The Making of Chumash Tradition: Replies to Haley and Wilcoxon

Current Anthropology Volume 39, Number 4, August/October 1998 1998 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/98/3904-0004$3.00

troubling. My concerns revolve mostly around prag-matic rather than theoretical issues: (1) the artificial po-larization of ‘‘traditional’’ and ‘‘nontraditional’’ groupsCA✩ FORUM ONamong the Chumash and their anthropological ‘‘allies’’;

ANTHROPOLOGY IN PUBLIC (2) the portrayal of the ‘‘sacredness’’ of Point Concep-tion as clearly erroneous and the involvement of an-thropologists in the definition of the ‘‘Western Gate’’ asconspiratorial or unethical; (3) certain interpretationsthat are presented—and uncritically accepted by mostThe Making ofcommentators—as facts; and (4) the lack of acknowl-edgment of the authors’ own role in a highly chargedChumash Tradition political and economic struggle between anthropolo-gists and Native Americans over control of the inter-pretation, management, and possession of heritageresources. Exploration of these issues shows that Chu-Replies to Haley and Wilcoxonmash origins and identity, the sacredness of Point Con-ception, and the roles anthropologists have played in in-terpreting and managing Chumash heritage are muchless contentious or less ambiguous than Haley and Wil-coxon suggest.1

Some historical background. The Santa BarbaraChannel area, the core of Chumash territory, is nowknown to have been occupied for at least 11,000 yearsjon mc vey erlandson

Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, (Erlandson 1994; Erlandson, Cooley, and Carrico 1987,1996). Prior to European contact, as many as 25,000 peo-Eugene, Ore 97403-1218, U.S.A. 21 iv 98ple may have lived in Chumash territory. That the term‘‘Chumash’’ was chosen for these people by anthropolo-In a provocative essay on the development of Chumash

identity, the perception of the sacredness of Point Con- gists is largely irrelevant: the indigenous people of thearea spoke related dialects of the same language group,ception, and the roles anthropologists have played in de-

fining the concept of ‘‘Chumash’’ culture, Haley and intermarried primarily within and among these relatedgroups, and were marked archaeologically, historically,Wilcoxon (CA 38:761–94) effectively illustrate many of

the complexities and ambiguities involved in the cre- and ethnographically by a similar suite of cultural traitsand traditions. These similarities were perceived byation and perception of ethnic identities in modern

multicultural societies. The commentators—unfortu- some of the earliest anthropologists and have withstoodthe test of time. Today, most researchers consider itnately not including Chumash, other Native Ameri-

cans, or other California archaeologists—are for the likely that the larger Santa Barbara Channel region oc-cupied by the Chumash has experienced substantialmost part laudatory and with Haley and Wilcoxon’s re-

ply explore some important points and ethical dilem- cultural continuity spanning at least several millennia(e.g., Landberg 1965; Hoover 1971:261; King 1990; Er-mas that should be seriously considered by anthropolo-

gists who work with indigenous peoples. Some of the landson 1994:43; Glassow 1997:89). That today we callthese related peoples Chumash and that their descen-most important points made, it seems to me, include

the fact that all cultures are complex entities that con- dants (at least for now) accept that designation is consis-tent with the histories or relationships constructed bystantly reinvent themselves; that because of this com-

plexity dichotomous, oppositional, or ‘‘normative’’ por- government agents, anthropologists, linguists, histori-ans, and others who have worked with various Nativetrayals of cultures tend to fail; that ‘‘traditional’’ views

often differ from supposedly empirical or scientific American tribes. Embracing the term ‘‘Chumash’’ overthe generic ‘‘Mission Indians’’ was wholly logical forfacts, just as scientific interpretations of those ‘‘facts’’

differ from one another; and that Native Americans, an- both scholars and Indian people, who were interested inknowing the specific histories of various social, ethnic,thropologists, and other scientists—including Haley

and Wilcoxon—cannot completely divorce themselves and linguistic groups. For some, ‘‘Mission Indians’’ alsohad a pejorative connotation (not unlike ‘‘digger’’ Indi-from their own subjective interpretations.

As an archaeologist I too have worked with the Chu- ans) and did not reflect the fact that many CaliforniaIndian people did not become part of the Spanish mis-mash for over 20 years, although my experience is pri-

marily in helping Chumash groups preserve the archae- sion system.Like virtually every Native American tribe and manyological sites of the area that has come to be known as

Chumash territory. As a fellow alumnus of the Univer-1. I am indebted to Madonna L. Moss, Richard G. Fox, John Ruiz,sity of California at Santa Barbara, I have also workedLarry Garnica Jr., John R. Johnson, Mark Tveskov, and Rene Vella-for years with Wilcoxon and Haley. Although both are noweth for comments and discussions that contributed signifi-

old friends and respected colleagues, I find aspects of cantly to this paper. Despite the assistance of these individuals, theinterpretations and opinions expressed here are peculiarly my own.their article and some of the comments on it deeply

477

478 current anthropology Volume 39, Number 4, August–October 1998

other indigenous peoples around the world, the Chu- mental policies and social attitudes designed to forcethe assimilation of Indians into the American ‘‘meltingmash of today are the survivors of an apocalyptic his-

tory of European and Euro-American contact, colonial- pot,’’ it was socially acceptable to be Chumash and tobe proud of it. Children whose parents had often toldism, territorial disenfranchisement, attempted cultural

genocide, persecution, and prejudice. For the Chumash them they were of Spanish or Mexican heritage in a be-nign attempt to protect them learned from relativesthese destructive processes may have begun with the

transmission of Old World infectious diseases during that they had ‘‘Indian blood.’’ The identical processtook place among descendants of Indian tribes all acrossthe ‘‘protohistoric’’ period, as much as 227 years prior

to the institution of the mission system in a.d. 1769 America. As Haley and Wilcoxon themselves note, thefact that many Chumash only ‘‘discovered’’ or pro-(Erlandson and Bartoy 1995, Preston 1996). During the

mission period (a.d. 1769–1832), many Chumash were claimed their Indian ancestry in the 1960s in no wayinvalidates their claims as Chumash descendants. Moreenticed or coerced into the missions, where Franciscan

priests did their best to Christianize them and force- than many California Indian tribes, in fact, they areaided by the vast gift of knowledge passed on by theirfully suppress native traditions. Most scholars agree

that in the decades after the missions were established ancestors and published by a new generation of anthro-pologists (e.g., Blackburn 1975; Hudson, Timbrook, andover 90% of the Chumash perished from foreign dis-

eases, violence, and neglect. Huge tracts of Chumash Rempe 1978; Hudson and Blackburn 1979; Hudson1979; Hudson et al. 1981; Walker and Hudson 1993) inland were stolen by the Spanish, while other ‘‘mission

lands’’ were supposedly held in sacred trust for the Chu- focusing cultural revitalization efforts more on authen-tic traditions than on pan-Indian beliefs.mash by the Catholic church. Mexican independence in

1821, followed by the secularization of the missions The polarization of the Chumash and allies. Haleyand Wilcoxon present a grossly oversimplified picturein 1834 and the American annexation of California in

1848, completed the theft of Chumash land. Despite of modern Chumash society as polarized into ‘‘Tradi-tionalist’’ and ‘‘nontraditionalist’’ camps. In fact, thesystematic attempts to eradicate Chumash and other

California Indian cultures, traditional beliefs and rituals 3,000 or more people who today identify themselves ashaving Chumash ancestry include individuals or fami-persisted (Castillo 1978:104). After decades of being told

that their ancestral cultures were wicked, barbaric, dec- lies that are Catholic, Protestant, pagan, atheist, andothers. Many of these individuals, regardless of reli-adent, inferior, or extinct, many Native Californians

went underground with their cultural identity. They in- gious faith, are involved to varying degrees in revivingearlier Chumash traditions: religious, ceremonial, me-termarried with others of various racial or ethnic identi-

ties, and many denied their Indian heritage to the pub- dicinal, artistic, technological, and others. Furthermore,during the past 30 years many ‘‘nontraditionalist’’ Chu-lic, friends, and even family.

Fortunately, recognizing a potentially tragic loss of mash individuals have gradually evolved into what Ha-ley and Wilcoxon would probably label Traditionalists.indigenous knowledge, a few dedicated anthropologists

and historians collaborated with knowledgeable Chu- For a variety of reasons, many other individuals of Chu-mash ancestry have not declared themselves ‘‘Chu-mash elders to record vast amounts of information on

Chumash history, technology, and tradition. Rather mash’’ or actively participated in resurrecting aspects of‘‘traditional’’ Chumash culture. More of these individu-than meddling in the construction of Chumash identity

or culture, the work of Harrington and others with Chu- als will undoubtedly so identify themselves in the fu-ture as positive public expressions and acceptance ofmash elders can be seen as a collaborative effort to pre-

serve Chumash traditions for future generations of Chumash ancestry and heritage continue to develop.The Chumash community cannot, therefore, be effec-Chumash descendants, scholars, and the interested

public. This body of information, much of it unpub- tively divided into Traditionalist and nontraditionalist.As Trigger (1997:786) also notes, classifying the Chu-lished until recently, can be seen as a type of insurance

Chumash elders provided against the loss of traditional mash into two or more ‘‘types’’ is an attempt to divide acontinuous and complex range of human behavior intoknowledge that had once been handed down through

ancient mechanisms of oral history, active training, and arbitrary and dubious categories. Haley and Wilcoxon(pp. 762, 777) themselves question the utility of suchpublic recitation that were difficult to sustain after the

postcontact apocalypse. oppositional or arbitrary divisions but then use anequally simplistic dichotomy to create the impressionIn the 1960s, Native Americans and other ethnic mi-

norities in the United States began openly declaring of an unusually polarized or factionalized Chumashcommunity.their ethnic or cultural heritage, rediscovering their

‘‘roots,’’ celebrating their past, and assertively combat- Because of their unique history, virtually all Chu-mash are also descended in part from non-Chumash—ing some of the stereotypes, prejudices, and social re-

strictions inflicted on them and their ancestors. This is white, Hispanic, other Native American, and so on.Over the years, many Chumash people have openly dis-the context in which many Chumash ‘‘discovered’’

their heritage in the 1960s—a truly remarkable and cussed their multicultural heritage with me. Chumashdescendants have often argued for the preservation ofcontinental or even global process of cultural survival

and revival. For the first time, after decades of govern- archaeological sites associated with the mission, the

erlandson et al. The Making of Chumash Tradition 479

Mexican, or the American period—including sites that groups would cover cultural resource work in specificareas—has been more common than factionalized dis-bear no direct relationship to the Chumash people—as

part of the shared multicultural heritage of all Califor- agreement. As in any society, there have been some pas-sionate disagreements between Chumash individuals ornians. There are Chumash descendants who assert that

they are more traditional than others, but these come groups, but the idea that a Traditionalist monopoly hasbeen enforced through unilateral ‘‘threats of violence’’from a variety of groups, including the Santa Ynez In-

dian Reservation, the Coastal Band of the Chumash Na- (p. 767) is completely at odds with my years of experi-ence.tion, and others. I am not suggesting that Chumash so-

ciety is not factionalized and dynamic. What human Debating the sacredness of Point Conception. Haleyand Wilcoxon present an interesting reanalysis of thesociety is not, especially in times of wrenching sociopo-

litical change? In fact, anthropologists and others have sacredness of Point Conception, sometimes referred toas the ‘‘Western Gate,’’ through which many believesometimes encouraged the factionalization of the Chu-

mash community by spreading rumors and innuendo that Native American dead pass on their way to theafterworld. As collectors and interpreters of Chumashabout individuals, families, or groups. Such acts can be

seen as modern examples of the divide-and-conquer oral histories, anthropologists have played a significantrole in defining the sacred nature of Point Conception.strategies used for centuries by Europeans against

North American societies. When the area was proposed as the site of a highly un-popular liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, the sacred-Like the Chumash, the anthropological community

cannot be divided into ‘‘allies’’ of Traditionalist versus ness of Point Conception became one of several issuesused by activists and landowners opposed to the pro-nontraditionalist Chumash groups. I am obliquely re-

ferred to as one of the ‘‘long-standing archaeologist al- posed development. The occupation of the Point Con-ception area by Chumash people, supported by thelies’’ of one Chumash group (p. 787), but this character-

ization does an injustice to my history of work with American Indian Movement and other groups, becamea catalyst and a definitive event in the cultural revivalmultiple Chumash groups. I have worked extensively

with members of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Na- of the Chumash. It also marked an ascendancy of Chu-mash political power, especially after Chumash opposi-tion and recently served as senior archaeologist for an

archaeological project administered by their cultural re- tion helped cause substantial delays that exposed aweak market for LNG and other problems that ulti-source consulting group (Hutash Consultants), but I

have also worked extensively with Chumash descen- mately caused the project to be withdrawn. This seriesof events put developers and others on notice that thedants from the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation and other

groups. Years ago, believing that Indian people should Chumash were a political force to be reckoned with.I was only peripherally involved with the LNG proj-play an active role in managing their past, I also worked

as an archaeologist for Cultural Resource Consultants, ect, and neither Wilcoxon or Haley played any role asfar as I know. Thus none of us have any firsthanda firm that operated out of the multitribal (and now de-

funct) Santa Barbara Indian Center. In the 1980s, as knowledge about how the associated cultural resourceinvestigations or the environmental opposition to theprincipal investigator of cultural resources studies asso-

ciated with the planning and construction of Chevron’s project developed. I do know many of the Chumash in-dividuals who helped lead the occupation of Point Con-Point Arguello oil and gas pipeline and processing facili-

ties near Gaviota (see Erlandson et al. 1993), I helped ception, I accompanied Chumash activists on one oftheir early protests on the site, and I visited the occupa-put together teams of Native American monitors that

incorporated roughly equal numbers of Chumash de- tional encampment once in its heyday. I know from per-sonal experience that many of the Chumash and otherscendants from the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation and

the Coastal Band. Native American protesters camped near Point Concep-tion for months without pay, some giving up their jobsIn fact, various Chumash groups have effectively

worked together to help preserve and protect their past or leaving their families in the conviction that the areahad to be protected. Even in an abstract sense, moneyon a number of large cultural resource projects in Santa

Barbara County over the years. As a professional archae- was not a motivating factor for those protecting PointConception—that large cultural resource monitoringologist I consider my foremost ethical responsibility to

be the preservation of archaeological sites, the material contracts might be obtained in years to come was un-known at the time. The Chumash occupying Pointrecord of human history that I study—a goal greatly en-

hanced by collaborating with Chumash tribal members. Conception were compelled to do so by their emergingworldviews, the activism of the 1960s and 1970s, andOver the years I have encouraged various Chumash

groups to work together, recognizing that a more united their sincere belief that the area was sacred to their an-cestors.Chumash front would lead to the more effective preser-

vation of Chumash archaeological sites. As far as I Although they apparently concluded that Point Con-ception itself qualified as a traditional cultural property,know, there has never been a monopoly of cultural re-

source monitors by any particular Chumash group. On Haley and Wilcoxon (p. 776) note that their interpreta-tion of the Point Conception case ‘‘conflicts sharplythe scores of projects I have been involved in, active col-

laboration between groups—or agreement that specific with Chumash Traditionalist beliefs.’’ They accuse


other anthropologists of remaining silent about contra- was not sacred to many Chumash. In fact, shouldn’t an-thropologists and historians expect substantial losses ofdictions in oral histories or embellishing interpreta-

tions of the data. Having never examined the original traditional knowledge after the apocalyptic Spanish,Mexican, and early American periods?documents and never having had any reason to doubt

the sacredness of Point Conception to the Chumash, I Ultimately, Haley and Wilcoxon’s argument that thesacredness of Point Conception may have been limitedwillingly plead guilty to having remained silent on this

issue. Reading Haley and Wilcoxon’s interpretations, to a small group of people is unconvincing, as is theirsuggestion that its modern significance is primarily thehowever, it seems to me that a reasonable case can be

made that Point Conception was, in fact, sacred to product of anthropological intrigue and recent Chu-mash myth making. It seems to me that an objectivemany or most Chumash people during and prior to the

mission period. Of 10 Chumash elders Harrington inter- anthropologist could easily (and ethically) concludethat Point Conception was sacred to many Chumashviewed who were knowledgeable about pre-mission

matters, three (Maria Solares, Juan Justo, and Luisa Yg- people, both past and present. The breadth of the pre-contact sacredness of Point Conception and its eligibil-nacio) provided supporting evidence that Point Concep-

tion was associated with the souls of the dead, three ity for the National Register of Historic Places may bedebatable, but few Indian people will care about suchothers were daughters or granddaughters of Luisa Yg-

nacio whose beliefs on the subject are not described, anthropological debates. For them, the significance ofPoint Conception lies not just in its ancient sacrednessand several others provided statements that supported

the widespread belief in a land of the dead across the sea but also in the transformative role it played in the revi-talization of Chumash culture. The guidelines for theto the west. Since Solares provided a detailed account of

Point Conception as a sacred place—a place the Chu- evaluation of traditional cultural properties (Parker andKing 1990) clearly indicate that both contemporary andmash were cautioned to avoid—Haley and Wilcoxon

take special care to question her credibility by noting ancient significance are key criteria for placing sacredsites on the National Register of Historic Places—crite-that she was part Yokuts, raised by whites, rejected by

her uncle as a potential medicine woman, and allegedly ria that seem to be met in the case of the specific PointConception area.changed her story slightly from previous accounts. Cit-

ing Johnson (1988:236), Haley and Wilcoxon suggest Rumors, facts, and innuendo. I have personal knowl-edge or experience that contradicts several of Haley andthat ‘‘Solares conflated Yokuts and Chumash kinship

data’’ and that she may have been ‘‘confused.’’ The im- Wilcoxon’s assertions or renders their conclusions am-biguous. These assertions include (1) that Family A andplication that Solares was ‘‘mistaken’’ reflects the an-

thropologist’s need to fit data into neat categories (Yo- many Traditionalists are unrelated to the indigenouspeoples of the area, (2) that one so-called Traditionalistkuts versus Chumash in this case), the very bounded

and arbitrary definitions they criticize. Solares’s experi- group negotiated lucrative monitoring contracts and ob-tained land by cutting ‘‘the best deal it could’’ when aence, like that of many Native Americans, reflects the

long history of intermarriage between Native American pipeline was to be built within a mile of Point Concep-tion, and (3) that members of the same ‘‘nondescen-groups and the permeability of the boundaries anthro-

pologists have often imposed upon them. dant’’ group have recently ‘‘become archaeologists’’ informing a full-service cultural resource consultingTo counter Solares’s clear account of the sacredness

of Point Conception, a crucial element of Haley and group.According to Haley and Wilcoxon (p. 767), the myste-Wilcoxon’s analysis is the testimony of Fernando Li-

brado, who claimed that the dead did not go to Point rious Family A, portrayed as the ‘‘core of the region’sTraditionalist movement,’’ is biologically unrelated toConception. Isn’t it possible, however, that Librado—

who lived and worked for years on a ranch around Point the indigenous people of the Santa Barbara area. Theirsources for this revelation are mostly unpublished (andConception, breaking a strong taboo if Solares’s account

is true—might deny the sacred nature of the area to sometimes unavailable) technical reports or manu-scripts that have not undergone peer review, brief schol-himself or to an anthropologist? Accounts of shrines lo-

cated elsewhere in Chumash territory are also pre- arly discussions with few or no supporting data otherthan those unpublished accounts, mass media stories,sented by Haley and Wilcoxon as evidence that not all

souls left the earth from Point Conception, but local and their own inside knowledge. Anyone knowledge-able about Chumash affairs knows that Family A is theshrines are widely known among the Chumash, and

their existence does not mean that Chumash souls did family of Madelaine Tukuloc Hall, a charismatic matri-arch who died in 1987. In the 1970s, the eminentnot pass sacred ground at Point Conception on their

way to the west. In fact, Point Conception is located scholar of Chumash culture Travis Hudson of the SantaBarbara Museum of Natural History established thewest of the most heavily populated Chumash territory,

including some of the shrines mentioned by Haley and Chumash roots of Madelaine’s family by tracing its ge-nealogy in the Franciscan mission records. This re-Wilcoxon. As they themselves admit, the lack of Purisi-

meno and Obispeno accounts about Point Conception search was also a catalyst for a collaborative projectconstructing a replica of the Chumash tomol (plankmay result from the dearth of information collected

from these groups, so the lack of such accounts can boat) and a cross-channel tomol voyage by a NativeAmerican crew made up primarily of members of Fam-hardly be definitive evidence that Point Conception


ily A (see Hudson, Timbrook, and Rempe 1978). In fact, small archaeological sites and persuading Chevron totake unprecedented measures to limit impacts to sitesHudson et al.’s book was dedicated to ethnohistorically

documented members of the Brotherhood of the Canoe that could not be avoided. Over $2 million were spenton these cultural resource studies,2 about 1% of the to-(Tomol) and the modern Chumash crewmen of the

