CA Forum on Anthropology in Public: The Making of Chumash Tradition: Replies to Haley and Wilcoxon Jon Mc Vey Erlandson Current Anthropology, Vol. 39, No. 4. (Aug. - Oct., 1998), pp. 477-510. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0011-3204%28199808%2F10%2939%3A4%3C477%3ACFOAIP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q Current Anthropology is currently published by The University of Chicago Press.
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C U R R E NA T NTHROPOLOGY Volume 39, Number 4, August/October 1998 O 1998 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved
CA* FORUM ON ANTHROPOLOGY IN PUBLIC
The Making of Chumash Tradition Replies to Haley and Wilcoxon
J O N MC VEY ERLANDSON
Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Ore 97403-1218, U.S.A. 2 1 IV 98 In a provocative essay on the development of Chumash identity, the perception of the sacredness of Point Conception, and the roles anthropologists have played in defining the concept of "Chumash" culture, Haley and Wilcoxon (CA 38:761-94) effectively illustrate many of the complexities and ambiguities involved in the creation and perception of ethnic identities in modern multicultural societies. The commentators-unfortunately not including Chumash, other Native Americans, or other California archaeologists-are for the most Dart laudatorv and with Halev and Wilcoxon's reply explore some important points and ethical dilemmas that should be seriously considered by anthropologists who work with indigenous peoples. Some of the most important points made, it seems to me, include the fact that all cultures are complex entities that constantly reinvent themselves; that because of this complexity dichotomous, oppositional, or "normative" portrayals of cultures tend to fail; that "traditional" views often differ from supposedly empirical or scientific facts,, iust as scientific internretations of those "facts" , differ from one another; and that Native Americans, anthropologists, and other scientists-including Haley and Wilcoxon-cannot completely divorce themselves from their own subjective interpretations. As an archaeologist I too have worked with the Chumash for over 20 years, although my experience is primarily in helping Chumash groups preserve the archaeological sites of the area that has come to be known as Chumash territory. As a fellow alumnus of the University of California at Santa Barbara, I have also worked for years with Wilcoxon and Haley. Although both are old friends and respected colleagues, I find aspects of their article and some of the comments on it deeply
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troubling. My concerns revolve mostly around pragmatic rather than theoretical issues: ( I )the artificial polarization of "traditional" and "nontraditional" groups among the Chumash and their anthropological "allies"; ( 2 ) the portrayal of the "sacredness" of Point Conception as clearly erroneous and the involvement of anthropologists in the definition of the "Western Gate" as conspiratorial or unethical; (3) certain interpretations that are presented-and uncritically accepted by most commentators-as facts: and lal the lack of aclznowledgment of the authors' own io'le in a highly charged political and economic struggle between anthropologists and Native Americans over control of the interpretation, management, and possession of heritage resources. Exploration of these issues shows that Chumash origins and identity, the sacredness of Point Conception, and the roles anthropologists have played in interpreting and managing Chumash heritage are much less contentious or less ambiguous than Haley and Wilcoxon suggest.' Some historical background. The Santa Barbara Channel area, the core of Chumash territory, is now known to have been occupied for at least I ~ , o o oyears (Erlandson 1994; Erlandson, Cooley, and Carrico 1987, 1996).Prior to European contact, as many as 25,000 people may have lived in Chumash territory. That the term "Chumash" was chosen for these people by anthropologists is largely irrelevant: the indigenous people of the area spoke related dialects of the same language group, intermarried primarily within and among these related groups, and were marked archaeologically, historically, and ethnographically by a similar suite of cultural traits and traditions. These similarities were perceived by some of the earliest anthropologists and have withstood the test of time. Today, most researchers consider it likely that the larger Santa Barbara Channel region occupied by the Chumash has experienced substantial cultural continuity spanning at least several millennia (e.g., Landberg 1965; Hoover 1971:261; King 1990; Erlandson 1994:43; Glassow 1997:89).That today we call these related ~ e o v l e sChumash and that their descendants (atleast ior how) accept that designation is consistent with the histories or relationships constructed by government agents, anthropologists, linguists, historians, and others who have worked with various Native American tribes. Embracing the term "Chumash" over the generic "Mission Indians" was wholly logical for both scholars and Indian people, who were interested in knowing the specific histories of various social, ethnic, and linguistic groups. For some, "Mission Indians" also had a pejorative connotation (not unlike "digger" Indians) and did not reflect the fact that many California Indian people did not become part of the Spanish mission system. Like virtually every Native American tribe and many I . I am indebted to Madonna L. Moss, Richard G. Fox, John Ruiz, Larry Gamica Jr., John R. Johnson, Marlz Tveslzov, and Rene Vellanoweth for comments and discussions that contributed significantly to this paper. Despite the assistance of these individuals, the interpretations and opinions expressed here are peculiarly my own.
