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Show POWELL.] CHUMASHAN FAMILY. 67 to represent distinct families, a conclusion subsequent investigations have sustained. In 188 L Mr. Gatschet visited the remnants of this tribe in Louisiana. He found about fifty individuals, a portion of whom lived on Grand River, but the larger part in Charenton, St. Mary's Parish. The tribal organization was abandoned in 1879 on the death of their chief. CHUMASHAN FAMILY. > Santa Barbara, Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc., Lond., 85,1856 ( includes Santa Barbara, Santa Inez, San Luis Obispo languages). Buschmann, Spuren der aztek. Sprache, 531,585,588, 602,1859. Latham, Opuscula, 351, 1860. Powell in Cont. N. A. Eth., m, 550, 567, 1877 ( Kasua, Santa Inez, Id. of Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara). Gatschet in TJ. S. Geog. Surv. W. 100th M., vn, 419,1879 ( cites La Purisima, Santa Inez, Santa Barbara, Kasua, Mugu, Santa Cruz Id.). X Santa Barbara, Gatschet in Mag. Am. Hist., 156,1877 ( Santa Inez, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz Id., San Luis Obispo, San Antonio). Derivation: From Chumash, the name of the Santa Rosa Islanders. The several dialects of this family have long been known under the group or family name, " Santa Barbara," which seems first to have been used in a comprehensive sense by Latham in 1856^ who included under it three languages, viz: Santa Barbara, Santa Inez, and San Luis Obispo. The term has no special pertinence as a family designation, except from the fact that the Santa Barbara Mission, around which one of the dialects of the family was spoken, is perhaps more widely known than any of the others. Nevertheless, as it is the family name first applied to the group and has, moreover, passed into current use its claim to recognition would not be questioned were it not a compound name. Under the rule adopted the latter fact necessitates its rejection. As a suitable substitute the term Chumashan is here adopted. Chumash is the name of the Santa Rosa Islanders, who spoke a dialect of this stock; and is a term widely known among the Indians of this family. The Indians of this family lived in villages, the villages as a whole apparently having no political connection, and hence there appears to have been no appellation in use among them to designate themselves as a whole people. Dialects of this language were spoken at the Missions of San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Ifiez, Purisima, and San Luis Obispo. Kindred dialects were' spoken also upon the Islands of Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz, and also, probably, upon such other of the Santa Barbara Islands as formerly were permanently inhabited. These dialects collectively form a remarkably homogeneous family, all of them, with the exception of the San Luis Obispo, being closely related and containing very many words in common. Vocabularies representing six dialects of the language are in possession of the Bureau of Ethnology. |