Helek. This voyage was critical to the Chumash revival tal project costs. Considerable amounts of this moneywent to Chumash monitors, but archaeologists, othermovement, leading to the reconstitution of the Brother-

hood of the Tomol, encouraging contacts between local environmental consulting firms, and construction com-panies earned far more. Nonetheless, media accounts ofNative Americans and anthropologists, and making the

local scholarly community, governmental entities, and the time accused Chumash monitors of profiteering atthe expense of their heritage.general public aware that a sizable and concerned Na-

tive American community existed in their midst. Ar- Another unsubstantiated rumor started at this time,repeated by Haley and Wilcoxon (p. 772), was that thechaeologists soon actively encouraged Chumash de-

scendants to participate in archaeological projects and coastal Chumash had been bought off by Chevron,which gave them property in exchange for allowing thehistoric preservation. Such efforts included a 1977–78

archaeological survey of lands administered by the desecration of sacred lands near Point Conception. TheChumash were given property by Chevron and its part-County of Santa Barbara, in which I was one of a team

consisting of two archaeologists and four Native Ameri- ners, but they were not bought off by the oil companies.In 1980, two members of the Brotherhood of the Tomolcans trained by Wilcoxon (Erlandson 1978). Projects like

these quickly established the members of what became doctored Norm Paulsen, the leader of a large SantaBarbara-based commune that ran a commercial enter-the United Chumash Council and later the Coastal

Band of the Chumash Nation as some of the most visi- prise known as Sunburst Farms. In gratitude, Paulsengave the Brotherhood 13 acres of land in a small canyonble and experienced of local Native American cultural

resource personnel. The Chumash-led occupation of near Gaviota. Several Indian families moved onto theproperty, occupying an existing cabin and building fourPoint Conception in 1978 was spearheaded by some of

the same individuals. new houses. In 1984, however, Chevron USA proposedto build a crude oil and natural gas processing plant im-By the early 1980s, California archaeology was riding

a tremendous wave of growth due to the implementa- mediately adjacent to the community. Safety regula-tions mandated that the two could not coexist, requir-tion of federal and state environmental and historic

preservation legislation. With the discovery of substan- ing that Chevron acquire the adjacent property. By thistime, Sunburst Farms was bankrupt and the Gaviotatial oil and natural gas deposits in the waters off Point

Conception and Point Arguello, planning began for sev- property had been sold. The Brotherhood of the Tomolhad filed a lien on the property to protect its contractualeral pipeline and processing facilities within Chumash

territory. By this time, Chumash representatives from rights with Paulsen. Thus Chevron could not purchasethe land and negotiated with the Brotherhood to moveboth on and off the reservation had become quite astute

at working with developers to help protect archaeologi- it out of the canyon. In return for its giving up its claimto the property and the loss of the houses built on it,cal sites from damage or destruction. When Chevron

USA went public as the head of a consortium of oil Chevron eventually gave the Coastal Band of the Chu-mash Nation 95 acres of undeveloped land a few kilo-companies planning to build a drilling platform off

Point Arguello and oil and gas pipelines connecting the meters to the east. The acquisition of this property hadnothing to do with allowing Chevron to build a pipelineplatform to a processing plant near Gaviota, one of the

first groups they contacted was the coastal Chumash. near Point Conception; it compensated the Chumashfor the loss of their land and houses. Today this 95-acreChumash representatives asked Chevron to put me in

charge of the cultural resource investigations, a large parcel is owned jointly by over 800 members of theCoastal Band and is regularly used for Chumash cul-and complicated project I reluctantly agreed to under-

take soon after moving to Seattle. I attended numerous tural gatherings and educational programs.It was in the mid-1980s that the rumor started thatplanning meetings and public hearings in which it was

clear that county, state, and federal officials would all influential members of the Chumash Indian commu-nity—Family A—were of Mexican and not Chumashapprove the project. Under extreme pressure, the Chu-

mash at one point terminated negotiations in protest of descent. Concerned about the repercussions of suchclaims for the effective management of cultural re-the proximity of the project to Point Conception and its

potential effects on archaeological sites. Later, with source studies on the Chevron Project, I scheduled ameeting with John Johnson, Travis Hudson’s successorpromises that Chevron would move as far as possible

from Point Conception and avoid all cemeteries and ev-ery possible archaeological site, the Chumash agreed to 2. The Chevron project also contributed to numerous scientificparticipate in the project to project the sites they con- publications (e.g., Erlandson 1985, 1988a,b,c, 1991, 1994, 1997; Er-

landson and Rockwell 1987; Erlandson, Cooley, and Carrico 1987;sidered sacred. As I participated fully in these negotia-Erlandson et al. 1992; Cooley 1992), an unusual circumstance fortions, I know that no cynical quid pro quo ever tran-cultural resource management projects in California. Many ofspired between Chevron and the Chumash. In fact, the these publications would not have been possible without the sup-

Chumash and I remained a thorn in Chevron’s side to port of the Chumash personnel who worked on the project withus.the very end, constantly pushing for avoidance of even


at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, to dis- elder Elaine Schneider of the Santa Ynez Indian Reser-vation said of Family A, ‘‘We all talk as family. We arecuss claims that mission records showed that Family A

was not Chumash. With me went John Ruiz, a son of all interrelated because we all intermarried’’ (Burns1997c). According to John Ruiz (personal communica-Madelaine Hall and leader of cultural resource preserva-

tion efforts for the United Chumash Council. In our tion, 1997), Travis Hudson showed in the early 1970sthat Ruiz had Chumash ancestors in his father’s lin-meeting, John Johnson said that the late Travis Hud-

son’s earlier geneaology was wrong and that no clear eage, leading Hudson to contact him to participate inthe voyage of the Helek. After what happened to hisChumash biological link could be made in John Ruiz’s

maternal lineage. Johnson’s evidence was that (1) a fe- mother, however, Ruiz has no interest in submitting hisfather’s lineage to geneaological ‘‘verification’’ by an-male ancestor of Madelaine Hall living in Santa Barbara

in the early 1800s was from Mexico; (2) this woman was thropologists.Finally, as for Haley and Wilcoxon’s (p. 787) assertionmarried to an Indian man listed only as coming ‘‘from

the south’’; and (3) approximately 11 months after the that ‘‘some nondescendant Traditionalists have startedan archaeological contract firm in which the profes-husband died, a baby was born to the woman. Thus,

mission records suggested that one of Madelaine Hall’s sional credentials are supplied by their long-standing ar-chaeologist allies,’’ as the only senior archaeologist whoancestors was a Mexican (part-Indian) woman living in

Santa Barbara almost 200 years ago who had married an has recently worked with Hutash Consultants I amclearly among those Haley and Wilcoxon consider to beIndian man of unknown (possibly Chumash or Califor-

nia Indian) origin who probably was not the father of on the wrong side of the tracks. I reiterate that over theyears I have worked with multiple Chumash groups—the woman’s child. Who fathered the child is not

known, but it is not inconceivable that an Indian for the past decade almost exclusively at their request—and I clearly do not subscribe to simplistic notions ofwoman living among the Chumash after the death of

her Indian husband may have borne the child of a Chu- traditional versus nontraditional camps among theChumash or their allies. Here I want to respond to sev-mash man.3

At the time, Johnson admitted that while mission eral points explicit or implicit in this statement. First,I take issue with the notion that Hutash Consultantsrecords provided no demonstrable Chumash link in Ma-

delaine’s lineage, they also could not prove that she was consists of nondescendant Chumash—Hutash is a non-profit consulting firm affiliated with the Coastal Bandnot Chumash. In my view, there is a huge difference be-

tween saying that mission records cannot verify a fami- of the Chumash Nation. The Coastal Band has over 800members, and Hutash’s senior Native American con-ly’s Chumash ancestry and categorically stating that

these people are not biologically or culturally Chu- sultants are appointed by tribal officers democraticallyelected by the larger membership. Numerous Coastalmash. The mission records, full of errors and inconsis-

tencies (see Johnson 1988:66–80), tell us only what Band members have Chumash ancestry genealogicallydocumented in mission records; others have genealogi-Chumash people told the Franciscan fathers, what the

fathers thought they said in the translation from Chu- cal links that have been ‘‘proven’’ by leading anthropol-ogists and disputed by others, and still others have gravemash to Spanish, or what the Franciscan fathers wrote

down. In fact, the biological heritage of virtually any in- doubts about the suitability of mission records or an-thropologists as the ultimate arbiters of their ethnic anddividual descended from those who lived and died at the

California missions 150 to 200 years ago cannot be veri- biological identity. The fact is that even the clearly Na-tive American members of Family A, regardless of theirfied or authenticated with certainty. Nonetheless, for

almost 15 years anthropologists, members of the media ability to ‘‘prove’’ their Chumash ancestry through mis-sion records, are intermarried and interrelated within search of a sensational story, corporate officers trying

to avoid expensive cultural resource mitigation, certain well-documented Chumash descendants. Thus there islittle scientific utility in questioning their ethnic or bio-disaffected Native Americans, and now Haley and Wil-

coxon have repeated these allegations. logical origins.I should also stress that Hutash Consultants is not anMany Chumash were disgusted by anthropologists’

questioning their ancestry, particularly in the public ‘‘archaeological’’ firm per se, nor have the ‘‘Traditional-ists become archaeologists’’ as Haley and Wilcoxonmedia, which they interpreted as an attempt to divide

the local Native American community and counteract (p. 787) assert. Hutash Consultants recently decided toprovide a full range of cultural resource services, includ-its growing influence over cultural resource manage-

ment issues. In a recent newpaper article, the Chumash ing Native American monitoring and archaeological re-search services. Native American staff members simplydecided—as archaeologists did for years—to hire their

3. According to John Johnson (personal communication, Aprilcultural resource counterparts directly. The archaeolo-1998), subsequent research suggested that Policarpo, the Indiangists they employ are subject to the same professional‘‘man from the south,’’ came from Baja California. His wife, Maria

Manuela Quejada, born in Los Angeles ca. 1798, reportedly had guidelines and agency peer review procedures as any ar-three children out of wedlock with Miguel Cordero, a native Santa chaeological firm operating in the area. In this sense,Barbaran of Mexican descent who was married to a half-Chumash Hutash Consultants, their ‘‘archaeologist allies,’’ andwoman. Of the other 11 great-great-grandparents of Madelaine Hall

the ‘‘Traditionalists’’ that take the brunt of Haley andlisted by Wilcoxon et al. (1986), two also had a parent whose birth-place was not recorded. Wilcoxon’s criticism are in direct competition for cul-


tural resource contracts with Wilcoxon and Associ- credibility with legislators and the public and under-mines the efforts of anthropologists working to build re-ates—something Haley and Wilcoxon neglect to men-

tion. lationships of mutual trust with Native American com-munities.The political context of Chumash deconstruction.

What might motivate an anthropologist to deny the her- For decades, archaeologists did as they pleased withNative American archaeological sites—excavatingitage of Chumash descendants? Why question the bio-

logical heritage of certain families or question some an- burials, houses, ceremonial areas, and midden depositsand rarely (until legislation mandated otherwise) seek-thropologists or archaeologists for their interpretations

of Chumash culture or sacred sites? Is Haley and Wil- ing the permission or participation of the descendantsof the people whose sites and ancestors they excavated.coxon’s an unbiased exploration of the complex phe-

nomenon that has come to be known as Chumash iden- At the same time, the village, burial, and camp sites ofNative American peoples were relentlessly bulldozedtity, an academic search for such elusive concepts as

empirical facts or scientific truths? In my view, their by uncontrolled development or looted by amateur orprofessional pothunters. As a result, there are thou-analysis can only be understood within the larger con-

text of the politically charged 1980s and 1990s, with sands of Chumash skeletons and millions of artifactshoused in museums or private collections around theNative Americans and anthropologists (especially ar-

chaeologists and biological anthropologists) actively world. As the environmental and Native American re-vival movements of the 1960s and 1970s gatheredstruggling over control of the past. Nowhere in the

United States is this highly emotional struggle more ev- steam, many anthropologists, archaeologists, NativeAmericans, and legislators concluded that the uncon-ident than in California, where a number of activist and

sometimes litigious Native American (including Chu- trolled destruction of sites and the lack of Indianinvolvement in managing their past was no longer ac-mash) groups have squared off against powerful develop-

ers, corporations, government agencies, museums, uni- ceptable. They worked to pass laws or develop guide-lines that provided increased protection to archaeologi-versities, and archaeological contractors over the

control of archaeological sites, investigations, or collec- cal sites and mandated increased consultation withNative American communities. Some anthropologiststions. These battles have made the more radical Native

American groups (including many ‘‘Traditionalist’’ (myself included) generally embraced these changes andhave had relatively good relations with Native Ameri-Chumash) a host of powerful enemies, including a siz-

able contingent of conservative anthropologists repre- cans over the years. Others resisted efforts to increasethe involvement of Native Americans in their research,sented by the late Clement Meighan and his American

Committee for the Preservation of Archaeological Col- and still others quickly became disaffected when con-fronted with the deep-seated anger of some Nativelections (ACPAC). Meighan, through the ACPAC

Newsletter and other publications, helped foster antag- Americans or disagreements over such difficult issuesas the repatriation of skeletal remains or grave goods.onistic and confrontational attitudes among many Cali-

fornia archaeologists. An example of the rhetoric of this Ultimately, the historical arrogance of the general an-thropological community—which often portrayed itselfgroup is Meighan’s (1992:706–8) response to criticism

by Native American students at UCLA: as the self-appointed experts on Native American his-tory—led to the passage of the Native American GravesHow could I harm any person who had already been Protection and Repatriation Act and other legislationdead for thousands of years? How could anything which provides Native Americans an even larger say inthat my studies did with the bones of these ancient the management of their archaeological sites, the skele-people harm any living person? The condemnation tal remains and grave goods of their ancestors, and otherseems extreme for a ‘‘crime’’ that is merely a failure objects of cultural patrimony.to invite mythical descendants to control my re- These difficult and contentious issues have led to in-search and destroy museum collections. . . . The creasing tension between the Native American and thesmart archaeologist in California does not find cer- anthropological community. In recent years this ten-tain things. If they are found, they are either thrown sion has led an increasing number of anthropologists—away or not mentioned in his/her reports. Field including Haley and Wilcoxon—to portray Nativeclasses are also careful not to expose students or Americans as nonindigenous or lacking cultural conti-teachers to criminal charges, meaning that students nuity with their historical past. Among the Chumash,in those classes will never expose a burial or deal it is no coincidence that the activist Traditionalists,with any ‘‘controversial’’ finds. . . . This chilling ef- portrayed by Haley and Wilcoxon as ‘‘nondescendant’’fect on research is creating an underground archaeol- ethnic chameleons and uncritically perceived by atogy of ill-trained students, dishonest researchers, least one commentator (Kealiinohomoku 1997:781) asand intimidated teachers. ‘‘devious, self-serving, unjustifiably exclusionary, andmanipulative,’’ are also the most assertive in protectingTo me a more pressing issue is how anthropologists

trained to appreciate cross-cultural differences could sacred sites, demanding the repatriation of museum col-lections, and requiring full consultation with Chumashsuffer from such blind ethnocentrism. Trying to match

the rhetorical exaggeration of some Native American groups on all cultural heritage issues. Although Haleyand Wilcoxon portray the nontraditionalist Chumash asactivists is not only counterproductive but costs us


underdogs who have received little help from anthro- is increasingly recognized in the by-laws of our learnedsocieties and in local, state, and federal laws. In real-lifepologists, the more radical Traditionalists have largely

been excluded or removed from museum advisory situations, these responsibilities are not always clearlydefined. In my opinion, however, anthropologistsboards dealing with Native American repatriation or

other cultural issues. As Meighan (1992:709) noted in should not act as the sole arbiters of truth and justice,the diviners of who is or is not Indian, or the creatorsmaking a very different point, archaeologists negotiat-

ing with Indians or other groups should make an effort of simplistic stereotypes that exacerbate factionalismwithin Indian tribes or interfere in tribal self-determina-to be sure that all factions of the affected group are

heard. Rather than consult with Native American tion.In exploring some fascinating issues related to the re-groups intent on reburial or control of archaeological re-

search, some anthropologists have opted to dismiss cent revitalization of Chumash culture, Haley and Wil-coxon never explicitly divulge that they have a historythem as non-Indians, to argue that they have no cultural

continuity with the older cultures of an area, to deal of relatively contentious relationships with those theylabel Traditionalists, that they have lost some opportu-with compliant individuals rather than groups, to or-

chestrate disagreements or divisions within tribal com- nities to participate in large contracts from developerswho allowed Chumash representatives to choose the ar-munities, or even to propose that some early skeletons

(e.g., Washington’s 9,000-year-old ‘‘Kennewick Man’’) chaeologists they wished to work with, or that they arecompeting for archaeological contracts with some ofare of Caucasian rather than Native American origin.

For many museum professionals intent on protecting the very people their analyses impugn. Many NativeAmericans will see Haley and Wilcoxon’s article as in-their collections, for archaeologists who long for the

good old days when they could dig where they pleased excusable meddling in Indian politics, as yet another at-tempt by white anthropologists to divide the Chumashwithout interference, for biological anthropologists

who fear that analysis of skeletal remains will no longer Indian community for their own purposes, as an at-tempt to undermine the influence and authority of thebe possible, and for cultural resource consultants who

have made millions of dollars as the sole authorities on more activist Chumash with government agencies andpolicy makers, and as an attempt to discredit a poten-Native American culture, there is much to fear from

newly assertive and empowered Native American tially powerful competitor for lucrative archaeologycontracts. If Haley and Wilcoxon’s purpose was solelygroups.

This is the political context in which Haley and Wil- an academic exploration of the complex issues involvedin defining Chumash cultural identity, why did theycoxon’s analysis and public deconstruction of Chumash

identity takes place. Intended or not, the subtle implica- send copies to the local news media (M. Burns, personalcommunication, December 1997) and local governmenttion of their argument that the concept of Chumash

culture was invented by anthropologists and that the policy makers (A. McCurdy [Santa Barbara County De-partment of Planning and Development], personal com-Chumash only recently developed a sense of indigenous

cultural identity is that they bear little or no legitimate munication, February 1998)?Friedman (1997:779) recognizes Haley and Wil-claim to a partnership in managing their past. This im-

plication will be construed by many Indian people as coxon’s ‘‘virtually total absorption . . . in the culturalverification problem’’ as a reflection of their own con-one more attempt by scientists and white society to dis-

sociate Native Americans from their history. It will also flated identity as anthropologists and ‘‘guardians of au-thenticity’’ in interpreting Chumash culture. The prob-be seen by some as a transparent political attempt by

anthropologists to legitimate their claims of expertise lem lies in their attempt to portray themselves asobjective observers while minimizing their role in aand control over the management of Chumash heri-

tage—positions of authority that can be used for finan- contemporary political drama. In doing archaeology, Ishare an important goal with the Chumash—to pre-cial gain, academic prestige, and the ‘‘protection’’ of

Chumash skeletal remains and grave goods housed in serve archaeological sites, the data they contain, andthe significance of these places to contemporary people.museums and universities from repatriation. While Ha-

ley and Wilcoxon’s article is unquestionably about Since a primary justification for doing archaeology inNorth America is to preserve, protect, and study materi-power relations in a complex and contemporary con-

text, they remain silent about their own political and als that can inform us about Native American (andbroader human) history, archaeologists should embraceprofessional interests.

