NOTICIAS Journal Of The Santa Barbara Historical Museum
Vol. LV
SAQ2€b 0J3C in cbe Jiue Of GSoncAcc
No, 3
In
conjunction with the exhibition, Sacred Art in the Age of Contact: Chumash and Latin American Traditions in Santa Barbara, September 15,2017-January 14,2018, this issue o/Noticias examines the various aspects of the relationship between art and spirituality in the Chumash and Spanish traditionsfollowingfirst contact between the two cultures, c. 17691824. Among the topics explored in these essays are the cultural exchanges between Native Americans and colonizers, the differing approaches to spirituality and to ideas of the sacred, and the various modes of both assimilation and resistance in what was a complex and nuanced relationship. THE EDITORS: Margaret Bell is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art and Architecture at UC Santa Barbara, with specializations in visual culture of Renaissance Italy and colonial Latin America. She is an adjunct assistant curator at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara and a Samuel H. Kressfellozv at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. Diva Zumaya is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art and Architecture at UC Santa Barbara, an adjunct assistant curator at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara and a curatorial assistant at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. She has organized exhibitions on Rembrandt, Francisco Goya and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. COVER IMAGE: Enconchado Virgin Mary, Oil and abalone on zvood. Courtesy California State Parks, La Purisima Mission State Historic Park. INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS: Noticias is a journal devoted to the study of the history of Santa Barbara County. Contributions of articles are welcome. The authority in matters of style is The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition. The Publications Committee reserves the right to return submitted manuscripts for required changes. Statements and opinions expressed in articles are the sole responsibility of the authors. Michael Redmon, Noticias Editor Judy Sutcliffe, Designer ©2017 Santa Barbara Historical Museum 136 East De la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara, California, 93101 sbhistorical.org Single copies $12 ISSN 0581-5916
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Sacred Art in the Age of Contact: Chumash and Latin American Tradi tions in Santa Barbara, is a collaborative exhibition of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum and the Art, Design and Architecture Museum, University of California Santa Barbara. It is curated by Margaret Bell and Diva Zumaya, Adjunct Assistant Curators and Doctoral Candidates, History of Art and Architecture, UC Santa Barbara and is organized by the Art, Design and Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara.
The exhibition is part 0/Pacific Standard Time: LA/ LA,afar-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles.
# Pacific Standard % Time: LA/LA Latin American & Latino Art in LA
Presenting Sponsors
Inii The Getty Bankof America
HcknowLebQOoencs Support for the exhibition, Sacred Art in the Age of Contact, was provided by Mrs. Lois Erburu and a grant from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The curators of Sacred Art in the Age of Contact would like to thank the following individuals for their help in the development of the exhibition and this publication: Faculty Advisors Jonathan Cordero Ines Talamantez Ann Taves
Art, Design and Architecture Museum Todd Anderson
Chumash Curatorial Consultants Eleanor Arrellanes Fishburn Alicia Cordero Ernestine de Soto
Lety Garcia Elyse Gonzales Rebecca Harlow Susan Lucke Bruce Robertson
Mia Lopez Keli Lopez Thomas Lopez Barbara Lopez Mitch Robles Alan Salazar Samantha Sandoval Lori-Ann Velez Matthew Vestuto James Yee Nakia Zavalla Academic Contributors Alesha Claveria John Vincent Decemvirale Lisbeth Haas Hannah Kagan-Moore Margaret McMurtrey Deborah Spivak Suzanne van de Meerendonk
Mehmet Dogu Michelle Faust
Santa Barbara Historical Museum Lynn Brittner Dacia Harwood Adela Lua Michael Redmon Isaac Sheets Cherie Summers Mission Santa Ines Sheila Benedict Old Mission Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library Christina Foss Monica Orozco Brittany Bratcher Rachel Hatcher Day
Curatorial Interns
Mission La Purisima
Megan Dixon Alexander Dorr
Concepcion Shyra Liguori
Makayla Rawlins Wyatt Young
Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History John Johnson Jan Timbrook Tacy Kennedy Santa Barbara Museum of Art Larry J. Feinberg Gloria Martinez Andrea Katz Repository for Archae ological and Ethno graphic Collections, UC Santa Barbara Lynn Gamble Sarah Kerchusky Private Collections Lois Erburu
Mia Lopez Thomas Lopez Mitch Robles Samantha Sandoval Nakia Zavalla PST Santa Barbara Cohort Katrina Carl Miki Garcia Frederick Janka Rachel Johnson Julie Joyce Sarah Kiooster Jennifer Sales
TAbLe Of Ooncencs 125
Introduction Margaret Bell and Diva Zumaya
130
When Worlds Collide: Experiencing Sacrality in a Zone of Contact and Colonization Ann Taves
144
Chumash and Catholic Sacred Space at the Interstices of the Missions Suzanne van de Meerendonk
152
Identity at the Borderlands: Spanish, Indigenous and Hybrid Formations at the 19^‘'-Century Santa Barbara Mission Hannah Kagan-Moore
162
Materiality and the Sacred Deborah Spivak
172
An Intervieio zvith Ernestine de Soto Diva Zumaya
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SACRED ART
Ihcisobuccion Margaret Bell and Diva Zumaya The purpose of any ceremony is to build stronger relationships or bridge the distance between our cosmos and us...Through going forward together with open minds and good hearts we have uncovered the nature of this ceremony. Shawn Wilson (Ph.D., Opaskwayak Cree from Northern Manitoba), Research is Ceremony (Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2008), 135-17. Shawn Wilson's articulation of the col laborative, relational nature of indigen ous research methodologies could not describe more fittingly the process of curating Sacred Art in the Age of Contact. The exhibition, which represents nu merous diverse and complex objects, required an equal diversity of perspect ives brought by its contributors, and would not have been possible without the inter-disciplinary, inter-institution al and inter-cultural exchanges that have advised its research. These con versations have taken many forms, ran ging from the critically academic to the deeply personal, often becoming a pro ductive and revealing combination of both. In this process it has become ap parent that the goals of Sacred Art are multifarious, existing in the intersec tions of local history, colonial history, visual culture, spirituality, and mu seum practice itself. It is our hope Sac red Art will encourage all community members to join the conversation, facil itating reflection on the complexity of identity and the power of representa tion, which have been present in this
region since the earliest Chumash in habitants and persist in our present day. The fundamental story that Sacred Art tells—that the missions were built and decorated by indigenous artists and craftspeople—is not only central to the history of Santa Barbara, but to the history of California, and thus we are pleased that this exhibition is part of the fall 2017 Getty initiative Pacific Standard Time LA/LA, in which museums across Southern California ex plore the historical relationship between Los Angeles and Latin Amer ica through a series of thematically linked exhibitions. A central premise of Sacred Art is the concept of the transmission of sac red and cultural knowledge through visual means, both within and external to official channels of communication. Catholic and Chumash spiritual know ledge was shared and accessed under dramatically different conditions, through visual systems that were at once in competition with each other, and intricately entwined in the Mission Period. As many of the objects demon-
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NOTICIAS
strate, Chumash artists constantly ne- and beyond the Mission Period, to engotiated their own spiritual identities sure the continuity of their traditions, under the demands of life in Catholic Walking through Santa Barbara, missions, creating objects that to the surrounded by white stucco buildings Franciscan friars may have appeared
with red tile roofs, it is evident the
wholly Catliolic, while conveying to "Old Spanish Days" of the colonial Chumash viewers familiar sacred and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are cultural resonances.^ For instance, Chu- integral to the identity of the city, mash artists produced objects like the which is celebrated in the preservation carved confessional from Mission Santa of historical sites like the Mission and Ines—on the one hand, used as a the Presidio, and through the populardevice for a central Catholic penitence ity of its annual Fiesta Days. Despite ritual, and on the other decorated with the general interest in Santa Barbara's the image of the Momoy flower, which
colonial history, and the central role it
even today speaks to Chumash viewers continues to play in the city's aesthetic, on a deeply spiritual level. The process there had not, until now, been a major of curating and developing Sacred Art exhibition in a Santa Barbara institution in the Age of Contact has revealed an that explores the persistence of indiencoded cultural knowledge left by the
genous artistic traditions during this
Chumash in the visual record through "time of little choice"^ for the Chumash
A Chumash couple, tentatively identified as Justo and Cecilia, in front of Mission Santo Barbara, ca. 1885. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
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127
inhabitants of the region, many of whom were forcibly relocated within the confines of the mis sions, disrupting established modes of governance, trade, fam ily life and spiritual practice. It is for these reasons that Sacred Art brings together a diverse array of over a hundred objects from Santa Barbara area collections, many of which have never been displayed, to reveal the complex and fraught role of religious images during the Mission Period. Highlighting themes of devotion, sacred space, language, and materiality. Sacred Art investigates the mutually transformative interaction among Chumash and Catholic traditions.
