the rock paintings, known as pictographs. Many of these brightly-colored paintings were left on cliffs and in caverns in very mountainous and hard to reach locations, often near a spring or another source of running water, like a stream.

Most Chumash pictographs are very abstract and made up of symbols, but sometimes they represent recognizable objects, like animals.

A single rock could have hundreds of designs on it. There were certainly other encounters between Chumash and Spanish and other Europeans. As time went on, the Spanish and Chumash began a close relationship of trade and work.

In , however, during the Mexican period, there was a large revolt of Chumash people against the government because of difficult working conditions at the missions.

The revolt eventually came to an end, but tensions lingered for many years. His great desire was to attract the them to Christianity and build a mission in Chumash territory. He accomplished this at the end of his life in , with the founding of Mission San Buenaventura in the vicinity of a number of villages. There were more missions established among the Chumash than among any other Native American group in California. By the early s, almost all of the Chumash had joined these missions.

Read more about native life at the Santa Ynez mission. These books have helped me understand more about the Chumash. Click on the link to find the book in Amazon. An introduction to the Chumash people. Damian Bacich, Ph. He founded the California Frontier Project to share the stories of California's roots. You can learn more about Damian here. Reach him at damian californiafrontier.

Skip to primary navigation Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar The Chumash are a widespread group of California native people who lived along the southern California coast and the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. Maidu Clothing and Appearance. Maidu Hunting. Maidu Trading. Miwok Clothing. Miwok Indians Food. Miwok Hunting. Cahuilla Food. Cahuilla Roles. Mojave Villages. Mojave Tools and Weapons. Fun Facts About the Mojave Indains. Yurok Villages. Yurok Food. Yurok Clothing.

Yurok Crafts. Yurok Customs. Pomo Food.