Conclusions. In North America, anthropologists are opportunities to collaborate with Native Americangroups—a focus of my 22-year career that has been im-reviled by many Native Americans. As anthropologists

we have much to live down—scientific racism, the mensely rewarding. I did not choose an anthropologicalcareer to become a judge of the cultural or biological au-sometimes grotesque grave robbing or corpse stealing of

early anthropologists, and history books that have long thenticity of indigenous peoples, particularly notwithin what Handler (1997:780) describes as the ‘‘hege-ignored the many Native American contributions to

Western civilization and the true magnitude of the monic discourse’’ of a colonialist historical tradition. Inthe context of that intellectual tradition, Haley andapocalypse associated with European colonialism. We

also have moral and ethical responsibilities to those Wilcoxon’s article will be seen by many as yet anotherattempt by anthropologists to discredit Native Ameri-whose cultures we study—the living and the dead—as


can groups that have openly challenged the monopoly portion of monitoring work has, however, been at Van-denberg Air Force Base, where the Santa Ynez Reserva-non-Indian scientists have held as the authorities on

Native American culture and heritage. tion as a federally recognized tribe has an exclusivemonitoring contract. It appears that Haley and Wil-coxon are inconsistent in sorting Indians into Tradi-tionalist and nontraditionalist groups in different placeschester king

Topanga Anthropological Consultants, P.O. Box 826, in their article and their reply.On p. 770, a scenario involving recruitment of oppo-Topanga, Calif. 90290, U.S.A. 16 iv 98

nents of the LNG development by local landowners ispresented. It leaves out any description of the first PointBecause my name and the names of archaeologist

friends are mentioned in negative contexts and because Conception encampment. It was after this first encamp-ment that the local landowners who did not want a liq-I believe it sets a bad precedent in anthropology, I have

decided to respond to Haley and Wilcoxon’s unusual ar- uefied natural gas (LNG) facility supported the Indians.This encampment aimed to stop an unpermitted geo-ticle. On p. 765 they say that the guidelines for evaluat-

ing traditional places ‘‘empower anthropologists as logical trenching program at the project site. Many peo-ple who had previously participated as archaeologicaljudges of the genuineness and authenticity of tradition

and thereby position them as gatekeeping identifiers monitors were involved in it, and many participants init had long backgrounds as activists and students of tra-and objectifiers of heritage and delineators of identity.’’

The beliefs of societies should be evaluated by the ditional ways. Many of the local participants had stud-ied under Semu Huaute, a traditional leader with docu-members of the societies, not by outside specialists. In-

dians in the Chumash area think that anthropologists mented Chumash ancestry. Traditional values did notemerge because of landowner support. It is indisputablemay discredit their beliefs and social groups.

On p. 767 it is stated that the members of Family A that an alliance developed, but I know of no evidencethat any of the participants in the first encampment an-were removed from a City of Malibu list of ‘‘most likely

descendants.’’ The City of Malibu has never had a list ticipated it. Most if not all of them lost money as a re-sult of their participation.of ‘‘most likely descendants’’ or any other category of

Indian. On p. 772 it is stated that the LNG resistance of1978–80 ‘‘inaugurated and institutionalized NativeI know few Indians who do not have traditional val-

ues of maintaining their social group, respecting their American monitoring of archaeological sites in SantaBarbara County.’’ Native American monitoring of ar-ancestors, and protecting the land of their ancestors. On

p. 787, Haley and Wilcoxon attempt to define their non- chaeological sites was a consequence of the Society forCalifornia Archaeology’s position that archaeologiststraditionalist group, and the discussion indicates that

the term ‘‘antiactivist’’ could be substituted for ‘‘non- should not act counter to the desires of California Indi-ans. Monitoring became common in the San Franciscotraditionalist.’’ They point out that nontraditionalists

do not identify as nontraditional but are identified as Bay area after an archaeologist was stopped from remov-ing burials that were going to be destroyed by a con-such by Traditionalists. Using similar logic I could di-

vide anthropologists into ‘‘scientific’’ and ‘‘nonscien- struction project in Watsonville. Before conducting anarchaeological testing program for the Point Concep-tific.’’ Every anthropologist would include different per-

sons in the ‘‘nonscientific’’ class, and feelings about tion LNG environmental impact report, we contactedthe Brotherhood of the Tomol, a group that had takenwho belonged in it would change over time. Few an-

thropologists would call themselves members of the part in the 1976 bicentennials of the Revolutionary Warand the Anza expedition to California by participating‘‘nonscientific’’ group. The categories of ‘‘scientific’’

and ‘‘nonscientific’’ anthropologists do not represent in the construction and use of a replica of a precolonialnative plank boat (tomol ). Because the Brotherhood wasreal social groups; they do not meet as groups, recognize

themselves as groups, or behave as groups in any way. the active representative of the Santa Barbara area Chu-mash, we contacted it to monitor our archaeologicalLikewise, the categories Traditionalist and nontradi-

tionalist do not constitute real groups. Within many studies at the LNG site. Larry Wilcoxon was a memberof our crew and interacted with the monitors.families that recognize themselves as Chumash there is

a wide range of religious beliefs. Many of Haley and Wil- The study of Native American concerns about PointConception for the LNG project discussed on p. 771 hadcoxon’s Traditionalists have Catholic relatives whom

they love and respect. These Traditionalists include to be prepared in two weeks. Its purpose was to docu-ment Native American concerns about the develop-people with well-documented Chumash ancestry.

Traditionalists criticize each other as nontradition- ment’s effects, and it was largely prepared by the SantaBarbara Indian Center. It did not attempt to locate andalist when they behave in a manner counter to that per-

ceived necessary for group survival. This criticism often interview Indians who were not concerned about thedevelopment. It was required because the encampmentsoccurs within families. Haley and Wilcoxon say that

most of the reservation people are nontraditionalist, to protect the area had demonstrated the concerns ofNative Americans and it was considered necessary toand on p. 767 they say that ‘‘from 1978 until the 1990s,

Traditionalists received the vast majority of the mil- document those concerns as part of the environmentalreview process. I believe that this was the first study oflions of dollars paid in monitoring wages.’’ The largest


development project impacts on the American Indian tion. The largest settlements cluster in the center of theSanta Barbara Channel mainland coast. At the peripher-community in Santa Barbara County. It was not a so-

phisticated study of Chumash religion. Haley and Wil- ies, settlements are generally smaller. Areas with themost divergent languages, including the Island Chu-coxon characterize the report as an anthropological pro-

motion of Point Conception as the Western Gate. They mash, the San Luis Obispo County Chumash, and theSanta Monica Mountains Chumash, had subcenterssay we should have screened to identify appropriate key

informants. It would be interesting to learn how we that were smaller than the centers of the mainlandSanta Barbara Channel coast (King 1975, 1984; Brownshould have done this.

On pp. 767–68 Haley and Wilcoxon state that the 1967). Archaeological evidence indicates that this set-tlement-size distribution persisted for over 7,000 years.people who spoke the major Chumashan language

‘‘were never unified into a single or even a few overarch- (4) Chumash languages are distinct from other lan-guages, and the available information indicates thating polities prior to their complete incorporation into

the Spanish mission system by 1804.’’ They present no they developed in place for thousands of years. Determi-nation of the reasons for continuity of locally developeddata demonstrating this. They reference Kroeber’s un-

substantiated feeling that the Chumash boundary societies is important to anthropological theory. I donot believe that study of continuity of social develop-might be south of the boundary indicated by recent eth-

nohistoric research. Their map is from the Handbook ment is motivated by a desire to preserve cultural sites;desire to preserve the archaeological record of social de-of American Indians and shows the northern Chumash

boundary south of the area where recently organized velopment is a motive to work for site preservation.ethnohistoric data document Chumash-speaking settle-ments. Traditional Chumash history given by Harring-ton’s consultant Fernando Librado indicates that theCentral Chumash, including speakers of Inezeno, Puri- lillian robles

2830 E. 56th Way, Long Beach, Calif. 90805, U.S.A.semeno, Barbereno, and Ventureno, had political unityas Lulapin. The word ‘‘Lulapin’’ derives from terms re- 20 iv 98flecting both inland and coastal people. The traditionalhistory published as The Eye of the Flute describes the I am an 82-year-old California Indian, an elder of the

Juaneno/Acjachemen people, also known as the Jua-formation of a political organization that loosely unitedthe Lulapin (Hudson et al. 1977). Chief Buchon in the neno Band of Mission Indians. I am also a ‘‘most likely

descendant.’’ I am a founding member of the coalitionSan Luis Obispo Bay area was said by Crespi of the Por-tola expedition to collect tribute from as far as 50 miles to save from destruction Puvungna, a sacred site located

on the grounds of California State University at Longaway (King 1984). Spanish mission registers documentmarriages between elite families maintaining ties be- Beach (CSULB). I slept there, on the ground, for 15 days

to call attention to the threat to Puvungna. Puvungnatween distant settlements (Johnson 1988, King 1984).The known distribution of shell bead and ornament means ‘‘where all things come together.’’ It is the birth-

place of Chinigchinich, who is a prophet of thetypes indicates that Chumash-speakers traded more ar-tifact types among themselves than with neighboring Gabrieleno/Tongva and neighboring tribal peoples, in-

cluding the Juaneno/Acjachemen and the Luiseno. Cur-groups. The idea that Chumash (or whatever one callspeople who lived in the Santa Barbara Channel region at rently I serve on the CSULB Repatriation Committee.

I have read Haley and Wilcoxon’s article on the Chu-and before the time of Spanish colonization) developedlocally since the first peopling of the area is based not mash and identity, and I am amazed that the authors

have put so much energy into trying to cast doubt onon political motives (as stated on p. 768) but on the fol-lowing observations: (1) There is no information in the or undermine the Indian identity of certain Chumash

families. What is their motive in challenging the ances-archaeological record indicating the rapid shifts in mor-tuary practice or forms of artifacts used to maintain so- try of these folks? Although I am not Chumash, I am

offended; I feel that this attack on some Indians is ancial behavior that would be expected if there was abreak in continuity because of conquest by outside attack on us all.

We all know that California belonged to Spain andgroups prior to a.d. 1782. Instead, there is continuity inmortuary practice and the development of artifact types then Mexico until the 1846 conquest by the United

States. We all know that there was widespread inter-for at least 4,000 years before European colonization.There appears to be continuity for over 7,000 years, but marriage between these peoples. Some soldiers also

took advantage of Indian women, and children werethe data are insufficient to allow identification of de-tails of mortuary change between 4,000 and 7,000 years born. We don’t question the identity of anthropologists,

and we don’t appreciate having them question our iden-ago (King 1990). (2) At the times of the first recordedSpanish contacts in 1542 and 1769, the Chumash had a tity.

So much has happened to our people, the Californiahigher population density than their neighbors (Brown1967), and archaeological record indicates that this was Indians who were devastated by the mission system of

the Spanish. We were forced into the missions and en-also the case in prehistoric periods. It is improbable thatpeople with larger populations were replaced by smaller slaved. We built their buildings; we labored in their

fields; we cared for their cattle and sheep. Our languagegroups. (3) The Chumash area has an internal organiza-


was taken from us. Our culture was almost destroyed. still. Stop discrediting us. Can it stop now? Leaveus alone.’’We went underground to survive. (I cry as I remember.)

At this point in time, our ancestors are telling us it Elaine Schneider, a Santa Marian who is presidentof the Tribal Elders Council, the governing body ofis safe to come out. We are no longer in physical danger;

there are laws to protect us. We survived the invasions; the reservation, said the study was nothing morethan an open invitation to developers to build proj-yet these learned anthropologists are questioning who

we are. It seems that our survival is being challenged ects on Point Conception.‘‘It’s prodevelopment and it’s trying to find a wayagain.

I think some anthropologists enjoy studying the In- of disproving there is such a thing as an indigenouspeople,’’ she said. ‘‘If you don’t fall into their cate-dian and love the Indian but only when Indians are

dead. Now that Indians are more articulate and do gory, how can you exist?’’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .sometimes challenge anthropologists and work as mon-

itors and consultants on sites, we seem to be a thorn in Reservation spokesmen said they resented whatthey viewed as an attempt by the authors of thetheir side.

I would like to see mutual respect between Indians study to divide the Chumash community.‘‘The reservation does not like an open conflict ofand anthropologists, where anthropologists help us save

our sacred sites, not preside over their destruction. ‘You’re an Indian and you’re not an Indian,’ saidSchneider, the tribal elder. ‘‘We all talk as family.We are all interrelated because we all intermarried.’’

Reginald Pagaling, the contract specialist for thetribal council, said further that if anyone is makingeugene e. ruylemoney on monitoring developments, it is archaeolo-Department of Anthropology, California Stategists and anthropologists.University, Long Beach, Calif. 90840-1003, U.S.A.

‘‘How dare they talk about the millions of dol-22 iv 98lars?’’ Pagaling asked. ‘‘They must acknowledgethat they are doing the same thing. Where is the eth-The article by Haley and Wilcoxon raises troublesomeics in all this?’’questions about the reliability of our ethnographic rec-

ord and the credibility of anthropology as a discipline. In spite of this negative reaction by members of theBy virtue of its publication in CA, the authors’ interpre- Indian community, Haley boasted of their accomplish-tations have become part of the ethnographic record and ment:will be cited as authority by those who do not know thedynamics of Indian/archaeologist/developer politics in ‘‘We shot big holes in the notion of the WesternSouthern California. Gate—maybe not enough to change the mind of in-

Haley and Wilcoxon seem to be saying that Indians dividuals, but certainly enough to change the deci-who object to development projects on religious sions of those in power,’’ Haley said.grounds are not to be trusted—and neither are the an- ‘‘The Chumash never shared a vision of them-thropologists who support them. Accordingly, it is im- selves as a people. The notion of a Chumash peo-portant to have tough-minded anthropologists such as ple—culture, tribe or nation—all of that is a prod-Haley and Wilcoxon who are willing to brave the pre- uct of anthropology. And that’s part of thevailing orthodoxy and challenge the spurious claims of underlying problem.’’these would-be Indians.

But is the underlying problem really an academic oneThis is exactly what developers want to hear. The ar-as Haley and Wilcoxon suggest, or is it one of econom-guments presented by Haley and Wilcoxon are by noics? The News-Press article also observes that membersmeans new or limited to the Chumash. Such discus-of ‘‘Family A,’’ according to Haley and Wilcoxon not ofsions have been going on for some time throughoutChumash ancestry, have established their own non-Southern California and elsewhere around the country.profit consulting cultural resource management firm.It is unfortunate that no Indian voices were includedThey are thus competitors of Wilcoxon and Associates,in the discussion of Haley and Wilcoxon’s paper. Theand this should have been mentioned.article did attract the attention of the local press, how-

In their discussion of the ‘‘making’’ of Chumash tra-ever, and the Santa Barbara News-Press (December 26,dition and identity, Haley and Wilcoxon allude to the1997) interviewed a number of Indians and archaeolo-‘‘millions of dollars paid in monitoring wages’’ as if thisgists about the study. The Indian reaction should be ofwere the primary motivation. But it is important to con-interest to all anthropologists:sider not only the economic stakes of Indians in claim-ing Indian identity but also the economic stakes of ar-Thus, some Chumash today see the study as just

one more attempt by non-Indians to erase Native chaeologists and developers in contesting such claims.Haley and Wilcoxon nowhere mention the billions ofAmericans and their beliefs.

‘‘It bothers me as an Indian,’’ said Tonie Flores, a dollars paid to contract archaeologists in Southern Cali-fornia or the real money made by developers and invest-resident of the reservation. ‘‘We’re the shadows of

the past. I don’t like anybody to be mistreating us ors. The economic stake of Indians in development is-


sues is relatively minor. It would be interesting to reburied on LAn-234 in 1979 at the insistence of Indianstudents. The Campus Master Plan was changed in or-analyze the Point Conception controversy in light of

the economic interests of all those concerned. der to preserve the sites. The university used Puvungnain its recruiting brochures. A sign was posted near theI am not an expert on the Chumash, but much of Ha-

ley and Wilcoxon’s paper simply does not ring true. For reburial which read: ‘‘Gabrielino Indians once inhabitedthis site, Puvungna, birthplace of Chungichnish, law-example, according to Haley and Wilcoxon (p. 767),giver and god.’’A decade after Family A’s genealogy came to light, In 1992, campus officials decided to build a commer-Ventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez, and Tejon In- cial and residential development on the 22-acre site ofdian descendants used it to persuade the California LAn-235. They filed environmental documents claim-Native American Heritage Commission and the ing that ‘‘no cultural resources’’ were known to exist onCity of Malibu to remove members of Family A the site. This misleading statement evoked a storm offrom their lists of ‘‘most likely descendants,’’ which protest from Indians, archaeologists, government offi-identifies persons to be contacted when human re- cials, students, faculty, and members of the local com-mains are encountered in archaeological sites. munity. Campus officials acknowledged that they hadmade a ‘‘mistake’’ and promised a ‘‘cultural review’’ toThis statement conflicts with my understanding of how

the Native American Heritage Commission works and determine whether the land in question was in fact sa-cred. It was never really explained why a cultural re-how it maintains its list of ‘‘most likely descendants.’’

I called the Heritage Commission on this point and con- view was necessary for a site that was already listed onthe National Register of Historic Places. There was afirmed that no one had ever been removed from the

‘‘most likely descendants’’ list by the Commission. The widespread fear that the conclusions of the so-calledcultural review were predetermined and that archaeol-issue had been raised from time to time, but the Com-

mission was advised by the Attorney General’s office ogy was being used as a political weapon against the In-dian community. As Archaeologist C (who had earlierthat removing someone from the ‘‘most likely descen-

dants’’ list would require an administrative hearing in been involved in the Point Conception struggle) ob-served: ‘‘Archaeology has no place in determining spiri-which both sides could present their views. No such ad-

ministrative hearings have been held. This is not a mat- tual significance to Native people. They’re trying to usearchaeology as a smokescreen to destroy the site. Iter of interpretation but one of public record.

Unfortunately, I cannot comment directly on other think everybody knows that and is seeing that, and theuniversity is still trying the same game. I’m tired of it.’’specific matters covered in the Haley and Wilcoxon ar-

ticle, since I was not personally involved in the Point This fear was real. Although the university’s actingpresident promised that the cultural review would beConception struggle. However, for the past five years I

have been deeply involved in a similar struggle on my conducted with ‘‘the greatest possible respect and sensi-tivity to the interests of Native Americans,’’ campus of-campus at Cal State Long Beach.1 A brief discussion of

the relationship between development dollars and an- ficials hired Archaeologist D for a massive backhoe ex-cavation of Puvungna. According to the technicalthropological controversy at Cal State Long Beach may

help illuminate the Point Conception controversy. proposal submitted by Archaeologist D:Until 1993, it was generally accepted that the Cal

State Long Beach campus was built on land that in- We propose a form of subsurface probing. A topo-graphic map will be created depicting all modern fea-cluded archaeological sites associated with Puvungna,

the creation center for the Chungichnish religion that tures and previous archaeological excavation units.A grid will then be placed over the entire parcel,spread widely throughout Southern California.