Mission Santa Barbara, ca. 1890. At the
left may be seen remnants of theformer Chumash neophyte village. W. J. Rea phoare defining sacred art broadly to tograph. Collection of the Santa Barbara encompass objects and spaces that ad- Historical Museum dress various aspects of devotional, ritual and spiritual life in the Mission olic sacred space of the mission. Most Period.^ The breadth of this definition importantly, Taves' essay frames a set allows for an exploration of diverse of potentialities for the convergence of experiences and has enabled us to Catholic and Chumash worldviews draw on a variety of sources, which within the colonial context. Akin to provide a rich and textured context for Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding modthe objects. While the concept of the el,^ Taves finds opportunities for susacred cannot be easily defined, Ann persession, similitude (or likeness), and Taves provides a framework for under- resistance in the participants' apprestanding Catholic and Chumash world- hension of sacred art that contains both views as sets of beliefs and ways of life Chumash and Catholic elements, derived from a "dynamic devotional Interwoven throughout Sacred Art cosmos populated with spiritual beings are the concepts of persistence and resprepared to interact with ordinary istance, which shaped the works crepeople." Similarly, Suzanne van de Me- ated by Chumash artists and erendonk explores the consequences of craftspeople in the colonial period. The competing sacred geographies and cos- exhibition displays objects that highmological conceptions within the Cath- light the transformations and tensions In the context of the exhibition, we
128
NOTICIAS
in the production of religious visual explore the diverse, multifaceted, and culture in the mission system. Suzanne sometimes elusive meanings embodied van de Meerendonk examines how in the visual and material objects of Chumash artists used imagery to activate spiritual environments during the colonial period through the continuation of traditional practices and the invocation of sacred art in the new coIonia! context. Deborah Spivak considers how objects such as the carved serpentine holy water font from Mission Santa Barbara and the enconchado abalone painting of the Virgin Mary use precious materials that designate sacrality in Chumash culture in the ereation of devotional Catholic images, Hannah Kagan-Moore,likewise, investigates the complexities of identity on the borderlands of the empire where Spanish and native cultures synthesize in art and dress.
Chumash and Catholic spiritual practice. Because of the scarcity of firsthand accounts available, Chumash perspectives and spiritual contributions to the religious experience at the missions have been limited in previous examinations of devotional Catholic images, The inclusion of Chumash perspectives, cultural meanings, and spirituality enhances our current knowledge and appreciation. As Amy Lonetree states in her reflections on curating exhibitions in collaboration with Native communities, 'Tn the presence of objects from the past, we are privileged to stand as witnesses to living entities that remain intimately and inexorably tied to their descendant communities."^ Ac-
Like other counties along the California coast, Santa Barbara County has a rich history in which usually distinctive Spanish Catholic and Chumash cultures merged in various ways during the Mission period to form a complex, multi-layered web of religious and spiritual possibilities. The essays herein
knowledging the Chumash meanings invoked in the indigenous elements of Catholic devotional art deepens our understanding of the cultural and spiritual significance of Chumash sacred elements and of the Chumash and Catholic intersections that persist in the present.
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SACRED ART
Qoces 1. James C. Scott has described one outcome of this type of negotiation as a "hidden transcript," or something that is comprehensible to those in the know, while remaining undetected to those who are not describes how the hidden transcript permits subordin ate groups to undercut the authorized cultural norms is the fact that cultural expression by virtue of its polyvalent symbolism and metaphor lends itself to disguise. By the subtle use of codes one can insinuate into a ritual, a pattern of dress, a song, a story, meanings that are accessible to one intended audience and opaque to another audience that the actors wish to exclude. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts ofResistance, (New Haven: Yale University Press), 158. 2. From Randall Milliken's A Time of Little Choice (1995). Milliken argues that native Californians had little choice but to move to the Franciscan missions, which inevitably led to the disintegration of tribal life and near extermination of the native population. 3. Out of respect for the Chumash certain objects have not been displayed in this exhibition. First and foremost, we have not included anything known to have been connected with a burial. To protect an individual or community's intimate relationship to the sacred, several objects that are still in active use or have been identified as containing valuable sacred knowledge have also been excluded. 4, Hall, S.(1980)."Encoding/decoding." In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe,& P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, Media, Language —Working Papers in Cultural Studies,(London: Routledge, 1972-79), 117-127. 5. Amy Lonetree, Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National arid Tribal Museums,(North Carolina: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2012), xv.