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other indigenous peoples around the world, the Chumash of today are the survivors of an apocalyptic history of European and Euro-American contact, colonialism, territorial disenfranchisement, attempted cultural genocide, persecution, and prejudice. For the Chumash these destructive processes may have begun with the transmission of Old World infectious diseases during the "protohistoric" period, as much as 227 years prior to the institution of the mission system in A.D. 1769 (Erlandson and Bartoy 1995, Preston 1996). During the mission period (A.D.1769-1832)~many Chumash were enticed or coerced into the missions, where Franciscan priests did their best to Christianize them and forcefully suppress native traditions. Most scholars agree that in the decades after the missions were established over 90% of the Chumash perished from foreign diseases, violence, and neglect. Huge tracts of Chumash land were stolen by the Spanish, while other "mission lands" were supposedly held in sacred trust for the Chumash by the Catholic church. Mexican independence in 1821, followed by the secularization of the missions in 1834 and the American annexation of California in 1848, completed the theft of Chumash land. Despite systematic attempts to eradicate Chumash and other California Indian cultures, traditional beliefs and rituals persisted (Castillo 1978:104).After decades of being told that their ancestral cultures were wicked, barbaric, decadent, inferior, or extinct, many Native Californians went underground with their cultural identity. They intermarried with others of various racial or ethnic identities, and many denied their Indian heritage to the public, friends, and even family. Fortunately, recognizing a potentially tragic loss of indigenous knowledge, a few dedicated anthropologists and historians collaborated with knowledgeable Chu" mash elders to record vast amounts of information on Chumash history, technology, and tradition. Rather than meddling in the construction of Chumash identity or culture, the work of Harrington and others with Chumash elders can be seen as a collaborative effort to preserve Chumash traditions for future generations of Chumash descendants, scholars. and the interested public. This body of information, much of it unpublished until recently, can be seen as a type of insurance Chumash elders provided against the loss of traditional knowledge that had once been handed down through ancient mechanisms of oral history, active training, and public recitation that were difficult to sustain after the postcontact apocalypse. In the 1960s~Native Americans and other ethnic minorities in the United States began openly declaring their ethnic or cultural heritage, rediscovering their roots," celebrating their past, and assertively combating some of the stereotypes, prejudices, and social restrictions inflicted on them and their ancestors. This is the context in which manv Chumash "discovered" their heritage in the 1960s-a truly remarkable and continental or even global process of cultural survival and revival. For the first time, after decades of governI/
mental policies and social attitudes designed to force the assimilation of Indians into the American "melting pot," it was socially acceptable to be Chumash and to be proud of it. Children whose parents had often told them they were of Spanish or Mexican heritage in a benign attempt to protect them learned from relatives that they had "Indian blood." The identical process took place among descendants of Indian tribes all across America. As Haley and Wilcoxon themselves note, the fact that many Chumash only "discovered" or proclaimed their Indian ancestry in the 1960s in no way invalidates their claims as Chumash descendants. More than many California Indian tribes, in fact, they are aided by the vast gift of knowledge passed on by their ancestors and published by a new generation of anthropologists (e.g.,Blaclzburn 197s; Hudson, Timbrook, and Rempe 1978; Hudson and Blackburn 1979; Hudson 1979; Hudson et al. 1981; Walker and Hudson 1993) in focusing cultural revitalization efforts more on authentic traditions than on pan-Indian beliefs. The polarization of the Chumash and allies. Haley and Wilcoxon present a grossly oversimplified picture of modern Chumash society as polarized into "Traditionalist" and "nontraditionalist" camps. In fact, the 3,000 or more people who today identify themselves as having Chumash ancestry include individuals or families that are Catholic, Protestant, pagan, atheist, and others. Many of these individuals, regardless of religious faith, are involved to varying degrees in reviving earlier Chumash traditions: religious, ceremonial, medicinal, artistic, technological, and others. Furthermore, during the past 30 years many "nontraditionalist" Chumash individuals have gradually evolved into what Haley and Wilcoxon would probably label Traditionalists. For a varietv of reasons, manv other individuals of Chumash ancestry have not declared themselves "Chumash" or actively participated in resurrecting aspects of "traditional" Chumash culture. More of these individuals will undoubtedlv so identifv themselves in the future as positive public expressions and acceptance of Chumash ancestry and heritage continue to develop. The Chumash community cannot, therefore, be effectively divided into Traditionalist and nontraditionalist. As Trigger (1997:786) also notes, classifying the Chumash into two or more "types" is an attempt to divide a continuous and complex range of human behavior into arbitrary and dubious categories. Haley and Wilcoxon (pp. 762, 777) themselves question the utility of such oppositional or arbitrary divisions but then use an equally simplistic dichotomy to create the impression of an unusually polarized or factionalized Chumash communitv. Because 'of their unique history, virtually all Chumash are also descended in part from non-Chumashwhite, Hispanic, other Native American, and so on. Over the years, many Chumash people have openly discussed their multicultural heritage with me. Chumash descendants have often argued for the preservation of archaeological sites associated with the mission, the