After the discovery of an Indian burial on the CSULB and 20-m-long trenches will be excavated with abackhoe 20 m apart. Trench lines will be offset as il-campus in 1972, two archaeological sites (LAn-234 and

LAn-235) on campus were placed on the National Regis- lustrated in Figure B.1. Trench locations may bemoved slightly if utilities, trees, or other obstaclester of Historic Places on the recommendation of the se-

nior archaeologists in the Department of Anthropology, are encountered. Using an 80-cm (ca. 2-foot) bucket,approximately 1.3 percent of the parcel will be exca-whom I will call Archaeologist A. This was done with

the full knowledge and consent of the university. The vated. We believe that the amount of disturbancecaused by the trenching is outweighed by the infor-university’s contract archaeologist, Archaeologist B,

prepared a number of reports which referred to the land mation return.Fieldwork will begin on August 23. The first twoon which the campus was built as the ‘‘Puvungna land

mass.’’ The partial skeleton uncovered at LAn-235 was tasks, site mapping and the establishment of thegrid, will be completed by September 3. Backhoetrenching will begin on September 6 and be com-1. For further discussion of the Puvungna case, see Overbey (1994),

Ruyle (1993, 1994, 1995), and Skomal (1997). The Puvungna case pleted by September 24, at which time all trencheshas generated well over 100 newspaper articles as well as extensive will be backfilled. Manual excavations will followcourt documents. There is also a useful hour-long video (Dodds and immediately, commencing on September 27 andGray 1994). I maintain a web site for the various documents pro-

lasting three weeks. All fieldwork will be completedduced by the Save Puvungna Coalition (www.csulb.edu/,eruyle/puvuhome.html). by October 15, 1993. At that time, a preliminary let-


ter report will be prepared and submitted to the joined California’s Native American Heritage Commis-sion in support of the Puvungna struggle.CSULB Foundation by October 30, 1993.

The American Anthropological Association has alsoissued a Statement on Puvungna Community whichThese plans were formulated while Indians were

holding a round-the-clock prayer vigil at the Puvungna ‘‘supports the protection of American Indian religioussites and the State of California guidelines and proce-site to protect the land. The Executive Secretary of Cali-

fornia’s Native American Heritage Commission (the dures for determining American Indian religious sites inthe State of California.’’ The statement (Overbey 1994)state commission appointed by the governor and

charged under state law with the responsibility of de- reads in part:termining whether particular sites are sacred to Native The American Anthropological Association wishesAmericans) had written to the university as follows: to remind all parties that the issues raised by the Pu-

vungna case are not just local but also are directlyOn June 18, 1993, the Native American Heritage related to why the United Nations designated 1993Commission held a public meeting in which they as the ‘‘International Year of Indigenous People.’’passed a Motion to recommend mitigation measures The United Nations and its signatory nations recog-to protect the entire site known as Puvungna (ap- nize the need for an active international effort toproximately 22 acres). The Commission has deter- protect the human rights of indigenous peoplemined that any digging, excavation, or grading throughout the world. Should the actions of anywould result in damage to the sacred/religious site. party result in the destruction of an Indian sacredTherefore, the Commission recommends complete site, it is certain that such behavior would andavoidance of the site as the appropriate and only ac- should receive active state, national, and interna-ceptable mitigation measure. The religious and sa- tional condemnation.cred significance of the site cannot be determinedby trenching and excavation. Archaeology cannot de- The Puvungna case is important for anthropologists

for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the easetermine religious and cultural significance. Only theIndian people can determine those values. They with which the university was able to find archaeolo-

gists who were willing to destroy an Indian sacred sitehave spoken very clearly to the Commission; I hopethe University is listening as well. in opposition to the wishes of the Indian community

and to support its argument that the university and notthe Indian community or the Native American HeritageThe planned excavation was stopped by an injunction

obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Commission would determine whether the land was infact sacred and that this would be done through archae-Native American Heritage Commission on August 20,

1993. The case is still in court. It has twice been ap- ological excavation. In the process a controversy wascreated about the location of Puvungna and whether thepealed to the California Supreme Court, which both

times declined to hear the case, thereby supporting rul- sites on the CSULB campus were part of Puvungna. Oneuniversity official went so far as to write an opinionings in favor of the Indian plaintiffs. In the latest deci-

sion, the university was ordered to prove that the piece for the local newspaper titled ‘‘Did Indians EverLive There?’’ (Long Beach Press Telegram, April 26,planned development is essential to the public interest.

Meanwhile, CSULB’s new president has abandoned the 1995).As indicated above, until 1993 there was absolutelyentire project and pledged to preserve the site as open

space as long as he is president. Nevertheless, the legal no controversy about the association between theCSULB campus and Puvungna. I have accumulated ap-battle continues, costing the university about $1 mil-

lion so far in legal expenses alone. proximately 60 references to Puvungna and/or theChungichnish religion in the anthropological literatureCampus officials attempted to portray the Indian op-

position to the planned development as representing earlier than 1993. Not all of them specifically mentionthe location of Puvungna, but those that do locate it onthe views of only a few Indians. Archaeologist E, hired

by the university for the cultural review, claimed that or near the CSULB campus.2 Any questioning of the lo-cation of Puvungna has occurred since 1993 and has‘‘some Indians support the university’s activities and

some do not.’’ The fact of the matter is that about the been done by two archaeologists employed by CSULBfor the cultural review. This cultural review becameonly Indians who can be said to have supported the uni-

versity’s activities were those who were employed as closely tied to the legal case, and university officialshave refused to release many of the associated docu-monitors on other archaeological excavations on cam-

pus or their close associates. The Puvungna struggle has ments. However, certain documents are availablethe support of virtually the entire Native Americancommunity of Southern California (which includes not 2. The earliest reference to Puvungna, by Father Boscana (1933) in

the early 18th century, placed it to the northeast of San Juan Capi-only Native California Indians but also Indians whostrano rather than to the northwest, where Rancho Los Alamitoshave moved to the area from other states). Theand the Cal State Long Beach campus are located. However, Bosca-Gabrielino/Tongva Tribal Council, the Los Angeles na’s error had been fully discussed by both Case (1927:26–27) and

City/County Native American Indian Commission, Harrington (1933:144), and no one had disputed their interpreta-tions before 1993.and the National Congress of American Indians have


which illustrate the manner in which the cultural re- thropology]. On April 12, the remains were exam-ined in depth and the analysis completed.view was done.

For example, there is the case of the Indian burial These remains, labeled LAn-235, DA 12, were de-termined to be human and of antiquity beyond con-found on LAn-235 in 1972. Campus officials and their

lawyers suggested that these might not be of Indian an- cern of the Coroner. The texture of the bone wasconsistent with that of an ancient burial. Attritioncestry but might in fact be the remains of a Mexican

cowboy. This argument appears to have come from Ar- of the mandibular and maxillary teeth was ex-treme—characteristic of aborigines on a prehistoricchaeologist E, who claimed that it was ‘‘merely as-

sumed’’ that the burial was prehistoric. This archaeolo- California diet. The remains show indications ofMongoloid ancestry as evidenced by shovel-shapedgist filed a court deposition stating, in part:incisors and prominent zygoma.

I have determined that [Archaeologist A] formed hisIt is possible that Archaeologist E was misled by cam-opinion that the skeletal remains disinterred frompus officials or that campus officials had lost the letter,LAn-235 in 1972 were Native American solely onas they later privately claimed to have done. To the bestthe basis of tooth wear. According to [Archaeologistof my knowledge, however, neither Archaeologist E norA], after disinterment, the skeletal remains werethe university has corrected the earlier erroneous asser-taken to the CSULB anthropology lab where they re-tions.mained until they were removed for cremation and

This sort of careless approach is unfortunately all tooreburial. I am unaware of any other scientificcommon in the annals of Southern California archaeol-method employed to ascertain the ethnicity or ageogy. The Puvungna case is unusual only in that the Indi-of the skeleton.ans appear to be winning. At numerous other sites inI have examined the Osteological Laboratory Re-Southern California, archaeologists have collaboratedport (‘‘Report’’) prepared in conjunction with an ex-in the destruction of important sites that have spiritualamination of the human skeletal remains disin-significance for Native Americans. This story has yet toterred at LAn-235 in 1972. . . . The Report does notbe told within the academic anthropological literatureattribute ethnicity to the skeletal remains, nor doesbut is documented in the local press. For example:it indicate its age. The Report does indicate tooth

wear; however, this fact, by itself, is not indicative Archeology Today: ‘‘Digging for Dollars’’? Science:of Native American ancestry. Further, shovel- Some question practices of consultants builders hireshaped incisor teeth, indicative of Native American to catalogue artifacts on land in O.C., elsewhere. Inancestry, were not noted in the Report. Vaqueros, or the movies, archeologists are usually professors inMexican ranch workers, prominent in the area of pith helmets, whacking trails through the jungle. InLAn-235 during California’s Mexican period, con- real life, though, they’re as likely to have a Cham-sumed a diet which contributed to rapid tooth wear, ber of Commerce membership and a payroll tosimilar to tooth wear experienced by Native Ameri- meet. These days, archeology—the science of ‘‘gods,cans. graves, and scholars’’—is a half-billion-dollar-a-year

Firsthand reports of Gabrielino Indian burial prac- business. . . . ‘‘You can be a cabdriver and hang outtices recorded by Father Boscana and confirmed by a shingle as a consulting archeologist. There arearchaeological evidence indicate that the Gabri- many horror stories of people coming right off theelinos cremated the dead. There is no evidence that street and starting to consult.’’ [Los Angeles Times,the skeletal remains disinterred from LAn-235 in Orange County edition, September 27, 1993]1972 were subjected to cremation. Therefore, thecondition of the skeleton weighs against [Archaeolo- Differing Reports Often Are Bone of Contention. Ar-gist A’s] conclusion that the remains were that of a cheology: Cal State Long Beach scientists disputeNative American. consultant’s report clearing way for building on pos-

sible site of old Indian village. . . . [Archaeologist B]When this point was argued by university lawyers be-was [they argued] ‘‘too closely tied to developers’’ tofore the Native American Heritage Commission, Ar-handle the Cal State Long Beach research. ‘‘Thechaeologist A pointed out that before the remains werecompany is not entirely trusted by the Native Amer-reburied in 1979 they were sent to the county coronerican community.’’ [Los Angeles Times, Orangefor examination and identification. Archaeologist ACounty edition, September 27, 1993]produced a letter from the coroner to the university ex-

plaining that the examination was done by the forensicFacts of O.C. Prehistory May Be Buried Forever. Ar-anthropologist employed by the Coroner’s Office.cheology: Ancient Newport burial site [ORA-64],Attached to the letter was the coroner’s report, whichone of richest of its kind, was excavated and builtstated in part:over with little notice. . . . A pricey, gated commu-nity called Harbor Cove now sits atop the bluff thatOn April 3, 1979 human skeletal remains were ex-

amined by [the coroner’s forensic anthropologist] in once cradled the remains of a village believed to bethousands of years older than the fabled Egyptianthe presence of [three individuals, including a physi-

cal anthropologist in the CSULB Department of An- pyramids of Giza. . . . What is clear is this: an an-


cient site considered by archaeologists as highly sig- with traditional anthropological sensitivities (McGuire1992:828–30):nificant was excavated, then developed with little

public awareness, even after years of behind-the-The time has come for archeologists to reunite theirscenes lobbying by some scientists to save it, ac-object of study, the Indian past, with its descen-cording to an extensive Times review of dozens ofdants, and to ask about the needs of the Indian peo-state and local documents and more than 100 inter-ple and address those needs. This is not just a prob-views. [Los Angeles Times, Orange County edition,lem of public relations or of education. It requiresNovember 2, 1997]more than just a compromise or an accommodationbetween disciplinary interests and the interests ofAncient Bones Stir Controversy. Wetlands: Foes of Indian people. It requires that archeologists initiatebuilding at Bolsa Chica accuse development firm, ar- a process of dialogue with Indian peoples that willcheologist of failing to mention findings of human fundamentally alter the practice of archeology inremains [ORA-83]. [Los Angeles Times, Orange the United States. This dialogue will alter our per-County edition, January 25, 1994] ceptions of the past, how we deal with NativeAmericans, how we train students, and how we pre-

Archeological Find Unearths Furious Debate. Han- sent our results to each other and the generaldling of bones at dig entwines site’s developer, Na- public. . . .tive Americans, politicians, environmentalists, and The change that I am suggesting will not be easy.archeologists. Now district attorney is asked to in- It raises a host of problems archeologists are poorlyvestigate. [Los Angeles Times, Orange County edi- prepared to handle. Substantial mistrust exists be-tion, February 13, 1994] tween many Indian communities and archeology; it

will be hard to overcome. Indeed, archeologists mayFBI to Dig into Bolsa Chica Flap. Crime: An archae- never overcome it as a group, only as individual re-ologist working for a developer receives a bullet searchers working with specific communities. Ar-with her name written on it in red nail polish. [Or- cheologists will find themselves involved in the poli-ange County Register, February 17, 1994] tics of these communities, politics that can be a

morass for any outsider. And such outside scholarsGrand Jury to Get Evidence on H.B. Bones. The will have to make long-term research commitmentsstatements include assertions by two people— to Indian peoples part of long-term commitments towhose names have been blacked out—that they archeology in a region. This process does not re-were hired in the summer of 1990 by the develop- quire that archeology give up its scientific and schol-er’s archaeologist [Archaeologist B] and ordered not arly interests, but that archeologists recognize thatto report any findings of human remains. [Long those interests are not the only legitimate ones atBeach Press Telegram, February 24, 1994] stake and that a process of dialogue should be initi-

ated that will modify our scholarship within a diver-These are only some of the sites that have generatedsity of interests.controversy in the Los Angeles basin in the past few

years. Others include the Ballona wetlands, the Encinosite in the San Fernando Valley, and the Hellman Ranchin Seal Beach. Both Indian monitors and archaeologists diana drake wilson

3600 Bayley Ave. #301, Los Angeles, Calif. 90034-have reportedly been fired by developers after sug-gesting that sites are too significant to be destroyed. 4188, U.S.A. ([email protected]). 6 iv 98

Such is the reality of contract archaeology in South-ern California. It is a world unfamiliar to most academ- Reading Haley and Wilcoxon’s ‘‘Anthropology and the

Making of Chumash Tradition,’’ I was struck by howics—it certainly was to me when I entered it five yearsago. It is not pretty, and many of us feel that it is not odd their representations of Chumash people and tradi-

tion seem in light of my own interactions with peopleeven anthropology. Nonetheless, it is important thatthis reality be understood in evaluating work such as who call themselves Chumash. I must have not only

qualitatively different ethnographic experiences fromthat of Haley and Wilcoxon.For 200 years Western civilization has denied Native theirs but also fundamentally different assumptions

about how cultural traditions are made and what theyCalifornians their religion, their language, their cul-ture—in a word, their identity. It is sad to see this con- encompass. Without negating or disparaging Haley and

Wilcoxon’s views, I would like to add mine to theirstinuing even today as many Indians are seeking to re-claim their heritage. with the expectation of opening an inclusive debate

about how to describe and understand contemporaryAs anthropology is inevitably involved in this pro-cess, it is important that anthropologists and Indians Chumash people and traditions.

Over the past year, more than 20 indigenous peopleunderstand that the combative, debunking tone of theHaley and Wilcoxon article is not the only option. living in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties have en-

gaged in life-experience interviews with me for a projectOther archaeologists are attempting to work out newways of doing archaeology which are more in keeping sponsored by the National Park Service investigating


indigenous uses of the Santa Monica Mountains. One tial. Without the recognition of multiple ways of speak-ing, knowing, and organizing the material, embodiedof these people belongs to what is referred to as ‘‘Family

A.’’ Also, in the course of my ethnographic work for the universe we call reality, we are left with culturally flatrepresentations: ‘‘We portray all Chumash as equallypreparation of UCLA’s Native American Grave Protec-

tion and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Inventory, I have modern, equally constructed, if of stuff that carries dif-ferent weight in particular contexts’’ (p. 790). One of thehad the privilege of talking extensively with ‘‘tradi-

tional religious leaders’’ (as defined by NAGPRA) be- questions I asked in my dissertation was: What is the‘‘stuff’’ that makes for distinctions between Chumashlonging to Chumash communities on and off the Santa

Ynez Reservation. My own ethnographic experience has people and between them and nonnatives in differentcontexts? Haley and Wilcoxon do not answer this ques-led me to regard Chumash people and their practices,

formal and informal, as ‘‘indigenous,’’ that is, culturally tion and seem unwilling to recognize it; it underminestheir assertions that any distinction between Westernand historically different from Euro-American people

and practices and biologically, culturally, socially, and and indigenous is spurious and that invented traditionsare necessarily discontinuous with the past.experientially both continuous and discontinuous with

a precontact past. Haley and Wilcoxon criticize scholars who have in-sisted on a fundamental difference between WesternThese conclusions grow out of those of my doctoral

thesis in cultural/linguistic anthropology based on and indigenous, a distinction they call an ‘‘essentializ-ing dichotomy.’’ In analyzing my data, I did find funda-fieldwork with Southern California Indian people. Ha-

ley and Wilcoxon cite my work in a way that casts me mental differences in cultural strategies between indig-enous people and myself. It is not only possible to drawas professionally naive, but from my point of view they

have misunderstood my research goals, methods, and distinctions between indigenous and Western ways ofknowing without essentializing them but critically im-findings. They do not engage with linguistic data and

analyses supporting my conclusion of a Western/indig- portant to do so; without such distinctions we arebound to monolithic social and political analyses inat-enous distinction; instead they quote short passages

from my dissertation that seem to support their asser- tentive to the cultural differences that underlie multi-ple social standpoints. While I found these distinctionstion that I am doing what they say most local anthro-

pologists (other than themselves) do: authenticating the useful for understanding Native and nonnative interac-tions, I took care not to essentialize them (Wilson 1994:existence of wholly ‘‘invented’’ indigenous traditions

and identities through incautious credulity. They attri- 42). Ironically, Haley and Wilcoxon quote from this pas-sage but fail to acknowledge that I understand the cul-bute part of this alleged credulity to my not having

adopted a social constructionist framework for investi- tural distinctions of Western and indigenous as ‘‘fluidcategories.’’ I investigated the indigenous/Western di-gating the fluidity of contemporary identity formation.

However, my own research goals were the description chotomy by linking these broad terms with particularstrategies I called ‘‘ceremony’’ and ‘‘critique’’ and de-and functional analysis of multiple meanings in lan-

guage, not nominal ‘‘identity formations’’ or anthropol- scribed in detail.Haley and Wilcoxon also represent as unwarrantedogists’ interventions in them. My thesis shows how

specific conventions of indigenous, museological, and my speculations regarding the possible sources of differ-ent indigenous/Western strategies used by Nativeacademic communication can be understood as related

to distinct and in some ways contradictory conventions American and Euro-American people and the possibleconnections of the former to an indigenous past. Iused by Indian and non-Indian people. These conclu-

sions are based on the construction of a semiotic and briefly discuss these questions (pp. 40–41, 365–67) butalso state that they need further research; they are be-linguistic framework for interpretation and on exten-

sive analysis of the recorded actions and speech of Na- yond my dissertation’s objective of describing and ac-counting for multiple meanings in cross-cultural com-tive American consultants. Furthermore, my conclu-

sions suggest that social constructionist theories are munication. Finally, Haley and Wilcoxon imply that Iasserted the (indigenous) authenticity of the consul-incapable of engaging with the dimensions of culture,

experience, and communication in which I am inter- tants simply on the basis of their own understanding oftheir ethnicity and their ‘‘indigenous DNA.’’ I did assertested because of their often-unexamined assumptions

with regard to how speech and actions convey meaning. that my consultants were ‘‘authentic,’’ but that authen-ticity was not based on self-ascribed identities, genea-Identity is not the only topic worthy of concern in

contemporary anthropology. My interests are related to logical records, or ‘‘indigenous DNA’’ (although I recog-nized all of these) but on the description and analysis ofthe questions Friedman raises (p. 779) about how and

why representations of identity work, that is, under- their actions and speech as linked to consistent patterns(p. 41).standing cultural aspects of difference while simulta-

neously attempting to explain the interactions of social My dissertation, as well as my subsequent fieldwork,relies on interactions with and approaches to Chumashrelationships. These questions do not represent a ‘‘nar-

row focus on internal processes’’ but are important is- traditions different from those of Haley and Wilcoxon.To begin, they define ‘‘traditionalism’’ as ‘‘a movementsues for anthropologists who are concerned with ques-

tioning and reworking the dichotomies of ideal/ which seeks to transform contemporary traditions byinstituting beliefs and practices that the group’s mem-material, psychological/social, and textual/experien-


bers believe are both taken from their own past . . . and Press (December 26, 1997) as follows: ‘‘The real Chu-mash people didn’t focus on the supernatural and themore natural, appropriate, and authentic than the be-

liefs and practices to be replaced.’’ By the end of the first occult or the mythical, magical anything. We didn’t goaround shaking rattles and performing supernaturalparagraph Haley and Wilcoxon have established a

descriptive dichotomy based on this definition—‘‘Tra- feats and cosmology. This is what some people try tobuild on with grandstanding.’’ According to Haley andditionalist’’ and ‘‘nontraditionalist’’—which they use

throughout their article to characterize contemporary Wilcoxon’s definition, this Chumash person could alsobe understood as being a Traditionalist.Chumash people. But because they also assert that ‘‘tra-

ditionalism represents a break in cultural continuity’’ It is important to bear in mind that even in the mostsimplistic sense of the terms, most people identifyingwe are left wondering if there are any Chumash tradi-

tions—‘‘contemporary’’ or ‘‘invented’’—that could be as Chumash would not fit clearly into either categoryfrom either a Native American or a nonnative perspec-continuous with the past.