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NOTICIAS
CQben COCopLbs OoLLibe: G^xpepiencinc; SAcmbcy in a Zone op QoncAcc Anb OoLonizACion Ann Taves
Ann Taves is Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at UC Santa Barbara, where she holds the Cordano Chair in Catholic Studies. She is the author ofThe Household of Faith: Roman Catholic Devotions in Mid-Nineteenth Century America as well as more recent books and articles related to religious experience and the emergence of new religious movements. Without essentializing either, it is fair to say that at the point of contact Franciscans and Chumash inhabited fundamentally different worldviews. Nonetheless many of the Catholic devotional objects made by Chumash artisans offer evidence that people forged connections of various kinds between the two worldviews. In some cases, Chu-
suggested some sort of link—at least in the mind of the Chumash artisan— between the Momoy and the act of confession. As in the case with any act of translation, the establishment of a link between key cultural words—or in this case images—likely brought to mind a host of concepts related to confession (for those familiar with Catholicism)
mash artisans used materials, such as abalone, that had traditional spiritual meaning to create Catholic devotional objects, such as rosaries. In other cases, they wore both Chumash and Catholic devotional objects—a Chumash 'atishwin (talisman) and a Catholic rosary. In still other cases, Chumash artisans integrated traditional Chumash images into Catholic objects, such as the confessional at Mission Santa Ines. I will focus on the confessional
and Momoy (for those familiar with Chumash culture). The mere fact of a linkage, however, does not tell us how the linked concepts fit into their respective worldviews or how the priests, the Chumash people, or the Chumash artisan related them. The presence of a linkage, in other words, does not tell us what the linkage meant either to the artisan or to others, Discussions of the interactions between Franciscans and Chumash
from Mission Santa Ines, which has Momoy flowers—a central feature of Chumash spirituality—carved on its exterior. The presence of Momoy flowers symbolically connected two worlds—Catholic and Chumash—and
often emphasize the differences between the two worldviews, the massive transformation inherent in converting to Christianity, and the ex tent to which native peoples resisted this transformation.^ Although their
131
SACRED ART
Mission Santa hies, ca. 1885. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
explicit worldviews were very differ- their equivalence as means of interactent, both were centered on a dynamic ing with the spiritual world. devotional cosmos populated with 3) As a sign of supersession. The spiritual beings prepared to interact artisan might have wanted to suggest with ordinary people on an everyday that the traditional Chumash way of basis. If we focus on connections at this interacting with the spiritual world had level, we can consider three possible both anticipated and been completed ways of interpreting the linkage by the Catholic way, thus relating Chumash to Catholic, as Christians tradibetween confessional and Momoy: 1) As a sign of resistance. The tionally related Judaism to Christianity. Chumash artisan might have viewed To understand these options more the traditional Chumash way of access- fully, we cannot simply consider the ing the spiritual world as superior to two worldviews as sets of beliefs. We the Catholic way and carved the Mo- need to consider them both as ways of moy to encourage fellow Chumash to life, one of which had invaded and was resist internalizing a Catholic world- attempting to transform the other. If view. we locate the surviving devotional ob2) As a sign of likeness. The artis- jects within that framework, we can an might have wanted to highlight per- use them to explore the connections ceived similarities between Chumash that people might and Catholic practices and to assert between them.
have
perceived
132
NOTICIAS The Catholic Worldview
religious motivation for the missionary enterprise, including the establishment In order to understand the Francis- of the California missions. It also can Catholic worldview, we need to provided the basis on which the Franask why the Franciscans (and Christians more generally) were motivated to convert people and what it meant to convert. The Christian worldview, tra-
ciscans recast core features of the Chumash worldview as sinful and thus the basis on which they attempted to re make the Chumash way of life. After a brief period of preparation, ditionally conceived, assumes that people are fundamentally flawed due the Franciscans in Alta California bapto sin (as reflected in the Christian in- tized those who requested it and who terpretation of the Genesis story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden) and that they need to be saved from death (due to sin)
were willing to relocate to the missions.^ Preparation typically involved the memorization of key teachings and prayers, including the Lord's
through belief in Jesus as the Messiah, i.e., the Christ. The letters of St. Paul, written within decades of Jesus' crucifixion, outline core features of the Christian worldview: Jesus was New thought to have established a
Prayer and the Ave Maria (Hail Mary), in the Chumash languages.^ Once baptized, the Franciscans referred to them as neophytes or new believers, whom they then viewed as having made a commitment to a radical transforma-
Covenant" (or "New Testament") that tion of self through an extended probuilt on and yet superseded God's cess of training in the faith. Old Covenant" with the Jewish Some of this training involved the people. Salvation via this new covenant was open to all through baptism, which was viewed symbolically as dying and rising with Christ to new life. This new life with Christ was celebrated in a ritu-
memorization of doctrine, but the daily Mass, which neophytes were required to attend, was the center of religious life at the missions. The Mass followed the Catholic ritual calendar with its
al meal (the Eucharist). Paul's concep- four seasons — Advent, Christmas, tion of baptism as a form of death and Lent, and Easter—punctuated by holy resurrection meant that baptism days dedicated to particular saints. signaled a radical transformation of self. In his words (Romans 6.6): "We know that our old self was crucified with him (Christ) so that the sinful
Although the Franciscans in Alta California spoke Spanish as their native language, the universal language of the Catholic Church and the language of
body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin." This understanding of the human situation and the consequent call for a transformation of the self provided the
the Mass was Latin. The Franciscans taught the Chumash to sing some portions of the Mass in Latin, but like most Catholics around the world, they probably did not understand it. Those
SACRED ART
Church interior, Mission Santa lues, ca. 1890. The Chumash neophytes were expected to attend Mass daily. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
133
134 who were not in the choir were likely encouraged to recite the Rosary. The Rosary, by far the most common Cath olic devotional practice worldwide, was comprised of prayers the neo phytes memorized (i.e., the Ave Maria and the Lord's Prayer) prior to bap tism. Like many others in the Catholic world, is it probable that neophytes at the missions were encouraged to pray the Rosary in their native language, while the Mass was conducted in Latin.