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Mexican, or the American period-including sites that bear no direct relationship to the Chumash people-as part of the shared multicultural heritage of all Californians. There are Chumash descendants who assert that they are more traditional than others, but these come from a variety of groups, including the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation, the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, and others. I am not suggesting that Chumash society is not factionalized and dynamic. What human society is not, especially in times of wrenching sociopolitical change? In fact, anthropologists and others have sometimes encouraged the factionalization of the Chumash community by spreading rumors and innuendo about individuals, families, or groups. Such acts can be seen as modern examples of the divide-and-conquer strategies used for centuries by Europeans against North American societies. Like the Chumash, the anthropological community cannot be divided into "allies" of Traditionalist versus nontraditionalist Chumash groups. I am obliquely referred to as one of the "long-standing archaeologist allies" of one Chumash group (p. 787))but this characterization does an iniustice to mv historv of work with multiple Chumash groups. I have worked extensively with members of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation and recently served as senior archaeologist for an archaeological project administered by their cultural resource consulting group (Hutash Consultants), but I have also worked extensively with Chumash descendants from the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation and other groups. Years ago, believing that Indian people should play an active role in managing their past, I also worked as an archaeologist for Cultural Resource Consultants, a firm that operated out of the multitribal (and now defunct) Santa Barbara Indian Center. In the 1980s~as principal investigator of cultural resources studies associated with the planning and construction of Chevron's Point Argue110 oil and gas pipeline and processing facilities near Gaviota (see Erlandson et al. 19931, I helped put together teams of Native American monitors that incorporated roughly equal numbers of Chumash descendants from the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation and the Coastal Band. In fact, various Chumash groups have effectively worked together to help preserve and protect their past on a number of large cultural resource projects in Santa Barbara County over the years. As a professional archaeologist I consider my foremost ethical responsibility to be the preservation of archaeological sites, the material record of human history that I study-a goal greatly enhanced by collaborating with Chumash tribal members. Over the years I have encouraged various Chumash groups to work together, recognizing that a more united Chumash front would lead to the more effective preservation of Chumash archaeological sites. As far as I know, there has never been a monopoly of cultural resource monitors by any particular Chumash group. On the scores of projects I have been involved in, active collaboration between groups-or agreement that specific
The Making of Chumash Tradition 1479
groups would cover cultural resource work in specific areas-has been more common than factionalized disagreement. As in any society, there have been some passionate disagreements between Chumash individuals or groups, but the idea that a Traditionalist monopoly has been enforced through " unilateral "threats of violence" (p. 767) is completely at odds with my years of experience. Debating the sacredness of Point Conception. Haley and Wilcoxon present an interesting reanalysis of the sacredness of Point Conception, sometimes referred to as the "Western Gate," through which many believe that Native American dead Dass on their wav to the afterworld. As collectors and interpreters of Chumash oral histories, anthropologists have played a significant role in defining the sacred nature of Point Conception. When the area was proposed as the site of a highly unpopular liquefied natural gas (LNG)plant, the sacredness of Point Conception became one of several issues used by activists aLd landowners opposed to the proposed development. The occupation of the Point Conception area by Chumash people, supported by the American Indian Movement and other groups, became a catalyst and a definitive event in the cultural revival of the Chumash. It also marked an ascendancy of Chumash political power, especially after Chumash opposition helped cause substantial delays that exposed a weak market for LNG and other problems that ultimately caused the project to be withdrawn. This series of events put developers and others on notice that the Chumash were a political force to be reckoned with. I was only peripherally involved with the LNG project, and neither Wilcoxon or Haley played any role as far as I know. Thus none of us have any firsthand knowledge about how the associated cultural resource investigations or the environmental opposition to the project developed. I do know many of the Chumash individuals who h e l ~ e dlead the occu~ationof Point