Tongva
The Tongva are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately. In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name. During colonization, the Spanish referred to these people as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño, names derived from the Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España. Tongva is the most widely circulated endonym among the people, used by Narcisa Higuera in 1905 to refer to inhabitants in the vicinity of Mission San Gabriel. Some people who identify as direct lineal descendants of the people advocate the use of their ancestral name Kizh as an endonym.
The Tongva, along with neighboring groups such as the Chumash, played an important role in the cultural and economic dynamics of the region at the time of European encounter. They had developed an extensive trade network through te'aats. Their food and material culture was based on an Indigenous worldview that positioned humans as one strand in a web of life. Over time, different communities came to speak distinct dialects of the Tongva language, part of the Takic subgroup of the Uto-Aztecan language family. There may have been five or more such languages.
European contact was first made in 1542 by Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who was greeted at Santa Catalina by people in a canoe. The following day, Cabrillo and his men entered a large bay on the mainland, which they named Baya de los Fumos because of the many smoke fires they saw there. The Indigenous people smoked their fish for preservation. This is commonly believed to be San Pedro Bay, near present-day San Pedro.
The Gaspar de Portolá land expedition in 1769 resulted in the founding of Mission San Gabriel by Catholic missionary Junipero Serra in 1771. Under the mission system, the Spanish initiated an era of forced relocation and virtual enslavement of the peoples to secure their labor. In addition, the Native Americans were exposed to the Old World diseases endemic among the colonists. As they lacked any acquired immunity, the Native Americans suffered epidemics with high mortality, leading to the rapid collapse of Tongva society and lifeways.
They retaliated by way of resistance and rebellions, including an unsuccessful rebellion in 1785 by Nicolás José and female chief Toypurina. In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain and secularized the missions. They sold the mission lands, known as ranchos, to elite ranchers and forced the Tongva to assimilate. Most became landless refugees during this time.
In 1848, California was ceded to the United States following the Mexican-American War. The US government signed 18 treaties between 1851 and 1852 promising of land for reservations. However, these treaties were never ratified by the Senate. The US had negotiated with people who did not represent the Tongva and had no authority to cede their land. During the following occupation by Americans, many of the Tongva and other Indigenous peoples were targeted with arrest. Unable to pay fines, they were used as convict laborers in a system of legalized slavery to expand the city of Los Angeles for Anglo-American settlers, who became the new majority in the area by 1880.
In the early 20th century, an extinction myth was purported about the Gabrieleño, who largely identified publicly as Mexican-American by this time. However, a close-knit community of the people remained in contact with one another between Tejon Pass and San Gabriel township into the 20th century. Since 2006, four organizations have claimed to represent the people:
- the Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe, known as the "hyphen" group from the hyphen in their name;
- the Gabrielino/Tongva Tribe, known as the "slash" group;
- the Kizh Nation ; and
- the Gabrieleño/Tongva Tribal Council.
In 2008, more than 1,700 people identified as Tongva or claimed partial ancestry. In 2013, it was reported that the four Tongva groups that have applied for federal recognition had more than 3,900 members in total.
The Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy was established to campaign for the rematriation of Tongva homelands. In 2022, a 1-acre site was returned to the conservancy in Altadena, which marked the first time the Tongva had land in Los Angeles County in 200 years.
Geography
Tongva territories border those of numerous other tribes in the region. The historical Tongva lands made up what is now called "the coastal region of Los Angeles County, the northwest portion of Orange County and off-lying islands." In 1962 Curator Bernice Johnson, of Southwest Museum, asserted that the northern boundary was somewhere between Topanga and Malibu and the southern boundary was Orange County's Aliso Creek.Names
''Tongva''
The word Tongva was coined by C. Hart Merriam in 1905 from numerous informants. These included Mrs. James Rosemyre , who lived around Fort Tejon, near Bakersfield. Merriam's orthography makes it clear that the endonym would be pronounced /ˈtoːŋve/.Some descendants prefer the endonym Kizh, which they argue is an earlier and more historically accurate name that was well documented by records of the Smithsonian Institution, Congress, the Catholic Church, the San Gabriel Mission, and other historical scholars.