NOTICIAS nion of saints, which bound "together the faithful on earth, the souls in pur gatory, and the saints in heaven in the organic unity ... under Christ its head, and in a constant interchange of super natural offices."^ This constant inter change typically took place through intercessory prayer to Jesus as the Blessed Sacrament, the Virgin Mary, and other saints in heaven. In theory the saints were mediators between hu
mans and God, who aided people in During this era, lay Catholics were their journey to eternal life in heaven. not expected (nor in most cases al In practice. Catholics often approached lowed) to take communion at the daily them with concerns related to this Mass. Instead they were expected to world rather than the next. In the Americas, the Franciscans attend confession annually, usually during Lent, and to take communion at brought this devotional world to life Easter, if the priest judged them ready, not only with images of Jesus, Mary, which generally they did not.^ Infre and the saints, but also through dra quent communion did not preclude matic theater.^ In Alta California, they devotions directed toward the Blessed enacted the story of the shepherds' Sacrament—the consecrated wafer— journey to visit to the Holy Family displayed on the altar. The Franciscans {Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus) on taught Chumash children to sing pray the night of Jesus's birth. The drama ers before the Blessed Sacrament, centered on the devil's efforts to pre where they claimed Jesus was really vent their arrival, his defeat by St. Mi present, and before an image of the Vir chael, their meeting with a Francis gin Mary on a side altar.^ Prayers were can, and their triumphant arrival in thus linked to material manifestations Bethlehem (the stage), at which point (in the case of Jesus) or representations the curtains opened to reveal the Holy (in the case of Mary). The center of Family.^ The play graphically depic daily religious practice for Chumash at ted the cosmic struggle between the the missions was not the sacraments, devil and the saints for the salvation which were practiced infrequently, but the dynamic, multi-level devotional cosmos opened up through prayer in the context of the Mass and other devo tional activities. devotional cosmos was The
of human souls, the saints as spiritual guides and protectors of those seeking Jesus, and the Franciscans as human mediators of the entire process. In the eyes of the Franciscans, Catholics were embedded in a collective
premised on the concept of the commu- struggle against the devil that would
SACRED ART
135
reach its ultimate resolution with the interconnected. Spiritual beings and 10 their powers were manifest in and anticipated second coming of Christ. This conception of life as a cosmic through celestial bodies (sun, moon, struggle likely resonated with core as and stars), animals, plants, and physic al objects, much as Catholics believed pects of the Chumash worldview. Christ was present in and through the consecrated wafer.’** There is also con The Chumash Worldview The sources for reconstructing the Chumash worldview prior to contact are limited. The most detailed records
siderable evidence to suggest that the Chumash, too, inhabited a dynamic, multi-level devotional cosmos that they conceptualized not as a "communion of saints," but as a cosmic game of chance called peon. According to a Ineseno wo man, Maria Solares, and recounted by Harrington, "there is a place in the world above where Sun and Slo?w,
are preserved in the field notes that the ethnographer John Peabody Harring ton collected in the early twentieth cen tury from Chumash from the Ventureno, Barbareno, and Ineseno com munities, most of whom at that time Morning Star and Snilemun (the Coyote 11 considered themselves Catholics. of the Sky—not the Coyote of this Since these accounts were recorded world) play peon. There are two sides more than a century after the arrival of and two players on each side, and the Franciscans, they are products of Moon is the referee. They play every the interaction we are attempting to night for a year, staying up till 15 describe.’^ While some scholars minim dawn, When Snilemun won, it rained
ize this difficulty on the grounds that and the harvest was good. When the people made a clear distinction Sun won Snilemun paid his debt with between the two worldviews and did human lives, usually those of old not blend them,’^ the material evidence people, but sometimes a young person. in this exhibition suggests that the dis The Chumash could affect the outcome tinction was not so clear cut. Although of the game through collective rituals. some Chumash in later eras clearly Ritual specialists {'antap), often referred viewed the two worldviews as separate to in English as "shamans," led rituals and switched between them, we cannot invoking the female deity Momoy to assume that all Chumash made this aid in the struggle against the Sun or 16 distinction during the Mission era and, sky Gods. even if they did, that this precluded Although many spiritual beings had subtle forms of blending that can occur an animal form, Momoy was the only 17 when concepts are linked through visu one who took the form of a plant. al or verbal translation. Thus, Momoy is the Chumash (VenThese cautions noted, it is clear that tureho and Ineseno) word for a female in the Chumash worldview the natural deity and a hallucinogenic plant. When and spiritual worlds were intimately the name of the plant was translated
136
NOTICIAS
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into Spanish as toloachc, into Latin as gave the initiate new powers. Tradi Datura meteloides, or English as jimson tional Chumash narratives were partic weed, the double meaning of Momoy
ularly concerned with contests between
would have been apparent only to supernatural beings (deities or mon those familiar with the Chumash sters) with innate powers and protag worldview. Although some might have onists with powers they acquired as viewed the flowers carved on the con adolescents and in many cases also fessional at Mission Santa Ines as a through the specialized initiations re 20
simple decoration, those familiar with the Chumash worldview would have
quired of the 'antap.
viewed the flower as Momoy, the wise
Unlike many other native Califor nians, the Chumash did not limit their
woman, who was centrally involved in
use of Momoy to communal rituals
maintaining the welfare of the Chu
and puberty rites, but continued to
mash in the cosmic game of chance.
take the hallucinogen as adults to maintain a connection with their 'at-
18
Momoy was not only invoked col lectively to ensure the well being of the iswin, connect with another 'astiswin, people, but also individually. Like oth
or
acquire
additional
supernatural
er indigenous peoples in Alta Califor
power. Momoy also allowed people to
nia, the Chumash took Momoy after communicate with spirits of the dead, puberty as a means of learning the to reveal aspects of their future life, identity of their 'atisivin, whom they cure illness, or counter the effects of 21 could call upon to guide them over the omens or breaches of taboos. course of their Wyes.'Atiswin is another Chumash word that links spirit and
Chumash and Catholic Connections
matter, in this case the spiritual entity (translated as dream helper, tutelary
In carving the Momoy flowers on animal, or spirit guide) and the object the confessional, the Chumash artisan connected to it (translated as sacred clearly forged a link between the Cath talisman). Adolescents were given Mo olic and Chumash worldviews. The moy by an 'alchuklash, a member of the link was most likely based on the per
'antap society who could both gauge ception that both offered means of en the correct dosage and aid in interpret
tering more deeply into the spiritual
ing the visions and identifying the world. The priests used the sacrament individual's 'atisivin?'^ The 'atiswin of penance, enacted in the confessional, to identify those they judged worthy to partake of the Eucharist, that is, to par ticipate fully in the sacrament of com
LEFT: The confessional at Mission Santa Ines decorated with Momoyflowers. The inclusion of thisflozuer on the confessional suggests a connection between Catholic and Chumash
that sought to affect the outcome of the
spirituality. Courtesy Mission Santa Ines.
cosmic game of chance.
munion. The female deity Momoy was invoked in collective Chumash rituals
138 As we have seen, engagement with this larger spiritual world was not lim ited to these ritual occasions in either worldview. In both Chumash and Catholic ways of life, a ritual (such as puberty or baptism) gave ordinary people access to a dynamic, multi-level devotional cosmos in which they could call upon supernatural entities {'atisioin or saints) to aid them in their life jour neys. In both cases, their relationship with these supernatural entities was connected to objects (the 'atisioin and the rosary). Historian James Sandos reports: "In mission times Chumash routinely wore their talismans ['atisioin] under their shirts with the Christian rosary clearly visible on top of the 22 shirt, Rosaries that Chumash carved from the sacred material of abalone have been preserved from this era. Since Chumash typically took momoy as a means of contacting their 'atisioin, this suggests a connection between the in dividual practice of calling upon an 'atisioin and prayer to the saints, but again the existence of a connection does not tell us how it was understood.
NOTICIAS mash spirits and deities continued to advise at least some baptized Chumash. In the wake of epidemics that caused many deaths among the neo phytes at Mission Santa Barbara in 1801, a neophyte precipitated a move ment to reject baptism based on a vis ion. According to Sandos, A neophyte zuoman,followmg a trance, told the other neophytes that Chupu, the Chwnash earth goddess, had appeared to her and demanded that gentiles no longer accept Baptism lest they die and that neo phytes must cancel their ozun Baptism by bathing their heads in a special zuater.... The zvord of the vision spread rapidly through Chumash connections and the priests only heard of it five days later from 23 a neophyte zvho defied Chupu's demand. Sandos adds, "the padres some how managed to squelch this blood less revolt, probably by compelling the woman to renounce her vision."