Conception, I accompanied Chumash activists on one of their early protests on the site, and I visited the occupational encampment once in its heyday. I know from personal experience that many of the Chumash and other Native American protesters camped near Point Conception for months without pay, some giving up their jobs or leaving their families in the conviction that the area had to be protected. Even in an abstract sense, money was not a motivating factor for those protecting Point Conception-that large cultural resource monitoring contracts might be obtained in years to come was unknown at the time. The Chumash occupying Point Conception were compelled to do so by their emerging worldviews, the activism of the 1960s and 1970s~and their sincere belief that the area was sacred to their ancestors. Although they apparently concluded that Point Conception itself qualified as a traditional cultural property, Haley and Wilcoxon (p. 776) note that their interpretation of the Point Conception case "conflicts sharply with Chumash Traditionalist beliefs." They accuse
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other anthropologists of remaining silent about contradictions in oral histories or embellishing interpretations of the data. Having never examined the original documents and never having had any reason to doubt the sacredness of Point Conception to the Chumash, I willingly plead guilty to having remained silent on this issue. Reading Haley and Wilcoxon's interpretations, however, it seems to me that a reasonable case can be made that Point Conception was, in fact, sacred to many or most Chumash people during and prior to the mission period. Of 10 Chumash elders Harrington interviewed who were knowledgeable about pre-mission matters, three (Maria Solares, Juan Justo, and Luisa Ygnacio) provided supporting evidence that Point Conception was associated with the souls of the dead, three others were daughters or granddaughters of Luisa Ygnacio whose beliefs on the subject are not described, and several others provided statements that supported the widespread belief in a land of the dead across the sea to the west. Since Solares provided a detailed account of Point Conception as a sacred place-a place the Chumash were cautioned to avoid-Haley and Wilcoxon take special care to question her credibility by noting that she was part Yolzuts, raised by whites, rejected by her uncle as a potential medicine woman, and allegedly changed her story slightly from previous accounts. Citing Johnson (1988236)~Haley and Wilcoxon suggest that "Solares conflated Yokuts and Chumash kinship data" and that she may have been "confused." The im~licationthat Solares was "mistaken" reflects the anthropologist's need to fit data into neat categories (Yokuts versus Chumash in this case), the very bounded and arbitrary definitions they criticize. Solares's experience, like that of many Native Americans, reflects the long history of intermarriage between Native American groups and the permeability of the boundaries anthropologists have often imposed upon them. To counter Solares's clear account of the sacredness of Point Conception, a crucial element of Haley and Wilcoxon's analysis is the testimony of Fernando Librado, who claimed that the dead did not go to Point Conception. Isn't it possible, however, that Libradowho lived and worked for years on a ranch around Point Conception, breaking a strong taboo if Solarests account is true-might deny the sacred nature of the area to himself or to an anthropologist? Accounts of shrines located elsewhere in Chumash territory are also presented bv Halev and Wilcoxon as evidence that not all souls left the earth from Point Conception, but local shrines are widely known among the Chumash, and their existence does not mean that Chumash souls did not pass sacred ground at Point Conception on their way to the west. In fact, Point Conception is located west of the most heavily populated Chumash territory, including some of the shrines mentioned by Haley and Wilcoxon. As they themselves admit, the lack of Purisimeno and Obispeno accounts about Point Conception mav result from the dearth of information collected from these groups, so the lack of such accounts can hardly be definitive evidence that Point Conception
was not sacred to many Chumash. In fact, shouldn't anthropologists and historians expect substantial losses of traditional knowledge after the apocalyptic Spanish, Mexican, and early American periods? Ultimately, Haley and Wilcoxon's argument that the sacredness of Point Conception may have been limited to a small group of people is unconvincing, as is their suggestion that its modern significance is primarily the product of anthropological intrigue and recent Chumash myth making. It seems to me that an objective anthropologist could easily (and ethically) conclude that Point Conception was sacred to many Chumash people, both past and present. The breadth of the precontact sacredness of Point conception and its eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places may be debatable, but few Indian people will care about such anthropological debates. For them, the significance of Point Conce~tionlies not iust in its ancient sacredness but also in tge transformative role it played in the revitalization of Chumash culture. The guidelines for the evaluation of traditional cultural properties (Parker and King 1990) clearly indicate that both contemporary and ancient significance are key criteria for placing sacred sites on the National Register of Historic Places-criteria that seem to be met 1% the case of the specific Point Conception area. Rumors, facts, and innuendo. I have personal knowledge or experience that contradicts several