Tomol's and the "carrying of many people": Indigenous control of the sea in the Santa Barbara Channel

Abstract

The Indigenous Chumash people of the California coast relied heavily upon the wealth of maritime resources that the Santa Barbara Channel provided. In order to access these vast resources, the use of advanced sewn vessels, known as the Tomol, were used and were of inestimable importance to the formation of their complex society. It is the purpose of this thesis to analyze the evidence of these vessels at the village site of Helo' (site CA-SBA-46) on Mescalatin Island in order to determine what effects Spanish colonization and missionization had on this integral technology. Additionally, this thesis attempts to synthesis a number of different lines of evidence in order to make such determinations. This includes physical remains of vessels themselves if identified, artifactual remains of tools necessary to build tomol's as well as the tools used in gathering maritime resources, along with historic and ethnographic records of tomol construction and usage. Finally, it is hoped that this thesis will inspire further study of Indigenous maritime cultures in other regions where physical remains of the vessels used are limited or non-existent. By demonstrating that such maritime culture can be studied through analysis of associated materials, it is hoped that the dearth of information of vessels of which there are limited remains will no longer be left in the dark.