The neophyte may have viewed the padres as rival ‘alchuklash, who offered a competing interpretation of her vision. They likely viewed it as demonic and claimed that their "spe Finally, because Chumash tradi cial [baptismal] water" offered (etern tionally turned to their 'atisioin to deal al) life-giving power of in the face of with specific life situations, we can in disease and destruction. What then can we say about the fer that many turned to them for guid ance when the Chumash way of life meanings of the material connections was threatened by the three-fold ef between confessional and Momoy, on fects of colonization, conquest and the one hand, and 'atiszvin and rosary. missionization. If so, this would sug gest that if/when people agreed to baptism and moved to the mission RIGHT: The Momoyflower zoas central to that they may have done so based on Chumash spirituality. Courtesy Mission guidance from their 'atisioin. There is Santa Ines. definite evidence to suggest that Chu-
SACRED ART
140
NOTICIAS
on the other? Taking the latter first,
9
it is possible that the Chumash practice of wearing a 'atiszvin hid
A
den inside their shirt and a rosary visible on the outside signaled the
f I
subordination of 'atiswin to rosary (supersession), but it could also have signaled a belief in the value of both 'atiszvin and rosary (like ness), or the wearer's secret rejec tion of an imposed worldview (res istance). Sandos recounts an incid ent in which a dying man's wife "inverted [their] order by placing his talisman ['atiszvin] around his neck outside his shirt and placing the rosary so that it hung down his 24 back. Regardless of how her husband felt about the 'atiszvin, his wife clearly felt it should be visible at the time of his death. Whether she viewed 'atiszvin and rosary as
Neophytes often wore their iiative talismans while at the same time zuearing the Catholic them when she deemed it appropriate rosary. Abalone rosary. Courtesy Califor¬ or whether she viewed the 'atiszvin as nia State Parks, La Purisima Mission State inherently superior to the rosary is not Historic Park, clear. Moreover, without further evid¬ separate types of power and switched
ence, we cannot tell if those who con- derstood the significance of the Momoy sidered them both sources of power carvings. generally
maintained
a
distinction
Perhaps they did not. The
confesionario created by Father Juan
between them, as many have claimed, Cortes for the Santa Barbara Mission or if some Chumash blended the demonstrates little specific knowledge powers of their 'atiszvin with the inter- of the Chumash worldview and makes 25 no mention of Momoy. The confesion-
cessory powers of the saints. With the confessional at Mission
ario, however, was composed in 1798, Santa In^s, the situation is somewhat so tells us little about what the priests different. In this case, the two worlds
were thinking at Santa Ines twenty-six
are clearly linked rather than merely
years later.^^ If the priests at Santa Ines
adjacent. Since the Franciscans accep- did understand the significance of the ted the confessional at Mission Santa Momoy, it might have signaled a recogInes, we are left to wonder if they un- nition that aspects of the Chumash
141
SACRED ART worldview prefigured or prepared the way for conversion to Christianity, thus, that a Catholic worldview could
thus most likely in the wake of the Chumash revolt that began at Mission
supersede another without totally elim
Santa Ines and spread to the missions at La Purisima and Santa Barbara
inating it. In the early modern era
early that year. Whether those who
(roughly 1300-1700 CE) the Francis cans, unlike the Jesuits, were not
ity and "relegat[ed] Chumash tradi
returned, gave primacy to Christian
known for embracing this idea. If the
tions to second place," thus, adopting
priests at Santa Ines were open to it, it
a supersessionist view, as Sandos sug
would suggest that they were some
gests, is hard to determine, Evidence that the Franciscans considered
what more accommodating than most have recognized. We do know that in other contexts native peoples have sought to connect their ancestors and their traditional 27
28
few of the neophytes ready for com munion suggests that many Chumash did not relegate Chumash traditions to second
place. Some
may have
way of life with the Christian story.
viewed them as alternative ways of
The
entering into the spiritual world. Still
Chumash
artisan
may
have
sought to do something similar, but how the artist meant to relate them is
others may have viewed their tradi tional ways as primary and embraced
still not clear. We know that the artisan
a veneer of Catholicism as a way to
completed the confessional in 1824,
survive in an oppressive situation.
Qoces 1. Thus,for example, Sandos writes: "Christian conversion required the native to accept both intellectual abstractions and psychological distancing alien to the Indian's sense of himself in relation to others. For many spirits-friends, enemies, grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers - substitute a single, exclusive, distant, perpetually invisible, patriarchal God;for animal friends, enemies, and relatives, substitute animals as distinct and subordinate spe cies; for a common afterlife to which most relatives’ spirits might make the final journey, substitute a final segrega tion between converted kin who go to
heaven, and the unconverted who go to hell"(James A. Sandos, Converting Califor nia: Indians and Franciscans in the Missions [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004], p. 20). Steven W. Hackel is much more attentive to interactions at the devotional level, but does not focus as closely on the Chumash {Children of Coyote, Missionaries ofSaint Francis: Indian-Spanish Religion in Colonial California, 1769-1850[Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005], 157-181). 2. Sandos, Converting California, xiv-xv. 3. Fr. Juan Cortes, who served at the Santa
142 Barbara mission, compiled the oldest known text in a native language of Alta California (Barbareno) in 1798 {The Doctrina and Confesionario ofJuan Cortes. Com piled and edited by Harry Kelsey [Altadena: Howling Coyote Press, 1979]). The 124-page manual includes "the Act of Contrition, Lord's Prayer, Ave Maria, the Creed, a version of the Salve Regina, Ten Commandments, Precepts of the Church, Seven Sacraments, a catechism, guide for confession and a brief exhortation to be read to those about to receive Baptism, Penance, Matrimony and Extreme Unc tion." 4. On singing and choirs, see Sandos, Con verting California, pp. 128-154. 5. Hackel, pp. 170-181. Based on mission records and Franciscan mandates, Jonath an Cordero indicates that less than 12% of baptized adults received annual commu nion because the priests did not consider them worthy. 6. Sandos, Converting Califoniia, p. 135.
NOTICIAS A Book of Onimash Ora! Narratives collec ted by J. P. Harrington (Berkeley: Uni versity of California Press, 1975). 12. As Haley and Wilcoxen point out, "the Catholicism of Harrington's Chumash consultants has often been shortchanged, and its influence on their interpretations of the past underappreciated"(Brian D. Haley and Larry R. Wilcoxen,"Point Conception and the Chumash Land of the Dead: Revisions from Harrington's Notes," Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 21/2[1999], 213-235). On the people Harrington interviewed, see Blackburn, 17-20. 13. Based on testimony of a Luiseno man to this effect, Sandos indicates,"The an thropologist[Raymond White] con cluded that religious syncretism—the worship of one religion behind the facade of practicing another—had not taken place, that the Luiseno had added Christianity to their store of knowledgepower. The same can be said about the Chumash as well"(Sandos, Coiwerting California, 182).
7. Charles Herbermann, ed.,"Communion of Saints," Catholic Encyclopedia(New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913), available on-line at: http:/ / www.newadvent.org/cathen/04171a.htm 8. Jaime Lara, City, Temple, Stage: Eschatolo gical Architecture and Liturgical Theatrics in New Spain (Notre Dame,IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004).