of Haley and Wilcoxon's assertions or renders their conclusions ambiguous. These assertions include ( I )that Family A and many Traditionalists are unrelated to the indigenous peoples of the area, ( 2 )that one so-called Traditionalist group negotiated lucrative monitoring contracts and obtained land by cutting "the best deal it could" when a pipeline was to be built within a mile of Point Conception, and (3) that members of the same "nondescendant" group have recently "become archaeologists" in forming a full-service cultural resource consulting group. According to Haley and Wilcoxon (p. 767))the mysterious Family A, portrayed as the "core of the region's Traditionalist movement," is biologically unrelated to the indigenous people of the Santa Barbara area. Their sources for this revelation are mostlv, un~ublishedland sometimes unavailable) technical reports or manuscripts that have not undergone peer review, brief scholarly discussions with few or no supporting data other than those un~ublishedaccounts, mass media stories. and their ow; inside knowledge: Anyone knowledge: able about Chumash affairs knows that Family A is the familv of Madelaine Tukuloc Hall, a charismatic matriarch who died in 1987. In the I ~ ~ Othe S , eminent scholar of Chumash culture Travis Hudson of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History established the Chumash roots of Madelainels family by tracing its genealogy in the Franciscan mission records. This research was also a catalyst for a collaborative project constructing a replica of the Chumash tom01 (plank boat) and a cross-channel tom01 voyage by a Native American crew made up primarily of members of FamL
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ily A (see Hudson, Timbrook, and Rempe 1978).In fact, Hudson et al.'s book was dedicated to ethnohistorically documented members of the Brotherhood of the Canoe (Tomol) and the modern Chumash crewmen of the Helek. This voyage was critical to the Chumash revival movement, leading to the reconstitution of the Brotherhood of the Tomol, encouraging contacts between local Native Americans and anthropologists, and making the local scholarly community, governmental entities, and general public aware that a sizable and concerned Native American community existed in their midst. Archaeologists soon actively encouraged Chumash descendants to participate in archaeological projects and historic preservation. Such efforts included a 1977-78 archaeological survey of lands administered by the County of Santa Barbara, in which I was one of a team consisting of two archaeologists and four Native Americans trained by Wilcoxon (Erlandson 1978).Projects like these quickly established the members of what became the United Chumash Council and later the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation as some of the most visible and experienced of local Native American cultural resource personnel. The Chumash-led occupation of Point Conception in 1978 was spearheaded by some of the same individuals. By the early 1980s~California archaeology was riding a tremendous wave of growth due to the implementation of federal and state environmental and historic preservation legislation. With the discovery of substantial oil and natural gas deposits in the waters off Point Conception and Point Arguello, planning began for several pipeline and processing facilities within Chumash territory. By this time, Chumash representatives from both on and off the reservation had become quite astute at working with developers to help protect archaeological sites from damage or destruction. When Chevron USA went public as the head of a consortium of oil companies planning to build a drilling platform off Point Arguello and oil and gas pipelines connecting the platform to a processing plant near Gaviota, one of the first groups they contacted was the coastal Chumash. Chumash representatives asked Chevron to put me in charge of the cultural resource investigations, a large and complicated project I reluctantly agreed to undertake soon after moving to Seattle. I attended numerous planning meetings and public hearings in which it was clear that county, state, and federal officials would all approve the project. Under extreme pressure, the Chumash at one point terminated negotiations in protest of the proximity of the project to Point Conception and its potential effects on archaeological sites. Later, with promises that Chevron would move as far as possible from Point Conception and avoid all cemeteries and every possible archaeological site, the Chumash agreed to participate in the project to project the sites they considered sacred. As I participated fully in these negotiations, I know that no cynical quid pro quo ever transpired between Chevron and the Chumash. In fact, the Chumash and I remained a thorn in Chevron's side to the very end, constantly pushing for avoidance of even
T h e Making of C h u m a s h Tradition ( 481