''Gabrieleño''
The Spanish referred to the Indigenous peoples surrounding Mission San Gabriel as the Gabrieleño. This was not their autonym, or their name for themselves. Because of historical uses, the term is part of every official tribe's name in this area, spelled either as "Gabrieleño" or "Gabrielino".Because tribal groups have disagreed about appropriate use of the term Tongva, they have adopted Gabrieleño as a mediating term. For example, when Debra Martin, a city council member from Pomona, led a project in 2017 to dedicate wooden statues in local Ganesha Park to the Indigenous people of the area, they disagreed over which name, Tongva or Kizh, should be used on the dedication plaque. Tribal officials tentatively agreed to use the term Gabrieleño.
The Act of September 21, 1968, introduced this concept of the affiliation of an applicant's ancestors in order to exclude certain individuals from receiving a share of the award to the "Indians of California" who chose to receive a share of any awards to certain tribes in California that had splintered off from the generic group. The members or ancestors of the petitioning group were not affected by the exclusion in the Act. Individuals with lineal or collateral descent from an Indian tribe who resided in California in 1852, would, if not excluded by the provisions of the Act of 1968, remain on the list of the "Indians of California". To comply with the Act, the Secretary of Interior would have to collect information about the group affiliation of an applicant's Indian ancestors. That information would be used to identify applicants who could share in another award. The group affiliation of an applicant's ancestors was thus a basis for exclusion from, but not a requirement for inclusion on, the judgment roll. The act of 1968 stated that the Secretary of the Interior would distribute an equal share of the award to the individuals on the judgment roll "regardless of group affiliation".
History
Before the mission period
Many lines of evidence suggest that the Tongva are descended from Uto-Aztecan-speaking peoples who originated in what is now Nevada, and moved southwest into coastal Southern California 3,500 years ago. According to a model proposed by archaeologist Mark Q. Sutton, these migrants either absorbed or pushed out the earlier Hokan-speaking inhabitants. By 500 AD, one source estimates the Tongva may have come to occupy all the lands now associated with them, although this is unclear and contested among scholars.In 1811, the priests of Mission San Gabriel recorded at least four languages; Kokomcar, Guiguitamcar, Corbonamga, and Sibanga. During the same time, three languages were recorded in Mission San Fernando.
Prior to Russian and Spanish colonization in what is now referred to California, the Tongva were primarily identified by their associated villages For example, individuals from Yaanga were known as Yaangavit among the people. The Tongva lived in as many as one hundred villages. One or two clans would usually constitute a village, which was the center of Tongva life.
The Tongva spoke a language of the Uto-Aztecan family. The diversity within the Takic group is "moderately deep"; rough estimates by comparative linguists place the breakup of common Takic into the Luiseño-Juaneño on one hand, and the Tongva-Serrano on the other, at about 2,000 years ago.. The division of the Tongva/Serrano group into the separate Tongva and Serrano peoples is more recent, and may have been influenced by Spanish missionary activity.
The majority of Tongva territory was located in what has been referred to as the Sonoran life zone, with rich ecological resources of acorn, pine nut, small game, and deer. On the coast, shellfish, sea mammals, and fish were available. Prior to Christianization, the prevailing Tongva worldview was that humans were not the apex of creation, but were rather one strand in the web of life. Humans, along with plants, animals, and the land were in a reciprocal relationship of mutual respect and care, which is evident in their creation stories. The Tongva understand time as nonlinear and there is constant communication with ancestors.
On October 7, 1542, an exploratory expedition led by Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo reached Santa Catalina in the Channel Islands, where his ships were greeted by Tongva in a canoe. The following day, Cabrillo and his men, the first Europeans known to have interacted with the Gabrieleño people, entered a large bay on the mainland, which they named "Baya de los Fumos" on account of the many smoke fires they saw there. This is commonly believed to be San Pedro Bay, near present-day San Pedro.