14. Lowell John Bean,"Power and its Ap plications in Native California," Journal of California Anthropology 2/1 (1975), 25-33. 15. Blackburn, 91; Sandos describes the game as a contest between sky and earth gods {Converting California, 31). 16. Sandos, Converting California, 31.
9. Sandos, Converting California, 46-47. 10. Ibid., 79. 11. Thomas C. Blackburn, December's Child:
17. Richard B. Applegate,"The Datura Cult among the Chumash,” Journal of California Anthropology 2(1975): 7-17; Jan Timbrook, Chinnash Ethnobotany (Santa
143
SACRED ART Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of
tianizing Cnlifornin, 28.
Natural History, 2007), 65-73. 22. Sandos, Christianizing California, 28. 18. According to Sandos,“So powerful was this religion that a non-Datura Cult member could still describe its form and the part of its function known to com moners to an anthropologist early in the twentieth century. Thus the Toloache Cults with their hallucinogenic access to another world of power, their secret soci eties, and even secret language provided a strong, flexible, integrating force in the Indian societies of southern California that were not found elsewhere"(Sandos, Converting California, 31-32). 19. Applegate,"Datura";James A.Sandos, "Christianization among the Chumash: An Ethnohistoric Perspective," American Indian Quarterly 15/1 (1991), 71. On the double meaning of the term, see Richard B. Applegate,'Atishwin: The Dream Helper in South-Central California (Socorro, NM: Ballena Press, 1978), pp. 25-26, 91.
23. Sandos "Christianization," 73-74. 24. Sandos, Christianizing, 28. 25. Hackel, pp. 164-165, suggests other links as well. 26. Among the priest's questions for penit ents we find: "Eres curandero? Palanto coluchun?"(Kelsey 1979, 85; English translation: "Are you a shaman?" [p. 121]). "Curandero" is the Spanish term for a traditional healer and "coluchun" is not the common Chumash term, which would have been member of the 'antap. 27. Louise M. Burkhart, Holy Wednesday: A Nahua Drama from Early Colonial Mexico (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 91-97. 28. Sandos,"Christianization," 85.
20. Blackburn, 23, 39. 21. Applegate,"Datura," 8-9; Sandos, Chris-
144
NOTICIAS
UbunoAsb mb dlmhohc SAo^eb SpAce AC cbe Ihcepscices op cbe CDissions Suzanne van de Meerendonk
Suzanne van de Meerendonk is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art and Architecture at L/C, Santa Barbara. She specializes in seventeenth-century Dutch art zvith a minor in Spanish colonial visual culture. Her research interests include ritual, ceremony and print culture of the pre-modern period. As in other parts of the Americas, the organization of space in the California Missions was informed by a desire for order, which applied as much to the regular forms and layouts of colonial settlements as the preferred "orderly" social and civic behavior of the people that were to inhabit them.^ While a
relatively strict separation of sacred and profane spaces in mission churches would likely have been ex perienced as confusing by the Chumash who built them. Moreover, the social control that this variety of spatial organization sought to achieve would, as this essay will seek to exEuropean-Christian religion and ideo- plore, have been rendered partially inlogy as such underpinned much of the effective by the Chumash understandspatial organization of the missions, the ing of the supernatural as both fluid and personally accessible. A rock adorned by a singular pictograph of a four-legged creature which was found embed ded in the dark-colored sediments of a hot spring located in Matilija Canyon in 1997, may serve as an introduction.^ The creature in the pictograph has well defined legs and feet, resembling those of a lizThis pictograph ofafour-legged creature hints at the rich tradition of Chumash rock art luhich was closely interfzoined with native spirituality aiid cosmology. Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
SACRED ART
145
ard, and contains traces of a head with natural environment, and while omni two antennae. As it was found near the present, manifested more clearly in site of the former Chumash village places such as mountain tops and Mat'ilha, one wonders what signific springs. A prominent sacred location is ance this sulfur spring would have had the sacred peak of Mount Pinos to the Chumash people who inhabited (It^hinmu), considered as the center of this area until the early 1800s. Much the Chumash universe, which still has about the intriguing rock, which meas ures a little over twenty-two inches in diameter, remains unknown today. While it may no longer be possible to formulate precise answers to ques tions regarding the creation, use and function of the pictograph rock, it can however be placed in a rich tradition of Chumash rock art that was intimately connected to Chumash religion and cosmology.^ In the pre-contact era, Chumash people conceived of their universe as three flat and circular su perimposed worlds. The middle one, inhabited by humankind, was thought to consist of several islands surroun ded by ocean, of which the most im portant one, inhabited by the Chu mash, was centrally located.^ It was supported by two giant snakes below, whose presence was announced by movements that created earthquakes, while the skyworld above them, in turn, was supported by a great eagle.^ As such, the supernatural world was not experienced as strictly separate from the natural, but rather functioned as an alternate universe to it.^ Rock art,
great significance to Chumash people today.^ It is adjacent to the valley called 'Antap—an area located on the San An dreas fault line, which causes a high degree of seismic activity.^ As liminal areas, these places would have ap peared to form connections to the worlds above and below that of man kind—and it is not unlikely that the hot water spring in Matilija Canyon was once regarded in a similar way. Chumash religious life had tradi tionally been organized around a reli gious cult, also called 'antap, whose knowledge and powers were highly regarded, and demonstrated in collect ive rituals and dances that took place in the villages at sacred enclosures, called siliyik}^ The siliyik was made from poles and woven tule mats that had a semicircular form with an entrance fa
cing east. Unlike Christian churches, it was temporarily erected. On the west of the siliy^k, also in a semicircle, were various fireplaces around which famil ies would gather to observe the rituals and dances taking place in the enclos ure, with a windbreak behind them 11 also constructed from tule mats. not unlike the "lizard" rock, likely A cache of eight decorated deer formed powerful intercessors to this realm and the powerful beings that tibia whistles and three bull roarers resided there, and could also mark loci were excavated together in 1933, fol lowing the construction of the of particular importance.^ 12 Sacred power was infused in the Roosevelt Highway in the late 1920s.