small archaeological sites and persuading Chevron to take unprecedented measures to limit impacts to sites that could not be avoided. Over $2 million were spent on these cultural resource studiesI2about I % of the total project costs. Considerable amounts of this money went to Chumash monitors, but archaeologists, other environmental consulting firms, and construction companies earned far more. Nonetheless, media accounts of the time accused Chumash monitors of profiteering at the expense of their heritage. Another unsubstantiated rumor started at this time, repeated by Haley and Wilcoxon (p. 772))was that the coastal Chumash had been bought off by Chevron, which gave them property in exchange for allowing the desecration of sacred lands near Point Conce~tion.The Chumash were given property by Chevron aAd its partners, but they were not bought off by the oil companies. In 1980, two members of the Brotherhood of the Tomol doctored Norm Paulsen, the leader of a large Santa Barbara-based commune that ran a commercial enterprise known as Sunburst Farms. In gratitude, Paulsen gave the Brotherhood I 3 acres of land in a small canyon near Gaviota. Several Indian families moved onto the property, occupying an existing cabin and building four new houses. In 1984, however, Chevron USA proposed to build a crude oil and natural gas processing plant immediately adjacent to the community. Safety regulations mandated that the two could not coexist, requiring that Chevron acquire the adjacent property. By this time, Sunburst Farms was bankrupt and the Gaviota property had been sold. The Brotherhood of the Tomol had filed a lien on the property to protect its contractual rights with Paulsen. Thus Chevron could not purchase the land and negotiated with the Brotherhood to move it out of the canyon. In return for its giving up its claim to the property and the loss of the houses built on it, Chevron eventually gave the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation 95 acres of undeveloped land a few kilometers to the east. The acquisition of this property had nothing to do with allowing Chevron to build a pipeline near Point Conception; it compensated the Chumash for the loss of their land and houses. Today this 95-acre parcel is owned jointly by over 800 members of the Coastal Band and is regularly used for Chumash cultural gatherings and educational programs. It was in the mid-1o8os that the rumor started that influential members of the Chumash Indian community-Family A-were of Mexican and not Chumash descent. Concerned about the repercussions of such claims for the effective management of cultural resource studies on the Chevron Project, I scheduled a meeting with John Johnson, Travis Hudson's successor 2 . The Chevron project also contributed to numerous scientific publications (e.g., Erlandson 1985, 1988a,b,c, 199 I , 1994, 1997; Erlandson and Rockwell 1987; Erlandson, Cooley, and Carrico 1987; Erlandson et al. 1992; Cooley 19921, an unusual circumstance for cultural resource management projects in California. Many of these publications would not have been possible without the support of the Chumash personnel who worked on the project with US.
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at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural Historv, to discuss claims that mission records showed that ~ i m iAl was not Chumash. With me went John Ruiz, a son of Madelaine Hall and leader of cultural resource preservation efforts for the United Chumash Council. In our meeting, John Johnson said that the late Travis Hudson's earlier geneaology was wrong and that no clear Chumash biological link could be made in John Ruiz's maternal lineage. Johnson's evidence was that ( I ) a female ancestor of Madelaine Hall living in Santa Barbara in the early I 800s was from Mexico; ( 2 )this woman was married to an Indian man listed only as coming "from the south"; and ( 3 ) approximately 11 months after the husband died, a baby was born to the woman. Thus, mission records suggested that one of Madelaine Hall's ancestors was a Mexican (part-Indian)woman living in Santa Barbara almost 200 years ago who had married an Indian man of unknown i~ossiblvChumash or California Indian) origin who probably was not the father of the woman's child. Who fathered the child is not known, but it is not inconceivable that an Indian woman living among the Chumash after the death of her Indian husband may have borne the child of a Chumash man.3 At the time, Johnson admitted that while mission records provided no demonstrable Chumash link in Madelaine's lineage, they also could not prove that she was not Chumash. In mv view, there is a huge difference between saying that k i s s i o i records cannot verify a family's Chumash ancestry and categorically stating that these people are not biologically or culturally Chumash. The mission records, full of errors and inconsistencies (see Johnson 1988:66-80), tell us only what Chumash people told the Franciscan fathers, what the fathers thought thev said in the translation from Chumash to S~anish,or what the Franciscan fathers wrote down. In fact, the biological heritage of virtually any individual descended from those who lived and died at the California missions I 50 to 200 years ago cannot be verified or authenticated with certainty. Nonetheless, for almost I 5 years anthropologists, members of the media in search of a sensational story, corporate officers trying to avoid expensive cultural resource mitigation, certain disaffected Native Americans, and now Haley and Wilcoxon have repeated these allegations. Many Chumash were disgusted by anthropologists' questioning their ancestry, particularly in the public media, which they interpreted as an attempt to divide the local Native American community and counteract its growing influence over cultural resource management issues. In a recent newpaper article, the Chumash V L
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3 . According to John Johnson (personal communication, April 1998), subsequent research suggested that Policarpo, the Indian
"man from the south," came from Baja California. His wife, Maria Manuela Quejada, born in Los Angeles ca. 1798, reportedly had three children out of wedlock with Miguel Cordero, a native Santa Barbaran of Mexican descent who was married to a half-Chumash woman. Of the other I I great-great-grandparents of Madelaine Hall listed by Wilcoxon et al. (1986), two also had a parent whose birthplace was not recorded.
