Also, what is the avenue to lean more and talk with someone from the tribe or representing the interests of the tirbe?

Thank you

Rumsien is from Carmel Valley, not Santa Clara (Tamien).

We are not extinct, we are still here. We are not “descendants of.” We are Mutsun, Rumsen, Tamien, Chochenyo. Karkin, Chalon, and Ramaytush.

My tribe traditionally referred to ourselves as the “Mutsun Nation.” In the 1990’s, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Ohlone Costanoan Indians was created to include Awaswas (or Akwaswas) for the Federal Recognition process. “Amah” (“ama” in our orthography) literally means a body, a single person, or people.

Ohlone/Costanoan is used to help outsiders to identify who we are (since anthropologists, etc referred to us as so). We never referred to ourselves as Ohlone or Costanoan (this is a very common misconception throughout Indian Country).

The best people to answer questions like these are the people themselves, not academics. Also, you will not learn anything about us from reading a book (there is not a single accurate book published about any “Ohone” Tribe). We are still here and not just a people to be studied from archival material. Many of us live the Indian way everyday, but you won’t see us dancing at public events or wearing our regalia for speaking engagements because it is ceremony. it’s our religion, not entertainment.

I guess the most important take-away is that we are not Costanoan nor Ohlone (unless a person is from the village of Oholon).

Thanks for reading.

Rumsen is from Carmel Valley.

Martin, thanks so much for all this extra information/research on the Awaswas speaking groups and the Awaswas language itself. I also appreciate hearing possible explanations for when and where the name Ohlone comes from. Thank you too for citing your sources!

Awaswas speaking groups included the following (listing them from south to north), coastal groups: Aptos, Uypi, Cotoni, Quiroste, and the mountain groups: Sayanta (where modern Zayante comes from), Chaloctaca, & Achistaca.

The name Soquel comes from the leader of the Uypi tribe (Uypi lived in modern downtown Santa Cruz, believed to be near to the village site Aulintak), whose name variously appears in Spanish sources as Suquel, Sugert, Suquer, & Suquex. His wife’s name was Rosuem. Some later sources claim Soquel to be a village name, but it shows up as an alternative tribal name (written as Zoquel most frequently) for the Uypi (his people) in baptismal documents starting by 1810, some five years after the leader’s death.

The name Ohlone, which began being used in the 1850s to refer to the group of some fifty autonomous tribal nations throughout the bay area called ‘Costanoan’ by the Spanish, appears to come from two possible sources: 1) the Oljon tribe which lived just north of the Quiroste territory (Año Nuevo point). The argument for this relates to the name coming from an interview of a survivor at Mission Dolores (San Francisco), who said to identify as Oljon, or 2) it is possible that the word Ohlone is a variant to the Sierra Miwok word for the direction west, “O’lo’no wit.” These thoughts on the origins of the word Ohlone come from the work of Randall Milliken, Laurence Shoup, & Beverly R. Ortiz (see “Ohlone/Costanoan Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and Their Neighbors, Yesterday and Today” (National Park Service, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, CA, June 2009), 42-3.

As for the Awaswas language itself, there are a few sources that have some words (along with the distinct possibility that descendants may have kept some of the language within their families):

1) Lorenzo Asisara (his father Llencó, was a Cotoni) shared some words in his 1890 interview with E.L. Williams (published in Edward S. Harrison’s “History of Santa Cruz,” (1892) pp 45-48).
2) The French ethnographer, Alphonse Pinart travelled through Santa Cruz in August, 1878. He interviewed and collected words from two Awaswas speaking informants, including Rustico, the son of the Uypi Quiheuimen (baptised as Quiricio, one of the two surviving convicts of the Quintana assassination). See the California Indian Linguistic Records: The Mission Indian Vocabularies of Alphonse Pinart, published by Robert F. Heizer in 1952.

They are mentioned in the article. To quote: “The Awaswas speakers numbered fewer than a thousand and the language is now extinct, but some of their tribelet names are still remembered today. Well-known place names in Santa Cruz County like “Soquel”, “Aptos,” and “Zayante” are all Awaswas names.”
There is some more information on Zayante on the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band website.

Just in case it helps to know, this promo from last year says who sponsors the annual Ohlone Day at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park:

http://www.parks.ca.gov/Events/Details/6448

Looks like the Natural History Museum replied to my earlier comment and they worked with someone in the Carmel Valley area from a group that calls themselves Costanoan Rumsen. I thought that on a field trip they’d used the term Ohlone, but that was a few years ago so my memory may be wrong or their terminology may have changed.

Thanks for that information

There is another group in the Carmel Valley who refer to themselves as Costanoan Rumsen, and it’s possible Henry Cowell has partnered with them for their program. One member of their group is Linda Yamane (in the above picture) who is a renowned basket maker. The Museum of Natural History has partnered with her several times in the past for programs and exhbits.

Rumsen site: http://www.costanoanrumsen.org/about.html

Article about Linda: http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/cover/seaside-artist-resurrects-a-long-lost-native-craft/article_8b5eea0f-89b2-50df-b96e-fb66dc4b833f.html

There is another group in the Carmel Valley who refer to themselves as Costanoan Rumsen, and it’s possible Henry Cowell has partnered with them for their program. One member of their group is Linda Yamane (in the above picture) who is a renowned basket maker. The Museum of Natural History has partnered with her several times in the past for programs and exhbits.

Rumsen site: http://www.costanoanrumsen.org/about.html

Article about Linda: http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/cover/seaside-artist-resurrects-a-long-lost-native-craft/article_8b5eea0f-89b2-50df-b96e-fb66dc4b833f.html

I will check with the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History about the family. The SCMNH in fact wrote this piece as part of their Pilkington Creek self-guided mobile tour. I chose to break out the part on the terms and highlight the naming issue as I know folks are really interested in that.

Hi Hal, Sorry about the error message/duplicates. I am trying to fix that. According to our research the Ohlone is not really a term descendants of the native peoples of this region like to use for themselves or their ancestors. As for getting into specific groups in the region like the Quiroste (near Ano Nuevo), the author chose to focus more to the south near there home area of expertise.