Haley and Wilcoxon assume that a distinction be- tive. Haley and Wilcoxon’s implication that the SantaYnez Reservation is nontraditionalist (p. 787) contraststween Traditionalist and nontraditionalist is appropri-

ately descriptive and explanatory. In the absence of eth- sharply with my own experience of its cultural hetero-geneity; there are several traditional practitioners livingnographic description and data, we must simply accept

their assertion that there exist Chumash practitioners there who participate in the tribal government andtribal events and enjoy the respect of many other resi-of ‘‘traditionalism’’ as they define it. But we may still

wonder whether, with a definition so broad, perhaps all dents of the reservation. For me the term ‘‘nontradition-alist’’ suggests membership in a shifting alliance of peo-contemporary Chumash would fit into this category.

There is no description of the nontraditionalists; ex- ple who work, or have worked, closely with particularanthropologists in the Santa Barbara area who in vari-actly how are they different from the Traditionalists?

As they proceed with their description, Haley and ous ways and for various reasons deny the existence ofcontemporary Chumash traditions that are continuousWilcoxon shift their focus from Chumash people to the

work of anthropologists. In reviewing the literature on with the past. Some Chumash people understand theterms ‘‘Traditionalist’’ and ‘‘nontraditionalist’’ as refer-the Chumash, they do not point to the absence of any

ethnographic account of Chumash people in the present ring to parties in a long-standing feud between two spe-cific families, one of which is Family A.based on sustained participant observation or any com-

prehensive ethnography, past or present. John P. Har- Certainly the present-day beliefs and practices ofChumash people are different from those of 200 yearsrington collected voluminous notes in talking with

Chumash people earlier in the century, but, as Peter ago. This is not surprising considering the dramaticchanges in material culture and the introduction of abe-Nabokov (1989) has suggested, in the case of the Chu-

mash those disconnected pieces of information, even cedarian literacy and new religious ideas. Even withoutthe events resulting from European colonization, Chu-when brilliantly collated and edited, have not added up

to an ethnographic overview. Haley and Wilcoxon im- mash beliefs and practices would have been differentfrom those of two centuries ago. But some Chumash be-ply that contemporary Chumash are constructing social

and political identities but not indigenous cultural ones liefs and practices do seem related in significant waysto a continuously evolving Chumash culture, especiallyand therefore there is nothing to be recorded by ethnog-

raphers that would not be better investigated by sociol- through the solidarity of kinship and social groups,shared routines of everyday life, language, and knowl-ogists. They are careful to say that Chumash people are

‘‘sincere’’ in their beliefs, but they argue that these be- edge of the surrounding land and its resources. Manyconsultants, people Haley and Wilcoxon would classifyliefs are best understood theoretically as representing

breaks with the past rather than continuous adaptations as Traditionalists or nontraditionalists, have told me,‘‘We know who we are.’’ This suggests to me that allof indigenous practices. The prevalence of this way of

thinking is precisely what made it necessary for me to those who identify themselves as Chumash today haveto a greater or lesser extent transformed traditions andassert the authenticity of the consultants in my disser-

tation—that is, to assert that some contemporary Na- conventions imposed on them by nonnative culturesand societies ‘‘by instituting beliefs and practices thattive Californian and other American Indian people live

and speak from a standpoint that is qualitatively differ- the group’s members believe are both taken from theirown past . . . and more natural, appropriate, and authen-ent from my own, historically, politically, socially, and

culturally, and are thus worthy of anthropological tic than the beliefs and practices to be replaced.’’ Thosewho have not done so are in my experience not likelystudy.

More detailed ethnographic description of contempo- to identify with Chumash or any other contemporarytribal ethnicity, even though they have indigenous an-rary people who identify themselves as Chumash would

call into question the appropriateness of their classifi- cestors from the area.Furthermore, Traditionalist and nontraditionalist arecation as Traditionalist or nontraditionalist; in impor-

tant ways all of them could be regarded as Traditional- not clear-cut categories in terms of actual practice. Asmuch as replace they add to and build on what is al-ists. Ernestine Ygnacio-DeSoto, whom Haley and

Wilcoxon would presumably regard as a nontradition- ready known. Who can say what spending five daysskinning a bear and receiving song and a story in thealist, was recently quoted in the Santa Barbara News-


process replaces? Is a facial tattoo more or less Tradi- of traditional practice may obscure much more than itreveals about changing contemporary Chumash beliefstionalist than building an oceangoing plank boat? Are

steatite carving and shell-bead making Traditionalist or and practices within extensive, heterogeneous indig-enous/Chumash cultural and social networks.nontraditionalist? Does the answer depend on whether

the techniques of shell-bead making were passed down A further, implicit assumption requiring examinationis that Traditionalism necessarily represents a break inin one’s family or inspired by examples from the archae-

ological record? Is genealogical research as a profoundly cultural continuity. Haley and Wilcoxon have notshown why changes in tradition are not also transfor-felt connection to one’s ancestors a ‘‘contemporary’’

tradition or an ‘‘invented’’ one? mations of traditions in the sense of continuity of theadaptation of values, beliefs, and experience to new so-Another reason ‘‘Traditionalist’’ may not be an appro-

priate description of contemporary Chumash tradi- cial and material circumstances. Nor have they identi-fied a ‘‘contemporary tradition.’’ What did Traditional-tional practitioners is that many practitioners do not re-

gard their beliefs and practice as only taken from the ists and nontraditionalists believe and practice beforethe 1960s? Chumash traditions may be both contempo-past. Rather, they regard them as also connected with

the past. This is a critical distinction that Haley and rary and directly linked with the past, but without anempirical basis for determining what is old and what isWilcoxon fail to make and is the basis of much of the

cross-cultural misunderstanding that is apparent to me new within contemporary traditions we cannot deter-mine what is or is not a break with the past. That em-in their article: taken from the past implies abstracted

re-invention, while connected with the past implies pirical basis would be an investigation into cultural dif-ferences between Western (or Euro-American) andcontiguous resonance with the past. The experiential

meaningfulness of this continuity is denied by Haley indigenous ways of knowing and organizing realities.But if such differences are denied, as they are in Haleyand Wilcoxon when they assert that ‘‘invented’’ tradi-

tions necessarily represent social changes of identity and Wilcoxon’s article, we can more easily entertaintheir (in my opinion mistaken) assumption that newand breaks in cultural continuity. They use social con-

structionist paradigms to try to account for social and traditions and changes can only represent a break withthe past. To understand Chumash traditions and theireconomic motivations and consequences of particular

cultural standpoints, but they do not begin to account connections with the past we need to look beyond an-thropologists’ representation of them as either ‘‘authen-for the culturally and personally specific meanings of

the experiences of many Chumash people, traditional tic’’ or ‘‘invented’’ to ethnographic data gathered in thepresent as well as in the past. We need to describe howpractitioners in particular.

Contiguous meaning is often very apparent in the specific practices and beliefs are understood by Chu-mash today.speech of traditional practitioners; experiencing them-

selves as part of an unbroken chain of people reaching Before discussing ways of accounting for continuityas well as discontinuity in cultural traditions, I wouldback into the past allows them to be proud that they

are involved in a process of (re)inventing and renewing point out that my interviews with Chumash people, es-pecially elders, seem to suggest historical means ofChumash traditions and at the same time explicit that

their own experiences cannot be the same as those of transmission of specialized cultural knowledge ofwhich scholars are not now aware. Certainly Chumashtheir ancestors. They are aware of the distinction be-

tween (and consequences of) these different kinds of re- families possess a tremendous amount of informationabout Chumash culture and society in recent genera-lationships to the past. As one consultant told me,tions that has not yet been recorded and/or researched.We are going to evolve, we are going to create, and I agree with Haley and Wilcoxon that cultural tradi-we are going to develop even beyond today. . . . We tions are ‘‘invented.’’ I have invented my own culturalare going in the understanding that we need to ad- beliefs and practices on the basis of what I have learnedjust and utilize what we have today, whether it be a from everyday life as well as from my formal education,computer or whether it would be how to position inflected by my social class, gender, racial appearance,ourselves with the sun. So it doesn’t matter what and psychological disposition. It is not only conceivablepeople say, how we sing a song or how we make it but very likely that Chumash traditions, like my own,better, it’s just a form of distraction. . . . I don’t are both continuous and discontinuous with the past. Itthink there could be any human being that could is clear to me that all people who identify themselvestell me if I am doing it right or not. That would be as Chumash understand and experience at least some oflying. . . . You are going to get people that are going their lived traditions as continuous with a past that isto say what they want. And you are going to have both linked with the land of their ancestors and contin-people that are going to go beyond, because they uing to evolve.know it’s changing. Haley and Wilcoxon evade this question of perceivedcontinuity by shifting the focus from Indians to ethnog-Finally, the distinction between Traditionalist and

nontraditionalist draws our focus away from Chumash raphers and from continuity to authenticity. Whilepointing out that Chumash practitioners themselvescultural experiences and social processes to a difference

that is only nominal. The assertion of a movement of are sincere in belief and not ‘‘fakes,’’ they criticize an-thropologists who they say have constructed and essen-‘‘Traditionalism’’ as opposed to attention to the details


tialized an authentically indigenous tradition where One way to begin to account both for cultural and so-cial differences and for the apparent contradictions be-there may be none. Thus the question of continuity is

displaced to the question of an invented, essentialized tween theory and indigenous experience is to under-stand how and why and when contemporary traditionsauthenticity for which anthropologists are to take the

blame. Where does this leave the Chumash and their are continuous and/or discontinuous with indigenouspasts from the standpoint of Chumash people. Obvi-own experience? When and where are they allowed to

speak regarding continuity with the past? Contempo- ously this understanding can only come from talkingwith these people and participating in their lives andrary Chumash people are quoted, but their words are

framed as examples of syncretism or of New Age be- events, both daily and ceremonial. In speaking abouttheir experience, Native American people often implic-liefs, all of which the authors ‘‘take seriously’’ at the

same time as they assert that they have no cultural con- itly and explicitly acknowledge principles of causalityand meaning that make for patterned differences be-tinuity with the past. If Haley and Wilcoxon had better

considered emic standpoints on the continuity of tradi- tween cultural traditions. Awareness of these principlesis for most of us semiconscious and intuitive; I oncetions they might have been led into investigating indig-

enous strategies for relating to place, and meaningful overheard one Native Californian woman tell her elder,‘‘You know more [about your indigenous culture] thanstructural connections between contemporary regard

for the ‘‘Western Gate’’ and previous indigenous beliefs you think you know.’’ However, principles can also berecognized explicitly:might have been more obvious to them.

Having talked with many Chumash people, it is clear That’s why some people have such a hard timeto me that there are different opinions among them seeing our cultural existence, it’s blended so much.about how the past can be known and how it is con- The principles are there, and see, that’s a key thing:nected to the present. Several have told me that they not so much the method of the culture is beingbelieve that ‘‘scholars know more about Chumash cul- passed on, but the principles. Because once you un-ture’’ than they do, but one of these also stressed the derstand the principles of anything then you can de-fundamental differences between Natives and others. vise a method and then apply it. . . . As long as peo-At the other extreme there is an adamant denial that ple look at us with eyes through the past, they willtheir culture can exist in texts at all; ‘‘listening to a song never see it. That’s OK, that is another way naturewith an open heart’’ may be said to be the only possible is protecting us. You go off somewhere else and weway to achieve complex cultural understanding. There go about our business.are many other kinds of direct knowing of the past bywhich some Chumash people experience material con- Understanding the cognitive principles and semiotic

strategies that underlie the continual redefinition ofnections to their ancestors: working with artifacts,dancing and singing, ceremonies, and/or other bodily cultural traditions would enable us to understand cul-

tural change and continuity and discontinuity with theexperiences of all sorts, from the study of indigenouslanguage pronunciation to what is described as time- past. Distinct concepts of causality and meaning are in-

formed by and inform choices in the use of language andtraveling.All Chumash people I have spoken with assume that thought, social relations, and embodied sense—in cul-

tural conventions for the uses of metaphor and met-at least some of their Chumash beliefs and practiceswere learned both directly and indirectly from their onym, allegory and analysis, critique and ceremony.

Epistemological principles underlie the sense of differ-families and everyday life while growing up and thatthese practices distinguish them from non-Chumash. ence between ‘‘indigenous’’ and ‘‘Western.’’ For exam-

ple, indigenous relationships with and claims to landWith regard to esoteric specialized knowledge such ashealing and ceremonial practices, all the Chumash peo- are based primarily on the concept of use. This primacy

of use can be linked to the primacy of the causal princi-ple I know acknowledge that they have been deprivedof much of their indigenous cultural knowledge over ple of contiguity, in which agency is understood as a

form of contact and proximity. Western ownership ofthe past 200 years, but many also say that they have notbeen deprived of their connection to the process of inland is based primarily on written title and on the

causal principle of association, in which agency is de-digenous cultural knowing, at the same time acknowl-edging that indigenous practices revived through per- rived abstractly, almost independently of physical con-

nection. Understanding how such differences in attrib-sonal creativity and insight will never be exactly as theywere. Thus, when Chumash people speak about their uting agency play out in a myriad of cultural and social

conventions will not mystify the historical process oftraditions they often imply that they experience themas an ongoing process both continuous and discontinu- ‘‘identity formation’’ (and colonization) but help us un-

derstand those processes, including the participation ofous with the past: ‘‘I did seek the dancers that arearound. . . . I wanted to get back to my culture. . . . The anthropologists, with their own cultural biases, by tak-

ing into account multiple cultural meanings for speech,power is unbelievable, what brings it out is the paint.When you come out and you dance with the paint it’s actions, and knowledge.

Haley and Wilcoxon imply a recognition of culturallike time stood still and you are with your ancestors.. . . I have learned that you are talking to your ancestors, epistemological principles when discussing Flynn and

Laderman’s article ‘‘Purgatory and the Powerful Dead,’’you are bringing them forth to help you.’’


but they assume that the adaptation of Catholic rheto- fate of their cultural resources is being decided. But inorder for them to do so their histories and traditions,ric and images by Chumash people represents the as-

similation of indigenous beliefs to Catholicism when it their cultural conventions for speaking, and the culturalbases for the importance of the land and its resourcesmay just as well represent the reverse. Without more

knowledge of culturally specific causality and meaning, need to be better understood by the Southern Californiapublic. Anthropologists have a responsibility to workhow are we to tell? Without a basis for distinction be-

tween indigenous and Western we are left to assume toward that end by portraying a full range of meaningsof indigenous histories and cultures. Sadly, the public-that we are all headed for the same destination. It may

be better to leave questions of cultural trajectories ity from Haley and Wilcoxon’s article has already en-couraged the many who believe simply that Californiaopen-ended.

For the sake of their argument, Haley and Wilcoxon Indians are all ‘‘Mexicans,’’ have no real cultural tradi-tions left, and are concerned with the threat of destruc-need to distinguish between groups of Chumash, but as

the ambiguous distinction between ‘‘contemporary’’ tion of cultural resources only out of personal or politi-cal self-interest (Santa Barbara News-Press, Decemberand ‘‘invented’’ traditions threatens to break down they

turn to genealogy to reinforce this characterization. 26, 1997). Chumash people and their cultural and socialexperiences, past and present, represent much moreThey represent Family A as ‘‘the core of the Traditional-

ist movement.’’ They say that it is descended from complex and dynamic processes, and all are deserving ofour most sophisticated recognition and our professional‘‘Spanish soldiers and servants,’’ leaving us to assume

that it has no documented genealogical links to indige- respect.nous ancestry (p. 767). But members of Family A dohave documented California Native ancestors, and atleast one person contests the material facts of his gene- robert winthrop

Cultural Solutions, P.O. Box 401, Ashland, Ore.alogy as traced by John Johnson. Also, there are manytraditional practitioners (presumably belonging to Ha- 97520, U.S.A. ([email protected]). 5 iv 98ley and Wilcoxon’s Traditionalist category) who do notbelong to Family A and do have documented local (Chu- Haley and Wilcoxon’s ‘‘Anthropology and the Making

of Chumash Tradition’’ provides needed reflection onmash) indigenous ancestry. In presenting this genealogi-cal information, Haley and Wilcoxon overlook the criti- tradition and traditionalism as these have been shaped

by U.S. historic-preservation law. Their article also pro-cal questions of the open-ended nature of genealogicalresearch (some Traditionalists still do not have their an- vides welcome scrutiny of the ambiguous role of ap-

plied anthropologists in evaluating so-called traditionalcestry fully researched), the many problems inherent inthe use of mission records as the only valid evidence of cultural properties, a task that can involve interesting

conflicts between the demands of community advo-local indigenous ancestry, and the imposition of genea-logical standards for contemporary ethnic identity of cacy, scholarship, and the law. Their argument rests

largely on a case study of Chumash ‘‘traditionalism’’ inChumash (even though they object to equating racewith culture when it proves useful to Traditionalists Southern California. They define traditionalism as ‘‘a

movement which seeks to transform contemporary tra-[p. 776]).Just as we can listen to contemporary people with ditions by instituting beliefs and practices that the

group’s members believe are both taken from their ownmore attention to both emic and etic standpoints, so wecan attend to the ethnographic record with more com- past . . . and more natural, appropriate, and authentic

than the beliefs and practices to be replaced.’’ They ar-plex and sophisticated methods than those used by Ha-ley and Wilcoxon. They seem to approach Harrington’s gue, with appropriate irony, that ‘‘traditionalism repre-

sents a break in cultural continuity and is itself an im-notes asking for just the facts. Messy questions such ascultural conventions for speaking and knowing and the portant force for change’’ (p. 761).

Haley and Wilcoxon criticize the cultural essen-definition of what in indigenous/Chumash terms mightconstitute, for example, ‘‘ritual,’’ ‘‘ceremony,’’ and ‘‘sa- tialism inherent in federal guidelines for assessing ‘‘tra-

ditional cultural properties.’’ They note that suchcredness’’ are never discussed. Haley and Wilcoxon con-struct a quantitative report: only 3 out of 25 consultants guidelines ‘‘conform well to what the general populace

perceives ethnicity and tradition to be but conflict dra-knew about the ‘‘sacredness’’ of Point Conception (howmuch do we know about who was interviewed and who matically with the fluidity researchers now recognize in

cultural identities and traditions’’ (p. 766). I agree. Aswas not?) Two persons’ testimonies contradict one an-other, and therefore one must not be true (is there a con- applied to living communities and their traditions, the

federal regulatory framework for historic preservationtext in which both statements could be meaningful?).These kinds of reductive interpretations of the ethno- diverges seriously in several respects from contempo-

rary anthropological understandings of tradition, eth-graphic record seem to have little to do with culturalanthropology. nicity, and change.