elder Elaine Schneider of the Santa Ynez Indian Reser~ vation said of Family A, "We all talk as family. We are all interrelated because we all intermarried" (Burns 1997~). According to John Ruiz (personal communication, 1997))Travis Hudson showed in the early 1970s that Ruiz had Chumash ancestors in his father's lineage, leading Hudson to contact him to participate in the voyage of the Helek. After what happened to his mother, however, Ruiz has no interest in submitting his father's lineage to geneaological "verification" by anthropologists. Finally, as for Haley and Wilcoxon's (p. 787) assertion that "some nondescendant Traditionalists have started an archaeological contract firm in which the professional credentials are supplied by their long-standing archaeologist allies," as the only senior archaeologist who has recently worked with Hutash Consultants I am clearly among those Haley and Wilcoxon consider to be on the wrong side of the tracks. I reiterate that over the years I have worked with multiple Chumash groupsfor the past decade almost exclusively at their requestand I clearly do not subscribe to simplistic notions of traditional versus nontraditional camps among the Chumash or their allies. Here I want to respond to several points explicit or implicit in this statement. First, I take issue with the notion that Hutash Consultants consists of nondescendant Chumash-Hutash is a nonprofit consulting firm affiliated with the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation. The Coastal Band has over 800 members, and Hutash's senior Native American consultants are appointed by tribal officers democratically elected by the larger membership. Numerous Coastal Band members have Chumash ancestry genealogically documented in mission records; others have genealogical links that have been "proven" by leading anthropologists and disputed by others, and still others have grave doubts about the suitability of mission records or anthropologists as the ultimate arbiters of their ethnic and biological identity. The fact is that even the clearly Native American members of Family A, regardless of their ability to "prove" their Chumash ancestry through mission records, are intermarried and interrelated with well-documented Chumash descendants. Thus there is little scientific utility in questioning their ethnic or biological origins. I should also stress that Hutash Consultants is not an "archaeological" firm per se, nor have the "Traditionalists become archaeologists" as Haley and Wilcoxon (p. 787) assert. Hutash Consultants recently decided to provide a full range of cultural resource services, including Native American monitoring and archaeological research services. Native American staff members simply decided-as archaeologists did for years-to hire their cultural resource counterparts directly. The archaeologists they employ are subject to the same professional guidelines and agency peer review procedures as any archaeological firm operating in the area. In this sense, Hutash Consultants, their "archaeologist allies," and the "Traditionalists" that take the brunt of Haley and Wilcoxon's criticism are in direct competition for cul-
ERLANDSON ET AL.