146
NOTICIAS
Music p!ai/cd an important role in Chiimash spiritual and ceremonial practices. This zuhistle madefrom a deer tibia zvasfound at a Chumash village site near Point Mugu, Ventura County. Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
This project had cut through the site of ents a star
constellation. The only the former Chumash village Muzuu, whistle made from a left tibia was left which was an important capital and
ceremonial center located roughly one and a quarter mile from present day Point Mugu.^^ The deer tibia flutes were found stacked in pairs and oriented
unfinished. The
bull roarers, likely made of redwood, contain traces of pigment and would originally have been
painted, Like many Chumash art objects.
towards the cardinal directions, with they had both a sacred and utilitarian the bull roarers placed on top.^'^ Musical function, as they were used to call villainstruments such as these were used in gers to the location where the ritual collective ceremomes taking place was to take place and summon the sacaround the siliyik. red powers around which the cere Seven of the whistles were made mony evolved, which thus activated from the right tibia of deer, which have the sacred space of the siliyik. Fernando been hollowed out through a hole near Librado (1839-1914) describes
these
the epiphysis, which was subsequently whistles and their ceremonial use, as he closed with tar and decorated with aba- recalled it in the early twentieth cenlone shell inlay and shell beads. Several tury, as follows: of the tar-coated whistles' barrels show impressions of what would have been
The zvhistlers zoere stationed at the
juncus wrappings that served as further siliy+k enclosure and always took part in decoration. One whistle dons a shell every dance that was to be performed at the bead decoration that possibly repres- fiesta. There were two old men who per-
147
SACRED ART formed this job and were called lo'kakinene, meaning 'our grandmother', This is also what the siliy+k whistlers called the ceremony they carried out in the enclosure. They had various songs which were played according to the wish of the paha [ceremonial leader]. The zohistlers and their whistles were both called by the same name, 'ichunash. It is said that at the beginning of their whistling, the first man zoould give a short whistle,follozoed by the second man doing the same. Then it zoent back to the first man and then back to the second, and so on. They zvould both keep this up untilfinally the sounds became subdued. Then both men zvould put their zohistles azvay in a container filled zvith ivater. This container ivas a large basket. It zvas coated zvith tar and sat in the middle of the siliy+k. They called this basket tso 'i'ichunash, for zvhen the zvhistlers zvere not playing they zvould keep their instru-
meats in this basket of water. There was no other feature inside the siliy+k except this basket. There was no fireplace or stone olla. The whistles themselves did not have holes in them like a flute. Instead these lohistles had only two holes, one at one end and the other at the side. They were made from tibia of a deer, plugged zvith tar and 15 covered zoith inlay ofshell, The whistles found at Muzvu will very likely have been used in this way. Bull roarers were swung overhead in a circular motion to produce a deep roaring sound that could reach great distances. Deer tibia whistles evolved over time to produce higher volumes that carried further, indicating an increasing ceremonial integration of Chumash society. The ones discussed here represent the latest stage in this development, and date to circa 1800. The spe-
The nbalone and shell decoration on the ivhistle reflects the careful craftsmanship that often zvent into the musical instruments of the Chumash. Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
148
NOTICIAS
cificity of their interment may indicate a ceremonial burial of the objects during a time when most Mmou villagers had relocated to the missions, or perhaps the cache had been stored under17 ground for safekeeping. Both the three-tiered universe and world concept, stressing a vertical orientation, and the significance of the cardinal directions, thus philosophically placed the Chumash at the center of their universe at the moment of contact.’^ The Spanish explorers and missionaries that they encountered after 1542, however, would have placed tlie lands and culture of the Chumash at the periphery of their own religious and cosmological worldview; theirs envisioned a universe with
religion, social life and the built environment came to the New World in the form of religious dogma, European customs, grid plans and maps that would ultimately profoundly change and disrupt the sacred geography and cosmological conceptions of the Chumash as they existed before contact, Through immersion in a new way of life that included sedentary farming and a European-Christian segmentation of time and space, as well as the organization of labor that produced all the Mission buildings and its supporting infrastructures, the Franciscan priests were hopeful that complete Christianization could be achieved over the course of a generation. Artifacts created in the mission period however illustrate that Chumash artists and artisans created their objects at the interstices of contradictory cosmologies, even if parallels between concepts within them could be identified. A wooden rattle, or matraca was craf-
centers that arguably could be located in Jerusalem as sacred navel of the world, while the Vatican represented the seat of religious-political power. Considering the imperial project which facilitated and propelled the missionizing efforts, an additional center of divinely ordained royal power could furthermore be loc ated in Madrid. From these concentrated ted by a Chumash artisan at the Santa sites of religious and worldly power, Barbara Mission around 1820— only models and hierarchies in regards to two decades after the deer tibia whistles and bull roarers discussed earlier had been interred at Muwu. It served to call members of the mission congregation in 20 lieu of church bells on Good Friday. While the mafraca's sound, as well as the mechanism that produced it, differed Bull roarers were swung in circles over the head to create a loud, deep roaring sound. They could be used to call people to gatherfrom great distances. Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
149
SACRED ART
This rnafmca loas crnftcd around 1820 at Mission Santa Barbara and zuas used to call thefaithful to services. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
from that of the bull roarers, it seems personal connection to sacred powers almost inevitable that the indigenous that in Chumash traditions would have people of the missions would have as- been established through the use of this signed significance to their similarities in powerful hallucinogenic? As demonboth ceremonial function as well as strated by James Sandos, confessions were instrumental to the priests' conappearance when handled. The Chumash-carved confessional version efforts, and a powerful tool of with Momoy designs created at Mission social Santa Ines in 1824, which is discussed at Santa
control.^^ Barbara
Confesionarios (1798) and
from San
more length in the essay by Ann Taves Buenaventura (c. 1815-1819) show that in this volume, may serve as a final ex- the sacrament was used to question ample. The village Paha (ceremonial Chumash people with great specificity leader) initiated Chumash adolescents about their persistent indigenous reliin the use of Momoy in order to connect gious and sexual practices.^"^ Sins conto one's personal spiritual aid, usually fessed in this regard were often folan animal spirit, which was revealed by lowed by public flogging or other corway of visions. Momoy was used by poreal punishments.^^ Significantly, the some Chumash throughout adulthood confessional is created in the same year in order to reinforce the bond with this (1824) that the Chumash uprising stardream helper.^^ This practice was not ted at Santa Ines; an event that coinrestricted to specific ceremonial sites; cided with the annual cycle of confesand as such the sacred alternate uni- sions. The confessional thus may very verse could be accessed, or activated, in
well represent the possibility of Cathol-
everyday locations.
ic sacred spaces in the missions to
22
Could the Mo?noy design be inter- transform into sites of contestation, as preted as an indigenous expression of the persistence of Chumash symbolism the sacred
nature
of this enclosed
within those spaces could have opened
space? Or would it rather have func- up channels to an alternate world not tioned as an encoded reminder of the visible to Franciscan eyes.
150
NOTICIAS
Qoces 1. On the ordering of space in relation to social control, see: Valerie Fraser, The Ar chitecture of Conquest: Building in the Vice-
6. Sandos, Converting California, 21. 7. Lee, The Chumash Cosmos, 17.
Royalty ofPeru, 1535-1635(Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge Uni
8. Jennifer E. Perry,"Chumash ritual and
versity Press, 1990), 35-56. See also:
sacred geography on Santa Cruz Island,
Joanne Rappaport and Tom Cummins,
California," Journal of California and Great
"Reorienting the Colonial Body: Space
Basin Anthropology 27, no. 2(2007): 106.
and the Imposition of Literacy" in Beyond the Lettered City: Indigenous Literacies in the
9. Georgia Lee,"The San Emigdio Rock Art
Andes(Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 219-250. In tlie California Missions,
Site," Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 1, no. 2(1979): 297.
a clear example of this approach would be the separation of unmarried girls and
10. Librado, Eye of the Flute, 5.
woman in a designate building called the Monjerio. For this, see Sandos, Converting California, 8.
