The Chumash resided between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the California coasts where a bounty of resources could be found. The shamans participated in the carving which was used in observations of the stars and in part of the Chumash calendar. The scorpion tree was significant to the Chumash as shown in its arborglyph: a carving depicting a six-legged creature with a headdress including a crown and two spheres. Much of their culture consisted of basketry, bead manufacturing and trading, cuisine of local abalone and clam, herbalism which consisted of using local herbs to produce teas and medical reliefs, rock art, and the scorpion tree. "Marine productivity soared between 9 as natural upwelling intensified off the coast." Before the mission period, the Chumash lived in over 150 independent villages, speaking variations of the same language. While droughts were not uncommon in the centuries of the first millennium AD, a population explosion occurred with the coming of the medieval warm period. The Chumash tribes near the coast benefited most with the "close juxtaposition of a variety of marine and terrestrial habitats, intensive upwelling in coastal waters, and intentional burning of the landscape made the Santa Barbara Channel region one of the most resource abundant places on the planet." Chumash Family by American sculptor George S. The name Chumash means "bead maker" or "seashell people" being that they originated near the Santa Barbara coast. During that time, people used bipointed bone objects and line to catch fish and began making beads from shells of the marine olive snail ( Olivella biplicata). Sites of the Millingstone Horizon date from 7000 to 4500 BC and show evidence of a subsistence system focused on the processing of seeds with metates and manos. Indigenous peoples have lived along the California coast for at least 11,000 years. Pictographs, Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park Prior to European contact (pre-1542) History Chumash pictographs in Simi Valley dating to 500 AD. Modern place names with Chumash origins include Malibu, Nipomo, Lompoc, Ojai, Pismo Beach, Point Mugu, Port Hueneme, Piru, Lake Castaic, Saticoy, Simi Valley and Somis.Īrchaeological research demonstrates that the Chumash people have deep roots in the Santa Barbara Channel area and lived along the southern California coast for millennia. Their territory included three of the Channel Islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel the smaller island of Anacapa was likely inhabited seasonally due to the lack of a consistent water source. Despite the apocalyptic landscape in which the characters live, they can plant acorns both metaphorically and literally in the “good ground” of their community and thereby find hope in a new, better way of life.The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu in the south to Mt Pinos in the east. Acorns are, after all, a type of seed, and the Biblical Parable of the Sower after which the book is named-and which is included in full at the very end of the narrative-focuses on the importance of planting seeds in “good ground” in order for those seeds to grow and flourish. This also links the community’s home base to the religious principles around which they have congregated: Earthseed. Fittingly, the new community decide to call their home “Acorn” as a tribute to this sense of new life in the midst of death and destruction. Acorns fall from grown trees and are planted in soil, feeding on the nutrients provided by dead plants in order to grow into new trees. Again, this emphasizes the extent to which acorns symbolize the rebirth that is inherent within the natural world. Acorns are also important at the very end of the novel, when the group of people who settle on Bankole’s property decide to ritualistically plant oak trees using acorns as part of their mass funeral. This demonstrates Lauren’s father’s belief in innovatively creating (or recreating) new ways of living, a principle he passed onto his daughter. It is only later that Lauren’s father explains that they make and consume acorn bread because he read in a book that Native Americans used acorns in this manner. When Lauren is living with her family in the neighborhood, they regularly eat acorn bread. Acorns feature throughout the book as a symbol of new life, hope, and possibility.
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