tural resource contracts with Wilcoxon and Associates-something Haley and Wilcoxon neglect to mention. The political context of Chumash deconstruction. What might motivate an anthropologist to deny the heritage of Chumash descendants? Why question the biological heritage of certain families or question some anthropologists or archaeologists for their interpretations of Chumash culture or sacred sites? Is Haley and Wilcoxon's an unbiased exploration of the complex phenomenon that has come to be known as Chumash identity, an academic search for such elusive concepts as empirical facts or scientific truths? In my view, their analysis can only be understood within the larger context of the politically charged 1980s and 1990s~with Native Americans and anthropologists (especially archaeologists and biological anthropologists) actively struggling over control of the past. Nowhere in the United States is this highly emotional struggle more evident than in California, where a number of activist and sometimes litigious Native American (including Chumash] groups have squared off against powerful developers, corporations, government agencies, museums, universities, and archaeological contractors over the control of archaeological sites, investigations, or collections. These battles have made the more radical Native American groups (including many "Traditionalist" Chumash) a host of powerful enemies, including a sizable contingent of conservative anthropologists represented by the late Clement Meighan and his American Committee for the Preservation of Archaeological Collections (ACPAC). Meighan, through the ACPAC Newsletter and other publications, helped foster antagonistic and confrontational attitudes among many California archaeologists. An example of the rhetoric of this group is Meighan's ( I9 9 x 7 0 6 4 ) response to criticism by Native American students at UCLA: How could I harm any person who had already been dead for thousands of years? How could anything that my studies did with the bones of these ancient people harm any living person? The condemnation seems extreme for a "crime" that is merely a failure to invite mythical descendants to control my research and destroy museum collections. . . . The smart archaeologist in California does not find certain things. If they are found, they are either thrown away or not mentioned in his/her reports. Field classes are also careful not to expose students or teachers to criminal charges, meaning that students in those classes will never expose a burial or deal with any llcontroversial" finds. . . . This chilling effect on research is creating an underground archaeology of ill-trained students, dishonest researchers, and intimidated teachers. To me a more pressing issue is how anthropologists trained to appreciate cross-cultural differences could suffer from such blind ethnocentrism. Trying to match the rhetorical exaggeration of some Native American activists is not only counterproductive but costs us
The Making of Chumash Tradition 1483
credibility with legislators and the public and undermines the efforts of anthropologists working to build relationships of mutual trust with Native American communities. For decades, archaeologists did as they pleased with Native American archaeological sites-excavating burials, houses, ceremonial areas, and midden deposits and rarely (until legislation mandated otherwise] seeking the permission or participation of the descendants of the people whose sites and ancestors they excavated. At the same time, the village, burial, and camp sites of Native American peoples were relentlessly bulldozed by uncontrolled development or looted by amateur or professional pothunters. As a result, there are thousands of Chumash skeletons and millions of artifacts housed in museums or private collections around the world. As the environmental and Native American revival movements of the 1960s and 1970s gathered steam, many anthropologists, archaeologists, Native Americans, and legislators concluded that the uncontrolled destruction of sites and the lack of Indian involvement in managing their past was no longer acceptable. They worked to pass laws or develop guidelines that provided increased protection to archaeological sites and mandated increased consultation with Native American communities. Some anthropologists (myself included) generally embraced these changes and have had relatively good relations with Native Americans over the years. Others resisted efforts to increase the involvement of Native Americans in their research, and still others quickly became disaffected when confronted with the deep-seated anger of some Native Americans or disagreements over such difficult issues as the repatriation of skeletal remains or grave goods. Ultimately, the historical arrogance of the general anthropological community-which often portrayed itself as the self-appointed experts on Native American history-led tothe passageof the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and other legislation which provides Native Americans an even larger say in the management of their archaeological sites, the skeletal remains and grave goods of their ancestors, and other objects of cultural patrimony. These difficult and contentious issues have led to increasing tension between the Native American and the anthropological community. In recent years this tension has led an increasing number of anthropologistsincluding Haley and Wilcoxon-to portray Native Americans as nonindigenous or lacking cultural continuity with their historical past. Among the Chumash, it is no coincidence that the activist Traditionalists, portrayed by Haley and Wilcoxon as "nondescendant" ethnic chameleons and uncritically perceived by at least one commentator (Kealiinohomoku 1997:781) as "devious, self-serving, unjustifiably exclusionary, and manipulative," are also the most assertive in protecting sacred sites, demanding the repatriation of museum collections, and requiring full consultation with Chumash groups on all cultural heritage issues. Although Haley and Wilcoxon portray the nontraditionalist Chumash as
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Volume 39, Number 4, August-October 1998
underdogs who have received little help from anthropologists, the more radical Traditionalists have largely been excluded or removed from museum advisory boards dealing with Native American repatriation or other cultural issues. As Meighan (1ggz:709)noted in making a very different point, archaeologists negotiating with Indians or other groups should make an effort to be sure that all factions of the affected group are heard. Rather than consult with Native American groups intent on reburial or control of archaeological research, some anthropologists have opted to dismiss them as non-Indians, to argue that they have no cultural continuity with the older cultures of an area, to deal with compliant individuals rather than groups, to orchestrate disagreements or divisions within tribal communities, or even to propose that some early skeletons (e.g., Washington's 9,ooo-year-old "I