In some 15 years’ experience working with AmericanChumash people should have the same authority asanthropologists to speak and be heard concerning their Indian communities and their ‘‘traditional cultural

properties,’’ I have never encountered a case that resem-own theories of their cultural traditions and/or culturalcontinuity, especially in the public forums in which the bled the Point Conception controversy. Rather than de-


bating how characteristic this example may be, I would action. In the case of these historic preservation studies,however, the weakness of the underlying models of cul-like to suggest three areas in which the notion of tradi-

tional cultural property as an object of anthropological tural analysis has practical consequences for communi-ties and agencies alike.study deserves clarification.

Anthropologists as experts. The National Historic Practice and cultural transmission. In various ways,contemporary anthropological theory is concerned toPreservation Act was passed by Congress in 1966. This

statute was intended primarily as a device for the pro- understand the processes by which a culture is trans-mitted from generation to generation through the ac-tection of the built environment or its archaeological

deposit, assessed on the basis of scholarly value, scien- tions of daily life. An earlier convention of anthropol-ogy held that social or cultural change is problematic,tific or historical. Over the past decade, however, the

act has been used increasingly to confer protections on necessitating explanation, while cultural stability isnot. Contemporary culture theory challenges this view.sites for their ‘‘traditional cultural value’’ for contempo-

rary communities, often American Indian commu- Culture is understood as constantly created and re-newed, not so much a product as a process. As Roynities. In the process another discipline—cultural an-

thropology—has joined the union hall of historic Wagner put it, ‘‘The contexts of culture are perpetuatedand carried forth by acts of objectification, by being in-preservation. In itself this disciplinary shift is relatively

unimportant. What is crucial is that in assessing so- vented out of each other and through each other. Thismeans that we cannot appeal to the force of somethingcalled traditional cultural properties, their importance

within the legal framework of historic preservation called ‘tradition,’ or ‘education,’ or spiritual guidance toaccount for cultural continuity, or for that matter cul-rests fundamentally not on scholarly judgment, as is

more generally the case, but on their value within a tural change’’ (Wagner 1981:50). Furthermore, most cul-tural knowledge is not theoretical or explicit but tacit,contemporary social system.

The change in perspective which this involves is fun- learned through practice. The process of learning partic-ular skills—how to be a skillful dipnet fisherman, fordamental, altering the relation between observer and

observed, between the historic preservation ‘‘expert’’ example—brings with it cultural understandings farbroader than the techniques themselves.and the benefiting community, but this shift is seldom

recognized in practice. The assessment of places or Traditions can be transmitted insofar as they can beenacted (Bentley 1987, Winthrop 1990). This perspec-landscapes having traditional value typically proceeds

as though the essential act were that of expert scholarly tive helps explain the strong value that American In-dian communities attach to preserving traditional sitesjudgment, a form of connoisseurship, perhaps, in paral-

lel to that of the historian confronting a Georgian-style and practices. While these may be valuable in them-selves, they hold greater value as keys to cultural trans-plantation dwelling or the archaeologist excavating an

Anasazi village. In practice if not in theory, the historic mission and thus to cultural survival. These are someof the understandings implied in the modest phrasepreservation process treats sites of traditional cultural

value as though objectively constituted, comparable in ‘‘way of life.’’ Roy Rappaport (1992:93) has made thispoint in analyzing the potential effects of oil and gas ex-this respect to historic buildings or archaeological sites.

In other words, while the regulatory significance as- ploration on Arctic communities:signed to such places is obviously based on the state- Communities can take projected . . . developmentsments and actions of community members, past or to endanger something that may seem even vaguerpresent, once these are duly recorded and analyzed such and more general than fundamental values . . . theircommunities cease to figure in the analysis. Rather ‘‘way of life.’’ . . . At the heart of a ‘‘culture’’ or athan being understood as living social systems having ‘‘way of life’’ are symbolically mediated and sociallyan evolving relationship to the sites in question, they constructed sets of assumptions about the nature ofare treated, instead, as repositories of data. the world and its inhabitants, and they are realizedThe corollary is that this perspective serves to reify and maintained through customary action. Amongthe landscapes in question. These fishing stations, med- certain native Americans . . . indigenous culture isicine-gathering areas, or vision-quest sites become—to maintained and reproduced [primarily through] sub-follow historic preservation terminology—traditional sistence activities. . . . They are the main means bycultural ‘‘properties,’’ cultural ‘‘resources,’’ or, more which Eskimo, Aleut, and other indigenous culturestelegraphically, TCPs. This involves a distortion of cul- are kept alive, and perceived threats to them will betural reality in at least three senses: first, by the reduc- bitterly resented and resisted.tion of cultural experience to a commodity (as in the‘‘cultural resource’’ metaphor); second, by the reduction This point is borne out in my own work in the Pacific

Northwest. In analyzing the impacts of a hydroelectricof an ongoing tradition to particular, static culturalforms; and third, by the reduction of cultural knowledge dam on the Yakama Indian Nation, tribal colleagues in-

sisted that primary emphasis be given to describingto explicit mental representations, suitably recorded incultural resource reports and similar documents. Of what had been the traditional way of life within the re-

gion containing the White Salmon and Klickitat Rivers.course, all reflection implies a transformation of experi-ence. Reading Evans-Pritchard’s account of Nuer feud- Their concern was not so much for the project’s effects

upon particular fishing sites, however important, as foring is not comparable to seizing a spear and joining the


its impact on larger ‘‘cultural itineraries’’—blending practice of architectural or historic preservation, the re-sult almost inevitably was to reduce tradition to a rela-the reservation system with an earlier subsistence re-

gime—in which families and groups moved in succes- tively fixed cultural practice preserved across genera-tions. The authors of Das Kapital and National Registersion to root-gathering areas, spring fishing stations,

camas fields, alpine berry patches, and fall fishing sta- Bulletin 38 (the Guidelines for Evaluating and Docu-menting Traditional Cultural Properties) would doubt-tions before returning to their winter residences (Win-

throp and Meninick 1996). less disagree about the value of tradition, but they haveincorporated in their respective works rather similarTradition and innovation. The concept of tradition is

central to the project of historic preservation. The very senses of what the term signifies (Parker and King 1990:1). It would be more appropriate, however, to viewidea of preservation implies a more or less undisturbed

transmission of monuments of past experience to future innovation and tradition as interdependent. Creativityshould be understood not as an isolated cultural act butgenerations. This is inherent in the concept of historic

integrity, as defined in the implementing regulations in relation to an underlying tradition from which it de-rives. This view of cultural knowledge has been associ-and guidelines for the National Historic Preservation

Act. Integrity, within this framework, is ‘‘the ability of ated most recently with Pierre Bourdieu’s practice the-ory (Bourdieu 1990), but it has been articulated by a longa property to convey its significance,’’ that is, to trans-

mit with minimal disturbance or alteration the histori- line of culture theorists, among them Milton Singer(1984), Clifford Geertz (1973), and Edward Sapir (1961).cal and cultural associations that scholars—historians,

architectural historians, landscape architects, and so The interrelation of continuity and change, traditionand adaptation is evident in the history of any Ameri-forth—impute to it (USDI 1991:44). This may be appro-

priate when the object of attention is a monument of can Indian community. American Indian groups, strug-gling to survive in the face of systematic efforts atnational piety such as Monticello or Mount Vernon. It

becomes more problematic when the notion of integrity cultural obliteration, adapted numerous traditionalpractices to new contexts and new purposes. I offer oneis applied to so-called traditional cultural properties,

where the value of particular landscapes and resources example, concerning the experience of the Shasta ofnorthwestern California at the turn of the century.is a reflection of the evolving ways of life and thought

of contemporary communities. The central question In general, the concept of individual, fee-simple own-ership rights to land is alien to American Indian eco-here is whether change is the enemy of tradition or its

inevitable correlate. nomic systems. Beginning with the General Allotment(Dawes) Act of 1887, the federal government undertookThe European concept of tradition originated in the-

ology. In early Christianity it denoted the continuity of the division of tribal lands into personally held proper-ties as an instrument of social policy, to destroy tribesapostolic teaching that guaranteed the authenticity of

ritual and doctrine (2 Thess. 2:15). Accordingly, for the as collective entities and thus to force the acculturationof Indians to the dominant society. As Stephen CornellChurch Fathers any innovation in practice or belief had

to be compatible with received teachings. In the dictum has written, such efforts at white domination in turndefined for American Indian peoples the challenge ofof Pope Stephen I (d. 257): ‘‘Let there be no innovation

save through tradition’’ (‘‘nihil innovetur nisi quod tribal survival, ‘‘the maintenance of particular sets ofsocial relations, more or less distinct cultural orders,traditum est’’ [Dolger 1929:79]). In this sense tradition

signifies a continuity in aim, style, or understanding and some measure of political autonomy in the face ofinvasion, conquest, and loss of power’’ (Cornell 1988:that guides a series of particular acts: a monastic tradi-

tion in medieval Christian spirituality, a baroque tradi- 6–7).Under the conditions of forced displacement, abuse,tion in 18th-century music, a Jeffersonian tradition in

American politics. and hunger created by white mining and settlement inShasta territory, a number of such allotments served asIn later European thought the value of tradition was

undermined in several ways. In philosophy, the writ- a type of tribal refuge. This is ironic, for in permittingan expression of tribal solidarity the allotments servedings of Descartes propagated a new epistemology in

which certitude was to be found through the applica- an aim entirely alien to that intended by federal policy.One such allotment (probably of 120 acres) belonging totion of individual reason, not the authority of tradition

(Descartes 1960 [1637]). In aesthetics, with the advent Tyee [chief] Jim served as a gathering point for other-wise homeless Shasta Indians. As one modern Shastaof romanticism in the 18th and 19th centuries tradition

came to be perceived as an artificial constraint on an leader recounted (Winthrop 1986:52–53),otherwise free and spontaneous human nature, as in thewritings of Rousseau (1967 [1754]). In radical social [Mandy Pete] was a little girl when [she and her fam-

ily] moved out to Tyee Jim’s place. [She was bornthought, the notion of tradition stood for all that wasirrational, static, and antiprogressive. In Marx’s phrase, in 1898.] . . . A lot of other Indians also ended up liv-

ing at Tyee Jim’s allotment. Tyee Jim was the last‘‘the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like anightmare on the brain of the living’’ (Marx 1972 [1852]: Shasta chief we had, and it was customary if other

Shasta Indians were in the area [that] they could al-15).When the concept of tradition was grafted onto the ways go to the chief’s lodge and stay there. . . . A


lot of the other old Indians who were living in the tual influence. If anthropology is to develop a usefulpolicy voice, in cultural resource management and else-area at the time—such as Sissy [John] and Nora

[Bateman], who had nowhere else to go, they lived where, it will only be through the effective conjunctionof theory and practice, developed through an ongoing di-there. Old Mary lived there, and Old Martha. . . .

They probably lived in little lean-to’s or little alogue with policy problems.shacks, whatever they could get for shelter. . . .Lucy Jim was the last one. She died in 1934.

chris wood707 Amoroso Place, Venice, Calif. 90291, U.S.A.Conclusions. The controversy surrounding Chumash

claims to Point Conception reminds us of several im- ([email protected]). 11 iii 98portant facts of life concerning culture and ethnog-raphy: Haley and Wilcoxon’s article on the Chumash Tradi-

tionalist movement is a call for closer scrutiny of the1. People frequently do not agree in their cultural ac-counts. What constitutes tradition and what this means role of anthropologists in the shaping of identity and

tradition. It is remarkable, then, how little the authorsfor the legitimacy of contemporary cultural practicesare often matters of debate. examine the role that article plays in the battle over

Chumash identity. Their central assertion is that one2. Cultural accounts are motivated, that is, they canbe used strategically to further particular goals. faction of present-day Chumash lays claim to an indige-

nous identity through stories that are founded on clear3. The determination of what constitutes ‘‘authentic’’or ‘‘traditional’’ cultural knowledge is itself at least in misreadings of the anthropological record—misreadings

which anthropologists not only have refused to exposepart a reflection of political realities, that is, of the shift-ing distribution of power. This is true both for political but helped to construct in the first place. They present

this investigation as merely one of many possible exam-processes internal to a community and for the politicsthat link such communities to other institutions, such ples that could be used to illustrate a troubling complic-

ity of anthropology in dubious claims to identity. Theas the determination of ‘‘authentic tradition’’ inherentin the National Register process. problem, they suggest, lies not with the Chumash or

with other people asserting these claims but with an-These facts are problematic only if the aim of theanalysis is to assert some changeless cultural value (e.g., thropologists who lack either the courage or the sophis-

tication to use the current consensus understanding ofa ‘‘sacred site’’) abstracted from particular, real commu-nities and the wider political and economic currents the fluidity and constructedness of culture to help ‘‘dis-

arm the political weapon of heritage’’ (p. 764). But if her-that affect them.This suggests two final points regarding the relation- itage is a weapon, then it should be treated with care

and not simply wished away. If anthropologists areship between public policy, applied research, and cul-ture theory: sometimes slow to expose the processes by which iden-

tity claims are asserted and transformed, it is not outFirst, the policy and practice of cultural resourcemanagement (including the study of ‘‘traditional cul- of a misplaced advocacy or because of a failure to keep

current with the latest theoretical findings. It is becausetural properties’’) are not well grounded in culture the-ory. Any public policy framework for protecting places their words have power in legal, governmental, and pub-

lic arenas where the bankruptcy of objectified notionsof cultural value to contemporary communities shouldstart by emphasizing communities rather than places of culture may not be fully appreciated.

Haley and Wilcoxon insist that their assertions areand the interrelation of tradition and change rather thancultural stasis. Cultural understandings are constantly not meant as an attack on the legitimacy of the Chu-

mash Traditionalists. Their real intent, they assure us,reshaped by the changing realities of cultural practice.Tradition and innovation are inextricably linked. Com- is to critique an adherence to essentialized categories

such as ‘‘Western’’ and ‘‘indigenous’’ that ‘‘mystifies’’munities have histories and factions; their understand-ings and practices change over time, in response to the making of Chumash identity and ‘‘conceals’’ the

role of anthropology in that process. This attempt toshifting circumstances. The policy framework for rec-ognizing and protecting so-called traditional cultural seize the moral and theoretical high ground would be

more convincing were it not offered in service of an ar-properties should begin with the recognition of thesesimple facts. gument that itself constitutes a potent weapon against

one of two parties competing for the right to assert Chu-Second, the divergence between culture theory andapplied anthropological practice in the cultural resource mash identity. The deconstruction of culture is a sword

that cuts both ways. Anthropologists who study tradi-arena—which Haley and Wilcoxon correctly criticize—is symptomatic of a more widespread disease. Applied tion in transformation often assert that all tradition is

fluid and constructed as a preemptive strike againstanthropology should not be considered a ‘‘fifth subdisci-pline,’’ an independent domain of anthropological prac- charges of inauthenticity. In such cases the emphasis is

placed on the fact that even the most currently familiartice. Rather, the application of anthropology should berecognized as a necessary aspect of all the subfields, and stable cultural conventions once had their period of

transformation so as to place present-day cultural inno-with theory and practice developing in tandem, in mu-


vation in proper perspective. But the same assertion missed merely with a reference to a few individualswho have admitted that they personally have no suchmeans something entirely different if one goes on, as

Haley and Wilcoxon do, to attack precisely those claims access. Claims to racially based or revelatory forms ofaccess to the past are scoffed at, labeled ‘‘essentialist’’to traditional authority that are most fluid and most

newly transformed. Charges of recent cultural inven- and therefore inadmissible. No mention is made of theclaim that I myself have heard from several Chumash—tion are not neutral claims absolved even as they are

made by a sophisticated anthropological relativism that that a specifically Chumash knowledge and identityemerges from a social way of being preserved in family-sees all tradition as invented; this view carries little

weight outside of scholarly circles. based networks and rekindled with the reinstitution ofwider group associations. Haley and Wilcoxon repeat-If it is a truism in academia that culture is con-

structed or ‘‘invented,’’ in the wider world this notion edly refer, as though it were damning evidence of inau-thenticity, to Traditionalist traffic with present-daycan become the basis of grave charges of inauthenticity.

Haley and Wilcoxon would have us believe that the ways of knowing such as reading in anthropology, par-ticipation in Western religion, involvement in modernphenomena of cultural innovation are there for all to

see and that it is the responsibility of the researcher economic life, and engagement with non-Chumash In-dian groups or modern mysticisms. That ‘‘Chumashsimply to expose them. This is essentially the view that

led the scholar Allan Hanson, after he was criticized for population growth reportedly exceeds the birthrate ofChumash women’’ (p. 766) need mean nothing morehis portrayal of what he saw as the invention of cultural

tropes among modern Maori traditionalists, to remark than that Chumash Traditionalism is a growing move-ment and that many Chumash ceased to identify them-that he would stand by all that he had written but sim-

ply regretted having used the word ‘‘invention’’ (Han- selves publicly as Indian long ago in days of intensepersecution—facts that no one questions. Beneath allson 1991). In this view, the problem is merely one of

formal appearances, even of politeness, the facts of the these implications lies the assumption that parti-cipations in multiple cultural forms exclude onecase not being in dispute. But what Hanson fails to un-

derstand, along with Haley and Wilcoxon, is that not another, an assumption that contradicts the authors’own stated cultural relativist position. And everywhereonly are the facts in dispute but so is the very right to

decide what counts as a fact. it is hinted that the lure of various forms of politicalpower and economic reward available to those who canIt is true that Chumash Traditionalists have used an-

thropological materials to support certain claims and claim to be Indian have motivated this movement allalong.that anthropologists have participated in this process.

Haley and Wilcoxon seize upon this fact to cast doubt Haley and Wilcoxon characterize Chumash Tradi-tionalism as newly invented, dubiously rooted in thenot only on the use that Traditionalists have made of

scholarship but on the basic validity of their claims to traditional past, opportunistically shifting, inconsis-tent, motivated by crude economic and political ends,identity and cultural knowledge. In so doing they ignore

the fact that anthropological authority is not the only and deeply implicated in primitivism, New Age, andother postmodern mare’s nests. But no part of this char-authority that is offered for these claims. In making the

use of textual evidence the cornerstone of their attack acterization is advanced by the sections of their paperthat criticize the anthropological objectification of cul-on Chumash Traditionalist identity, they elide the fact

that such evidence is an exceptional and indeed trivial ture or attack the Chumash use of anthropologicaltexts. Their argument, which begins upon a thin foun-part of the Traditionalist argument.

Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that Chumash dation of facts, proceeds by insinuation, relying onpoorly substantiated judgments and on implications ofTraditionalists, with the aid of certain anthropologists,

have selectively manipulated ethnological documents inauthenticity that play upon popular conceptions. It isasserted that the Chumash ‘‘lack the kinds of biologicalto produce the illusion of a textual authority for their

claim that lands surrounding Point Conception have and cultural linkages with the region’s aboriginal pastthat they claim’’ (p. 766), and a parenthetical remark isspecial status in Chumash tradition. Although in fact I

do not accept this point as proven, it would not be added—as though it settled the matter—discountingTraditionalist claims to Chumash racial descent. Butdamning to the Traditionalist case even in its narrow

application to the claims about Point Conception, sim- this genealogical question is very much in dispute, and,more to the point, the matter of race is hardly determi-ply because the Traditionalists cite a variety of alterna-

tive sources of authority for these assertions. Haley and native of the cultural problem at hand.The fundamental question that hides behind all thisWilcoxon disregard these alternative authorities with-

out disproving them and without acknowledging that partisan rhetoric is who has the right to decide who isChumash. Haley and Wilcoxon speak derisively of onethere are numerous competing and fundamentally dis-

tinct modes of authority by which traditional identity anthropologist, Diana Wilson, for using self-descriptionas her primary criterion for indigenous identity, but,may be claimed and no easy answers as to which among

them are valid. after all, what are the alternatives? If self-identificationis not acceptable as a standard, then one is eitherThe claims of many Traditionalists to have access to

a variety of as yet undocumented oral traditions are dis- thrown back on the criteria of race, politics, and nation-


ality or forced to accept the authority of some arbitrat- theoretical position established without regard to its ef-fects in the broader world.ing body. Anthropology, itself divided in opinion and re-

jected as an authority by many of the people it studies,cannot fill this role, and there is no other candidate thanthe people themselves. Let us recall that the ChumashTraditionalists are not equivalent to some idiosyncratic Replyindividual but a more or less cohesive group which as-serts the right to control the disposition of its own tradi-tions. brian d. haley and larry r. wilcoxon

University of California Institute for Mexico and theThe net result of the concerted attempt to expose theroots of modern, innovative transformations of culture United States, Universitywide Headquarters,

Riverside, Calif./Wilcoxon and Associates, Goleta,is to provide ammunition against the continued devel-opment of such forms of culture. By insisting that iden- Calif., U.S.A. 21 v 98tity is invented, one acts to stifle the development ofnew forms of identity, leaving the ground clear for those ‘‘Anthropology and the Making of Chumash Tradition’’

is not about which people, traditions, and sacred placesclaims which happen to have already been established.In the Chumash case, these consequences are particu- are ‘‘authentic’’ but about the processes by which such

claims are made. We are particularly interested in an-larly acute. The deconstructive view of identity actsonly against the Traditionalist party, the party which thropologists’ various roles in that process, including—

quite explicitly—our own traditional-cultural-propertyhappens to be in a period of greater flux, and leaves un-touched a competing faction which holds claim to in- evaluation of Point Conception, California, and the

larger but poorly defined area including it, the Westerndigenous identity through reservation residency andbetter-documented genealogies. Haley and Wilcoxon Gate. At the heart of our discussion are several closely

related concerns. One is the conflict between popularare correct that the answer to this situation is not toconceal cultural innovation. But neither is it to proceed and scholarly notions of identity and tradition, and an-

other is the distortion and conflict engendered by an-as if blind to the consequences of the rhetoric of cul-tural invention, particularly when there is a glaring dis- thropology’s invention of Chumash as a singular ‘‘cul-

ture unit’’ (Trigger 1968a:15–18; 1968b) when the pastjuncture between what scholarship claims it is doingand the effect it has in the broader world. Haley and and present are both characterized by pluralities of

distinct peoples. These first two concerns take us onWilcoxon claim to offer an objective, disinterestedmodel of culture that questions all claims to cultural a critical journey through the federal traditional-

cultural-property evaluation guidelines1 and the Pointauthority, but in fact it cuts down only those formswhich are nascent or in flux, leaving standing more es- Conception/Western Gate case as an example of where

these guidelines can lead in a context of growing indige-tablished claims whose fixity is questioned only nomi-nally and without consequence. nous traditionalism. Thirdly, we are concerned with the

ethical issue of identifying legitimate representatives ofHaley and Wilcoxon’s advocacy of more rigorousscrutiny of the processes of transformation of cultural groups with whom anthropologists must interact for a

variety of purposes. The evidence compels us to recog-identity is welcome. Where I am forced to differ withthem is in their call for increased honesty and self- nize a widespread failure by Chumash scholars to ac-

knowledge their own complicity in circumventing thescrutiny on the part of the anthropological actors insuch processes, for here I feel they have not gone far region’s historic Indian communities through practices

that have elevated outsiders and newcomers to Indianenough. It is not sufficient for this reflexivity merely totake the form of scholars’ searching for evidence of oth- status in their place. We make no effort to place our-

selves outside these processes, for doing so would beers’ untoward involvement in the cultures they study.Such criticism is far more productive if offered in a disingenuous.

There are a number of things that we neither say norspirit of aid rather than attack. At the moment it seemsthat no scholar working among the Chumash (whose believe but are accused of saying or implying. We nei-

ther claim nor intend to suggest that either the Westernclaims to identity are sometimes disputed among them-selves) can fail to choose sides. But it would seem that Gate or Point Conception is not sacred. Our interest is

how they became sacred to contemporary Chumasha true commitment to the validity of all cultural formswould recognize that multiple forms of Chumash iden- peoples. We are not interested in telling people what

their beliefs or identities are or should be; rather, we aretity should be able to coexist. Perhaps scholars shouldbe working toward formulating a view of identity thatwould make such coexistence possible rather than aim- 1. Traditional cultural properties are a category of eligibility for in-

clusion on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Such sta-ing to score points for the side with which they happentus may provide but does not guarantee a degree of legal protectionto be allied. A first step in this direction might be foragainst alteration or destruction. Federal guidelines for evaluatingscholars to acknowledge and examine their own alle- traditional cultural properties are provided by the U.S. Department

giances. Eventually, however, we will have to abandon of the Interior’s National Register Bulletin 38 (Parker and King1990).the illusion that any of us can lay claim to an objective


concerned with the histories of those beliefs and identi- neocolonialist. The denials of history, misinterpreta-tions, and flawed methodologies displayed in theseties. We do not seek to disenfranchise or divide Chu-

mash peoples or try to prove that they ‘‘do not exist,’’ comments illustrate how scholars must defend theirmisplaced postcolonial concerns.but we must own up to the presence of these divisions

and why they exist. We do not suggest that archaeologi- Erlandson, Wilson, and Wood lend their professionalcredentials to the ‘‘authentication’’ of Chumash Tradi-cal monitoring wages and political influence are the

sole driving forces behind Traditionalist activism, but tionalists’ myth/history charters by uncritically read-ing them into the ethnographic record on the assump-we cannot ignore the influence they have had alongside

sincere belief and the deeply personal rewards of partici- tion that these origin claims have been or can besubstantiated empirically. Their mistaken belief thatpatory experience. Nor are we hiding other economic

interests such as those of archaeologists; we explicitly remembered or imagined pasts represent the actualevents of history demonstrates little grasp of the pro-acknowledge them. Though little of it is included in CA

because of space limitations, our research provides evi- cesses through which people form ideas about their his-tory, identity, heritage, and traditions. Only Erlandsondence that several turn-of-the-century Chumash indi-

viduals thought that Point Conception had been a cites an outside authority (Castillo 1978:104) for hisversion of the Traditionalist charter, but in truth thereshrine site used by their ancestors. We are making ef-

forts to publish this material where it will be widely ac- are no verifying sources other than the Traditionaliststhemselves; even this very general citation does not as-cessible. Point Conception and similar places may en-

joy legal protection because of this. Of course, we do not sert that aboriginal practices of Mission Indians per-sisted much beyond the end of the mission system indeny that describing modern processes of becoming

Chumash and making tradition challenges various self- the 1830s. Erlandson overlooks more recent work bythe same author stating that the key renegade Chumashrepresentations, self-images, and beliefs, making a de-

fensive reaction inevitable. With six of these seven community was wiped out by disease in the 1830s(Jackson and Castillo 1995:36) and Johnson’s (1993:commentaries, that defensive reaction—largely missing

in the original commentaries—is evident. 145–46) observation that the elderly revivalists of post-secularization communities had died out in the 1870s,Robles’s comments offer a concise example of how

alien, confusing, and threatening academic notions of taking most knowledge of their practices with them. Er-landson proposes that J. P. Harrington and other latemaking identity and tradition can be to members of the

public, who are inclined to see these as timeless and es- 19th- and early 20th-century researchers ‘‘collaboratedwith knowledgeable Chumash elders to record vastsential qualities. Having described professional com-

plicity in the identity-making process, we are not sur- amounts of information’’ as a ‘‘type of insurance . . .against the loss of traditional knowledge.’’2 But whenprised to find that the five other critical responses

(Erlandson, King, Ruyle, Wilson, Wood) come from an- these same ‘‘Chumash elders’’ contradict Traditionalistclaims Erlandson suggests that Harrington’s consultantthropologists presenting themselves as authorities on

Chumash identity and tradition. There are parallels ‘‘might deny the sacred nature of the area to himself oran anthropologist’’ in the course of ‘‘trying not to breakhere with the substance and impact of Sahlins’s and

Obeyesekere’s debate on the apotheosis of Captain a strong taboo.’’ How is this consistent with ‘‘collabora-tion’’ and ‘‘insurance’’? Erlandson’s mistake seems toCook. Borofsky (1997:279) observes, ‘‘Several scholars

have told me in private that they prefer Obeyesekere’s be not recognizing that Harrington’s consultants were‘‘simultaneously bearers and makers of history’’ (Ton-argument to Sahlins’s because it fits better with pres-

ent-day postcolonial concerns. Even if Obeyesekere kin 1992:97), interpreting the past for themselves andtheir audience according to the circumstances of thelacks the evidence, they suggest, he grasps the big pic-

ture; he understands the politics of oppression.’’ Both moment and their contextualized understanding oftheir received knowledge. They were a great deal morecases suggest that scholars can be seduced by certain

postcolonial narrative themes. There is no denying the distant from aboriginal beliefs and practices and a gooddeal more Catholic than is popular to admit. Makingcatastrophic impact of colonialism on native peoples,

but scholars rarely concern themselves with how their this determination requires familiarity with Harring-ton’s Chumash notes themselves rather than theown practices construct a modern slot for colonialism’s

historical victims or how this slot may be co-opted by heavily edited, cut-and-recombined published versions.Our use of ‘‘Traditionalist,’’ ‘‘nontraditionalist,’’ andothers. Once they have acknowledged the ‘‘authentic-

ity’’ of occupants of this position, it is very difficult for ‘‘traditionalism’’ causes a great deal of confusion for Er-landson, King, Ruyle, Wilson, and Wood. Their objec-them to back away from that stand, for the slot itself

confers righteousness on whoever is in it. The five an- tions all stem from expectations that ‘‘traditional’’ and‘‘nontraditional’’ primarily denote differences in cul-thropologists who criticize us do not investigate

whether the model of indigenous persistence is applica-2. We have written a critique of this interpretation of what J. P.ble to Chumash Traditionalism. They demonstrate anHarrington’s Chumash fieldnotes contain and how their contentuncritical faith in the symbolic representation of indig-and meaning have been altered by subsequent scholars. Thatenous persistence and activism. They are unwilling to manuscript answers in detail Erlandson’s questions regarding the

contemplate the history of anthropology’s Chumash ethnohistoric record, but because it is currently under review wewill not respond further here on this point.culture unit and at times sound as if doing so would be


tural content. This is a fundamental error. ‘‘Traditional- is ‘‘conquest by outside groups,’’ but there are other sig-nificant forms of social discontinuity to be consideredist’’ is a self-identification embraced by many Chu-

mash. It presupposes and devalues a ‘‘nontraditionalist’’ that are not at odds with what is currently known ofthe region’s archaeological record (see, e.g., Moore 1994).opposite. This is an essentializing dichotomy, simplis-

tic and obviously flawed, but it is a by-product of the King’s version of a larger Chumash social entity is theLulapin, rendered elsewhere in his work as the ‘‘Lulapinpractice of traditionalism itself, not something of our

fabrication. The distinction is principally one of iden- nation’’ (King 1984:46). His interpretation is based on avery small amount of information from a single Har-tity, not cultural content, and it is highly unlikely that

analysis of the distribution of traits or their particular rington consultant describing a meeting of ritual leadersfrom villages along the mainland coast. Whereas Kinghistories would validate the distinction as Traditional-

ists make it. Indeed, our analysis of the history of the characterizes this source as a ‘‘traditional history,’’ theauthors he cites (Hudson et al. 1981 [1977]:4) state,Western Gate/Point Conception demonstrates pre-

cisely this point: tradition can be quite new and shaped While it appears at first glance to be a straightfor-by forces other than the aboriginal past. Thus, we define ward account of people and events at a time just be-‘‘traditionalism’’ as it is understood by specialists in so- fore European contact, there is some indication thatcial movements, nation building, tradition, and the a telescoping of real and semi-mythical occurrencesmaking and marketing of heritage—as a movement has taken place in this ‘history.’ . . . Another consid-which seeks to change contemporary traditions radi- eration that immediately comes to mind in readingcally by instituting beliefs and practices that the group’s this traditional history is the extent to which themembers believe are taken from their own past and that events described were influenced by European con-they consider more natural, appropriate, and authentic tact. . . . Some of the terms and symbolism em-for them than the beliefs and practices to be replaced. ployed by Fernando certainly suggest Christian in-The subjects themselves (especially self-described Chu- fluences.mash Traditionalists) conceive of traditionalism not inthese terms but rather as a (potentially) empirically ver- After further reflection on the use of ‘‘Lulapin,’’ Hudson

(1978:169) suggests that ‘‘the term probably named theifiable return to—or thematic consistency with—pastforms, that is, in a manner equivalent to the popular region around Point Mugu,’’ a small fraction of the area

suggested by King. King neglects to mention that all thestatic understanding of tradition in the federal tradi-tional-cultural-property guidelines. Erlandson, King, primary historical sources describe conditions of war-

fare existing between villages comprising his Lulapin.3Ruyle, Wilson, and Wood’s misinterpretations of ouruses of ‘‘Traditionalist,’’ ‘‘nontraditionalist,’’ and ‘‘tra- In other words, Lulapin is not unequivocally either a

‘‘political organization’’ or a shared group identity ex-ditionalism’’ reflect this popular understanding.A further suggestion of unfamiliarity with the schol- cept in King’s hands.

Wilson proposes a methodological miracle: distin-arship on identity and tradition comes in the commen-tators’ treatment of archaeological culture units. Trig- guishing a temporal variable—old from new, or conti-

nuity from discontinuity—with an ahistorical, syn-ger (1989:688) has concluded that ‘‘historically orethnographically established ethnicity can be securely chronic analysis of ‘‘the cultural differences between

Western (or Euro-American) and indigenous ways ofprojected backward in the archaeological record onlywhen cultural (and ideally also physical) continuity can knowing and organizing realities.’’ Wilson and Wood

seem unaware of the circularity involved in beginningbe demonstrated not merely at the regional but morespecifically at the local and community levels.’’ Only the analysis by assuming who and what is indigenous

and Western, then proving the distinction by demon-regional cultures have been identified in what has cometo be known as Chumash prehistory. The archaeolo- strating a difference exists. While we do not deny that

such persons are Chumash and Traditionalists or thatgists (Erlandson, King) seem not to grasp the differencebetween archaeological culture units and emic shared these identities have important experiential aspects

that we did not address, exploring the historical pro-group identities. They do not recognize that the Chu-mash language family is also not an ethnic group. Er- cesses through which these identities took shape is the

only way of distinguishing old from new and continuitylandson’s unyielding embrace of the problematic Chu-mash culture unit forces him to overlook the history of from discontinuity. Wilson and Wood often invert our

arguments, at times accusing us of arguing for preciselythis taxonomic device and the evidence at odds withsuch a bounded, singular, and essentialized classifica- what we are arguing against. Wilson takes us to task for

a distinction between ‘‘contemporary’’ and ‘‘invented’’tion of Chumash, including, for example, Kroeber(1910; 1953 [1925]), Hudson and Blackburn (1982–87), traditions that we are unaware we made. Wood grasps

the scholarly basics of identity and tradition better thanand McLendon and Johnson (1998). King is more cir-cumspect on this point and is willing to shorten his the others but still misinterprets our argument as a

value judgment on Chumash use of anthropologicalclaims of Chumash longevity from 7,000 to 4,000 years.However, he still perceives a mortuary record made up texts to acquire traditions. On the contrary: were it not

for the role of texts in the formation and transmissionof flexed, extended, and cremation burials occurringscattered or in cemeteries and physical variation as evi-dence of ‘‘continuity.’’ His only model for discontinuity 3. This material is summarized in Johnson (1988).


of information, Point Conception would not have met tance activities in 1979. In an effort at cultural sensitiv-ity, the judge sentenced him to build a sweatlodge atthe criteria for a traditional cultural property.

If we are substantially wrong about the role of anthro- the Santa Ynez Reservation. Before he could do so,Santa Ynez tribal chairman Edward Olivas wrote to thepologists in the construction of Chumash Traditional-

ism as Erlandson, Ruyle, Wilson, and Wood contend, judge that the reservation ‘‘does not recognize [the Tra-ditionalist] as a spiritual leader. . . He is not an enrolledthen why does King wash his hands of responsibility for

the report (Craig, King, and Staff 1978) that ‘‘authenti- member of our reservation and we do not even knowwhether he is Indian or not’’ (Santa Barbara News-Presscated’’ the Western Gate? If the report is to be excused

because it was written quickly and principally by the 1979).This was no isolated event or mere ‘‘feud betweenstaff of the Santa Barbara Indian Center, then what of

the bold and unsupported statement that Point Concep- two specific families’’ (Wilson). Certainly there are ex-ceptions to this general pattern of opposition, and Er-tion was the traditional entrance to the afterworld in

the ‘‘traditional California religion’’ of ‘‘Native Califor- landson and Ruyle supply examples from the Santa Bar-bara News-Press. Yet questions of origins and styles ofnians’’ which appeared earlier in the archaeological por-

tion of the environmental impact report (King and Craig ethnicity lie at the very heart of disputes between Chu-mash groups.5 A few years after Olivas’s letter, genea-1978), presumably written in less of a rush? King dis-

misses his lack of expertise in ethnographic field meth- logical revelations and archaeological-monitoring dol-lars accelerated controversies over Chumash identity,ods and does not defend what we have called errors, ex-

aggeration, and unsubstantiated conclusions in these bringing O’Connor’s (1989) Family B from the SantaYnez Reservation into the fray. In 1994, Family B mem-works and elsewhere (King et al. 1985), where he pro-

motes the idea of Chumash Traditionalist persistence. bers still depicted the Traditionalists as ‘‘wannabees.’’This leaves unmentioned the Santa Barbara, Ventura,Is he not ‘‘meddling in Chumash identity and culture’’

(Erlandson) by asserting such conclusions? Aren’t Wil- and Tejon community Chumash who have longest andloudest objected to the indigenization of outsiders.son, Wood, and even Erlandson ‘‘meddling’’ by lending

their authority to Traditionalist charters without criti- Contrary to King’s statement that the Indian moni-tors he recruited in Santa Barbara in 1978 were ‘‘repre-cally investigating their histories or by condemning par-

ticular sources of data, such as the mission registers and sentatives’’ of the Santa Barbara Indian community,they were the only Santa Barbara Indians who came for-Harrington’s fieldnotes, with which they have little or

no familiarity? ward with an interest in archaeology at a time when ar-chaeologists were eagerly seeking moral justificationO’Connor (1989:15) says of Chumash ethnicity, ‘‘The

expression of ethnic identity derives almost completely of their work through Indian participation in it. Anthro-pologists at the time—including Hudson with his ca-from outside recognition.’’ If anthropologists have not

played a crucial role in the emergence and authentica- noe-building project, Erlandson in his work for theSanta Barbara Indian Center, Wilcoxon and Craig intion of Chumash Traditionalists, why—according to Er-

landson’s example—does being ‘‘established’’ as Chu- their archaeology training program for Indians, and Kingin his recruitment efforts—did not make much effort tomash for some families rest on anthropologist Travis

Hudson’s errors of genealogical interpretation in the ‘‘check to see if people represent who they say they do,’’as an applied research colleague of ours phrases this ba-1970s?4 The answer appears to be that the historical lo-

cal Indian communities have not recognized descen- sic ethical responsibility. Instead, local archaeologistsand museum anthropologists in the 1970s were respon-dants of gente de razon and newcomers to Chumash

identity as their own and have defended their group sive to whoever most assertively declared a Chumashidentity within their particular professional arenas—boundaries against them for several decades (Flynn

1991:270–79; Flynn and Laderman 1994). Erlandson’s seldom it turns out, the people most closely linked tothe local Indian communities. This linkage, of course,well-intended effort at urging cooperation and collabo-

ration between historical Indian communities and out- is the crux of legitimate representation; genealogical de-scent and ethnic style are both secondary issues. If out-sider Traditionalists in archaeological monitoring is

one force against which this boundary defense is sider Traditionalists someday really do gain the broadacceptance among historical local Indian communitiesmounted. An example related to the LNG–Western

Gate story illustrates this boundary defense. A Tradi- and the permission to act as their representatives thatthey claim to have already, then issues of origin and tra-tionalist spiritual leader was arrested and sentenced on

a misdemeanor vandalism charge during the LNG resis- ditionalism may well become less controversial.

4. Hudson’s successor at the Santa Barbara Museum of NaturalHistory instructs us that Erlandson has made at least one more er- 5. These arguments have all been put forward in the media by vari-

ous participants and observers (see, e.g., Alcott 1987; Burns 1987a,ror here, because Hudson ‘‘did no independent work on missionregisters . . . , he just wrote down what [the Traditionalists] said’’ 1987b, 1997c; Corwin 1987; Billey-Sevidge 1988; McGovern 1988;

Ziegler 1988; Zarate 1988; Mosk 1994). They played an important(John Johnson, personal communication, 1998). Hudson made er-rors with Chumash genealogical data because of his lack of exper- role in a Santa Barbara County Grand Jury interim report (1987;

Dalton 1987; Burns 1988) that recommended that Native Americantise with the data source (Warren and Hodge 1980). Erlandsonraises interesting questions of genealogy here, but they are not cen- archaeological monitoring be discontinued if these disputes could

not be resolved. They never were, but no action was taken by thetral to our thesis and are best left to others, such as Johnson, whocommand the data to answer them. county.


In recent decades, social scientists who study eth- wonder why Erlandson raises this argument when headmits that Wilcoxon and Steve Craig designed and im-nicity and nationalism have come to see the two as

more alike than different. In the 1960s, before this idea plemented an archaeological training program for localNative Americans in the mid-1970s. That program, co-had matured, anthropology passed through a period of

intense reflection on the ethics of professional practices incidentally, was where members of the Chumash Tra-ditionalist core first encountered the Point Conceptionin foreign countries. One outcome of this soul-search-

ing was what one scholar called anthropologist’s slow story, when Wilcoxon and Craig provided their studentswith copies of Blackburn’s December’s Child. Theserealization of ‘‘the ethics of scholarship as something

distinct from the ethics of nationalism’’ (Adams 1967: same Traditionalists were the first Chumash LNG pro-testers in May 1978. King implies that they learned this20). If Adams is correct, and if nationalism and eth-

nicity have so much in common, the next logical ques- material from the noted Traditionalist Semu Huaute.Huaute emerged in the 1960s and ’70s as a prominenttion to ask is this: To what extent are the ethics of

scholarship distinct from the ethics of ethnic identity countercultural teacher and commune leader whosemain following has been among non-Indians (O’Mearaconstruction? The answer, whatever it may be, will

have direct bearing on the Chumash case, where an- 1981; Brand 1988:571). One thing these Traditionalistsmay have learned from Huaute was how to conduct anthropological practices have been so intimately a part

of identity construction. Certainly, traditional-cultural- occupation. Huaute claims to have obtained the initialfinancing for the purchase of land for his Red Windproperty evaluation enters this potentially troublesome

zone. Much of what disturbs our critics is that we have Foundation commune in exchange for ending the 1972occupation he directed at the site of San Antonio de Pa-suggested that many of their mundane and presumably

safe professional practices have long been part of it, too. dua Mission at Jolon, California (San Jose Mercury1972a, b, c, d, e; Seiler 1974, 1977).For those who had been proceeding without a sense of

their own involvement in Chumash identity construc- Ruyle and Erlandson also contend that our motive isto sully the reputation of one or more business competi-tion, responding to our work is their first explicitly un-

derstood step into the role of participants in this pro- tors in cultural resource management. We cannot com-prehend how ethnic origins or identity are relevant tocess.

Perhaps representing what Trigger (1997:786) de- anyone’s qualifications or ability to practice cultural re-source management, nor can we see how publishingscribes as ‘‘the politics of obligation that often develops

between anthropologists and communities asserting insuch controversial material is necessarily good for busi-ness. But more to the point, our article was written, ac-digenous identities,’’ Erlandson’s criticism of our work

seems directed toward defending his employer and cepted by CA, and revised before we learned of any In-dian group’s having entered the cultural resourcemain link to archaeological practice in the region from

a perceived slight. We cannot confirm his interpretation management archaeology business. Hence, we couldonly note this change in our original reply to com-of who is represented by O’Connor’s (1989) pseudonym

‘‘Family A.’’ We have asserted that Traditionalists’ au- ments. Moreover, it is not clear to us that Wilcoxon andAssociates actually is in competition with any Indianthenticity is promoted by archaeologists who find them

sympathetic allies in the preservation of sites. Ruyle cultural resource management firm. The regional Cali-fornia State Historic Preservation Office at UCSB forand Erlandson, especially, appear more willing to pro-

mote ‘‘activist’’ Indians than nonactivist Indians, par- Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties informs usthat no reports produced by an Indian-owned or -oper-ticularly when these activists’ interests converge with

their own. We do not agree, however, that nontradition- ated cultural resource management firm have been filedthere since the late 1970s. We know of no instance inalists today are uniformly less activist or more compli-

ant with our interests than Traditionalists. which we have bid on the same project as an Indian firmor lost an opportunity to work because of Indian objec-In an attempt to discredit us, the commentators try

to deduce our ‘‘real’’ motives by ‘‘contextualizing’’ us tions. The cultural resource management market inCalifornia’s central coast region is large enough to offerwithin familiar discursive oppositions, especially that

of Indians versus anthropologists (Erlandson, Ruyle, a variety of specialized niches; separate firms are aslikely to be collaborators as competitors. As for the non-Wood). Erlandson alleges that our motive is a continua-

tion of the late Clem Meighan’s efforts to maintain ar- Indian cultural resource management archaeologistswhose work we criticize, they usually work in other re-chaeologists’ ‘‘control of the past.’’ Frankly, we agree

with Erlandson that Meighan’s position was often reac- gions of Chumash territory and rarely compete directlywith Wilcoxon and Associates. Finally, before the arti-tionary. Our goal in publishing this material is unre-

lated to the goals of the American Committee for Pres- cle appeared, Haley—the lead author on this project—had accepted an academic position at the University ofervation of Archaeological Collections (ACPAC).6 WeCalifornia, Riverside, that is unrelated to cultural re-source management.

6. ACPAC has shown an interest in our work, however. After ac- Erlandson implies that giving a copy of the CA articlequiring our article, the editor of the ACPAC Newsletter asked if to the local newspaper and bureaucrats reveals an intentwe would like to write a summary of its publication. We demurred,

to tarnish the reputation of particular Chumash Tradi-and they prepared the summary themselves (ACPAC Newsletter,March 1998). tionalists. We gave Santa Barbara News-Press senior re-


porter Melinda Burns a copy of our article in response when that is the role of the tribal chairman and Busi-ness Council. The Elders’ Council’s responsibility isto her October 1997 coverage of the Santa Barbara Envi-

ronmental Defense Center’s 20th anniversary and its cultural resource issues, and Elaine Schneider, now itspresident, is one of several people who stated in publicaccomplishments (Burns 1997a). Listed among these ac-

complishments was stopping the LNG project and pre- hearings prior to our study that the proposed commer-cial spaceport site 13 miles from Point Conception wasserving the Western Gate. Given that our recent study

revealed that the Western Gate was not the sure-fire within the Western Gate. Her remarks were instrumen-tal in initiating our 1994 traditional-cultural-propertyhedge against development it was portrayed and popu-

larly viewed to be, we felt it was appropriate to set the evaluation in conjunction with the commercial space-port project. Other members of the Elders’ Council atrecord straight. It is important for the public to know

that the LNG fight had as much to do with preserving that time did not share her views. Though she criticizedour CA article on the ground that it might promote de-development plans as opposing them and that there are

limitations to the political effectiveness of Chumash velopment, only a few weeks earlier she had opposedour efforts to preserve the historical village site endan-Traditionalism under current review procedures. Burns

was also consulting with us at that time regarding our gered by the highway project (see Burns 1997b). We as-sume that some of the News-Press’s article’s quotesrediscovery of a historical Chumash village site ances-

tral to the Santa Ynez Reservation community that was contain errors, particularly given that the one attributedto Haley was part of a description of the vulnerabilityendangered by a highway project (Burns 1997b). We had

been ‘‘dismissed’’ from that project for refusing to im- of the Western Gate idea under traditional-cultural-property guidelines and not the ‘‘boast’’ (Ruyle) that itplement procedures that would have facilitated the

site’s destruction, and when we alerted him to the case has the decontextualized appearance of.7

It is unfortunate that the news story rehashes the ge-Erlandson joined us in objecting to the way agencieswere handling the matter. nealogy question that the News-Press, Los Angeles

Times, Santa Barbara Independent, and UCSB’s DailyWe feel that scholars ought to make bureaucrats andthe public aware of the unintended consequences of cul- Nexus have been covering for more than a decade (see,

e.g., Burns 1987a, b), particularly given that we pro-tural resource management and the pitfalls of environ-mentalists’ strategic use of the ‘‘ecologically noble sav- vided no new evidence on that subject and it was not

crucial to our argument. The News-Press did not pub-age’’ motif (Redford 1990, Conklin 1998). We perceivethe region’s anthropologists as inextricably intertwined lish the response that we submitted to correct its vari-

ous misrepresentations. Despite these shortcomings,in the construction and negotiation of Chumash iden-tity and tradition, and the best course of action we can the News-Press article lends support to our description

of the Western Gate idea’s inextricable ties to broad-see under these less than ideal circumstances is to ac-knowledge anthropologists’ roles and seek the involve- based environmental politics in the region. Nearly ev-

ery voice objecting to our CA article contends that it isment of others in an ongoing dialogue. Therefore wegave copies of the article to more anthropologists, Chu- ‘‘prodevelopment.’’ We will have to wait and see on

that, but, as we state in our article, the LNG resistancemash, bureaucrats, and environmentalists than arelisted by Erlandson and solicited their comments. itself was organized and financed by landholders con-

cerned with protecting their own development rights.Ruyle and Erlandson mine the News-Press’s coverageof our Point Conception research (Burns 1997c) for dis- The ‘‘prodevelopment’’ charge is mounted by the very

people who have years of experience working with usapproving quotes by Chumash individuals. They do notinclude the quotes by Santa Barbara and Ventura Chu- to protect cultural resources. Erlandson (personal com-

munication, March 30, 1998) has written us, ‘‘Youmash who reacted more positively, nor do they ac-knowledge the central role in revealing the gente de ra- know that I value . . . the common concerns we have

always shared for preserving sites and doing good ar-zon origins of key Traditionalists played by the NativeAmerican scholar-activist and LNG resistance spokes- chaeology.’’ This conflicts with Ruyle’s attempt to por-

tray us as the other side of the coin. CA readers can findperson Johnny Flynn (1991; Flynn and Laderman 1994).But there is more to the News-Press’s story than meets additional evidence that our central concern is anthro-

pological practice by examining the issues we raised inthe eye. Burns does not tell her readers that only one ofthe Indians quoted had read all of our article and that a discussion of the traditional-cultural-property guide-

lines in 1996 on the American Cultural Resources Asso-most of the others had not read it at all but were re-sponding instead to her summation that the Western ciation list-server, ACRA-L.8

Does our work imply, as Erlandson argues, that Chu-Gate is ‘‘not authentic’’ (Melinda Burns, personal com-munication, 1997). Unaware that this misrepresentedour findings, the Indian people interviewed logically in- 7. The quote attributed to Haley consists of two separate state-terpreted it to mean that we claim the Western Gate or ments cut and pasted together by Burns.

8. The discussion begins under the thread ‘‘TCP Surveys’’ (KingPoint Conception are not sacred places, and the anger1996) and resumes as ‘‘TCP as Bad Anthropology’’ (Haley 1996a). Asome of them showed in response to this misinterpreta-summary is offered at ‘‘TCP as Bad Anth—Closure’’ (Haley 1996b).tion is appropriate. ACRA-L is indexed on the World-Wide Web at http://

Burns also erroneously identifies the Elders’ Council lists.nonprofit.net/listproc/archives/acra-l/. The discussion ap-pears in the November and December 1996 archives.as the governing body of the Santa Ynez Reservation


mash peoples ‘‘bear little or no legitimate claim to a mendations to California Commercial Spaceport, Inc.On purely empirical grounds we cannot lend our sup-partnership in managing their past’’? Not necessarily,

and certainly not in such an all-encompassing sense, in port to Traditionalists’ versions of their origins or thehistories they ascribe to particular traditions. However,any event. Before anyone can answer that question

more specifically, we need to acknowledge the differing we anticipate that future investigations of the PointConception area will continue to require input fromways in which the archaeological and ethnohistoric rec-

ords become ‘‘their past.’’ Some involve profound trans- these persons and other interested parties. Thus, weperceive circumstances in which participation in man-formations of identity and others involve social, cul-

tural, and biological continuities, but both involve the agement of the past may need to be widened rather thannarrowed. From these experiences we conclude thatpractice of anthropology and particularly cultural re-

source management archaeology. Erlandson simply ig- knowledge of the scholarship on tradition, identity, andheritage is helpful in understanding these questions andnores all this and sidesteps the historical inquiries that

might sort it all out. Whether it matters how ‘‘their should be an important part of cultural resource man-agement and archaeological training.past’’ comes into being is a question which needs more

discussion among all interested parties. It may depend There are few substantive changes we would make inresponse to the criticisms of Erlandson, King, Robles,on the particular context in which the question arises.

For instance, the disposition of human remains from a Ruyle, Wilson, and Wood. City of Malibu officials re-moved their Chumash cultural resources manager—nothistorical village site requires the participation of de-

scendants of the village’s population, who are increas- a ‘‘most likely descendant,’’ as King points out—over adispute in which genealogy was one of several issues.ingly identifiable through genealogical research (see,

e.g., McLendon and Johnson 1998); nondescendants Ruyle is correct that NAHC ultimately did not removeanyone from the list of most likely descendants in themay have less of a role to play. In a case like that of the

Western Gate/Point Conception, in which outsiders Chumash area, though a complete overhaul of the listhad been discussed and was anticipated after much de-and newcomers to Chumash identity have been crucial

to these places’ acquisition of contemporary impor- bate on the matter. Instead, NAHC is adding mostlikely descendants to its list but now is requiring prooftance, our own actions offer an example of what might

be done. By June 13, 1994, we had completed our exami- of ancestry and frequently consults with the anthropol-ogist in the region specializing in Chumash genealogi-nation of ethnohistoric and published sources on Point

Conception, the land of the dead, and related Chumash cal research (John Johnson, personal communication,1998).shrines and were ready to begin interviews with local

Indians. On that day, Haley telephoned Larry Myers at Illustrating the fallacy of Ruyle’s characterization ofcultural resource management practitioners, Win-the California Native American Heritage Commission

(NAHC) to consult with him regarding persons and throp’s commentary is easily the best of the lot and theonly one to address our central concerns. Winthrop ex-groups to contact in the traditional-cultural-property

evaluation. Not long before, Myers had endured acrimo- pands our understanding of the cultural baggage associ-ated with the concept of tradition and why it is so prob-nious meetings at which members of the historical

Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Tejon Chumash communi- lematic a foundation for policy. Observing that culturalaccounts differ, are motivated, and partly reflect politi-ties used genealogical data to challenge the legitimacy

of the NAHC’s listed Chumash most likely descendant. cal realities, Winthrop states, ‘‘These facts are problem-atic only if the aim of the analysis is to assert someMyers’s recommendations did not include members of

the nondescendant Traditionalist groups mentioned in changeless cultural value (e.g., a ‘‘sacred site’’) ab-stracted from particular, real communities and thethat debate. Given the Traditionalists’ long interest and

crucial involvement in Western Gate/Point Conception wider political and economic currents that affectthem.’’ This is precisely the mistake made in the federalhistory, we felt that we could not justify excluding

them from an investigation of these places’ cultural sig- traditional-cultural-property guidelines.Winthrop nudges us forward toward the goal of anificance, regardless of their origins outside of the re-

gion’s historical Indian communities. When we advised better-grounded cultural resource management policyand practice. His reformulation begins with an em-Myers of this, he concurred that consultation with

them as other interested parties—a category of persons phasis on ‘‘communities rather than places and theinterrelation of tradition and change rather than cul-one can or should consult under a number of cultural

resource and environmental policies—might be appro- tural stasis.’’ He next proposes that cultural resourcemanagement and all of applied anthropology not be sep-priate.

Traditionalists contributed to our finding that Point arated from the rest of the discipline as a distinct sub-field. Winthrop’s proposals would bring two central andConception but not the larger Western Gate area is eli-

gible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic long-standing concerns of anthropology—communitiesand change—to the heart of cultural resource manage-Places as a traditional cultural property. Two Tradition-

alists suggested creating a telephone hotline announc- ment. Making community a central concern and mov-ing away from the authority of static tradition rendersing space launch schedules to solve the potential prob-

lem of time conflicts with Indian use of Point issues of factionalism, representation, and cultural vari-ation less problematic. It is possible that the ethnogen-Conception, and we included this in our final recom-


———. 1997c. Point of contention. Santa Barbara News-Press,esis of new communities might be a complicating factorDecember 26. [bdh, lrw]for Winthrop’s idea. The Chumash case demonstrates

case, walter h. 1927. History of Long Beach and vicinity.that young communities like the Chumash Traditional- Chicago. [eer]ists are not always well-served by historic preservation castillo, edward. 1978. ‘‘The impact of Euro-American ex-

ploration and settlement,’’ in Handbook of North American In-policies that value age. Yet, new communities needdians, vol. 8, California. Edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp. 99–127.their own myth/history charters too, perhaps evenWashington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. [jme, bdh, lrw]more than old ones. Practices associated with the char- ———. 1994. Gender status decline, resistance, and accommoda-

ters of new communities may or may not obtain protection among female neophytes in the missions of California: ASan Gabriel case study. American Indian Culture and Re-tion from historic preservation policies. Legal protec-search Journal 18(1):67–93. [jme]tion may not even be a concern in some cases; this will

conkl in, beth. 1998. Body paint, feathers, and VCRs: Aes-depend on the form the charter takes. But Winthrop’sthetics and authenticity in Amazonian activism. American Eth-

proposals might facilitate envisioning Chumash Tradi- nologist 24:711–37. [bdh, lrw]tionalists as a distinct community with its own charter cooley, theodore g. 1992. ‘‘Observations on hydration

measurements of obsidian deriving from buried deposits fromand not require us to choose between competing inter-site CA-SBA-2028, at Gaviota, Santa Barbara County, Califor-ests and histories of Traditionalists and nontradition-nia,’’ in Archaeological investigations of some significant sitesalists in an effort to decide what constitutes ‘‘authentic on the central coast of California. Edited by Herb Dallas Jr.

Chumash tradition.’’ We hope that those proposals will and Gary S. Breschini, pp. 27–37. Coyote Press Archives of Cal-ifornia Prehistory 37. [jme]attract the attention and study they deserve.

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———. 1972e. Indians fire chief in Jolon Mission dispute. March Nan Hannon and Richard K. Olmo. Medford: Southern OregonHistorical Society. [rw]24. [bdh, lrw]

santa barbara county grand jury. 1987. Interim re- winthrop, robert h. , and johnson meninick. 1996.Inventory and evaluation of traditional cultural properties asso-port on monitoring of archaeologically sensitive construction

sites. Santa Barbara: County of Santa Barbara. [bdh, lrw] ciated with the Condit hydroelectric project. Draft. 2 vols. Pre-pared for PacifiCorp (Portland, Ore.) and Yakama Indian Na-sapir, edward. 1961. ‘‘Culture, genuine and spurious,’’ in

Culture, language, and personality: Selected essays. Edited by tion (Toppenish, Wash.). [rw]zarate, michael. 1988. The truth about the Chumash.David G. Mandelbaum. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University

of California Press. [rw] Daily Nexus, May 25. [bdh, lrw]ziegler, chris. 1988. Non-Chumash group still monitoringse iler, michael. 1974. An alternative to the reservation. Los

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The Making of Chumash Tradition: Replies to Haley and Wilcoxon

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