11. Librado, Eye of the Flute, 39-42; Lynn H. Gamble, The Chumash World at European Contact: Power, Trade, and Feasting Among
2. Information kindly provided by Dr. John Johnson, Natural History Museum Santa Barbara.
Complex Hunter-Gatherers (Berkeley: Uni versity of California Press, 2008), 116. 12. Robbcrt Wubben found the cache of
3. Georgia Lee, The Chumash Cosmos: Effi
objects protruding from the wall of an
gies, Ornaments, Incised Stones and Rock
open trench that had been abandoned
Paintmgs of the Chumash Indians (Arroyo
earlier that year by a Los Angeles County
Grande: Bear Flag Books, 1997), 17.
Museum excavation team. They were gifted to the Santa Barbara Museum of
4. Fernando Librado, The Eye of the Flute: Chumash Traditional History and Ritual as
Natural History, along with other objects found in this location, in 1992. John John
Told by Fernando Librado Kitsepawit to John
son, personal communication.
P. Harrington, ed. Travis Hudson et al., Santa Barbara bicentennial historical
13. Gamble, The Chumash World, 105.
series, no. 4(Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, 1977), 5.
14. In the recollection of Robbert Wubben. John Johnson, personal communication.
5. James Sandos, Converting California: Indi ans and Franciscans in the Missions(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 31.
15. Librado, Eye of the Flute, 42.
151
SACRED ART 16. Ray Corbett,“Chumash Bone Whistles.
21. Sandos, Convertmg California, 26-29.
The Development of Ceremonial Intergration in Chumash Society," in Foundations
22. James Sandos,"LEVANTAMIENTO!:
of Chumash Complexity, Perspectives in Cali
The 1824 Chumash Uprising Recon
fornia Archaeology 7, ed. Jeanne E. Arnold
sidered," Southern California Quarterly 67,
(Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archae
no. 2(1985): 110; Sandos, Converting California, 28.
ology, University of California, 2004), 65-72.
23. Sandos,"LEVANTAMIENTO!";James 17. John Johnson, personal communication.
Sandos,"Christianization Among the Chumash: An Ethnohistoric Perspective,"
18. Lee, The Chumash Cosmos, 24.
American Indian Quarterly 15, no. 1 (1991): 65-89.
19. Sandos, Converting California. 24. Sandos,"LEVANTAMIENTO!". 20. Its use in the Santa Barbara Mission on Good Friday, 1851, was recorded by Pablo de La Guerra (1819-1874). Pablo De
25. Sandos, Converting California, 50.
La Guerra "Holy Week at Santa Barbara, California, 1851" in Presente!: U.S. Latino
26. Sandos,"Christianization among the Chumash", 82.
Catholicsfrom Colonial Origins to the Present, ed. Timothy Matovina and Ger ald E. Poyo(Eugene: Wipf & Stock Pub lishers, 2015 [2000]), 63.
152
NOTICIAS
Ibencic>> AC cbe iBopbepLAnbs: SpAHisb, InbiGenous Anb livlspib 2?opmACions AC cbe Hineceencb-C(encui2>) Sahca ISapBapa CDission Hannah Kagan-Moore
Hannah Kagan-Moore is currently completing her Ph.D. in the History of Art and Architecture at IIC Santa Barbara. She also holds a M.A.from IIC Davis. Her research largely focuses on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Northern European material culture with particular emphasis on medicine, monstrosity and Otherness.
The identities at work in nineteenth- nuanced, less monolithic cultural dy century Alta California following Span ish colonialism are often framed in
namics in the Mission period, we need
popular consciousness and narratives
to ask, what did this colonial project mean to the Franciscans, and how can
as Spanish colonizer versus Chumash
we characterize Franciscan identity
colonized, an approach that tends to
A small Miguel Cabrera painting homogenize each group. The historical from the collection of the Santa Barbara and material records, however, show a Historical Museum, The Virgin of the different set of circumstances—Spanish
Apocalypse can provide a way into the
priests born in
Mexico, indigenous first question; it provides a material Mexicans and mestizajes who converted example of the issues that were at stake
to (and spread) Catholicism, Mexican- for Franciscans in the process of coloni born Spanish criollos, and Chumash
al conversion. The Virgin of the Apoca
peoples had a range of relationships to lypse is here depicted crowned, with colonial and indigenous religion. To her hands piously folded in interces reduce these diverse and often frag mented identities to colonizer-colon
sion. She stands atop a floating crescent
ized or Spanish-Indian masks the com
ded by a ring of twelve small white
moon and a heavenly cherub, surroun
plexity of identity and the modes of assimilation, resistance and navigation that these relationships really gener ated.^ Understanding the ethnic back ground and identity constructions of the Franciscans who ran the missions will be vital to the deconstruction of these binaries. In order to access more
The Virgin of the Apocalypse, oil on canvas, by Miguel Cabrera, late 18th century. Paintings like this were utilized by the Franciscans in the co7iversion of natives to Roman Catholicism. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
SACRED ART
153
154 stars; iconography derived from the Book of Revelation ("And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and on her head was a crown of twelve stars" Revelation 12:1).^ The image of the crowned Virgin of the Apo calypse from Revelation, would have reminded conscientious Catholic view ers of what the devout supposedly should attain following the apocalypse —the Heavenly Jerusalem, a new paradisus (and the ultimate redemption for the Fall from the Garden of Eden).^
~
NOTICIAS
of the Apocalypse facilitate this educative process.^ This 'childlike' characterization of the Chumash by the Franciscans was vital to the justification for the mission project. But where did it come from? One explanation may lie with an im portant legal distinction that, prior to Mexican emancipation, shaped the so cial landscapes of Franciscans and laypeople alike—between genfe de razon and gente sin razon. This differentiation was not based on ethnic makeup, but rather professed group affiliation re-
Those viewers, ideally for the Francis gardless of actual heritage.^ The gente cans, would have included both the de razon, assimilated into Catholic and friars themselves and advanced Chu Europeanizing culture, were not neces mash converts. The frequent presence sarily of Spanish descent, and the un of this particular incarnation of the Vir converted gente sin razon, similarly, gin in Mission collections is telling, as it were not an ethnically pure group— likely connected to the Virgin of rather, these terms indicated the ways Guadalupe, also an Apocalyptic Wo in which these groups performed or man. The Guadalupe would have held resisted assimilation. Increasingly, fri particular significance for friars coming ars and settlers alike came from back from Mexico, as this manifestation of grounds of mixed ethnic heritage de the Virgin had already taken hold as a patron of the New World and indigen ous believers in particular.^ The Fran ciscan program of conversion hoped to turn an allegedly "naive" New World into a second Eden through Marian intercession and the hegemonic social project of coerced salvation.'’ The goal of the mission project—and implicitly, the goal of the friars who participated in it—was to establish a hegemonic relationship in which Chumash con verts would willingly participate in a total cultural assimilation, moving from "naive" to "educated," in all as
scribed as criollo (people born to Span ish parents on New World soil), mestizaje, or had their multiethnic and transnational heritage identified in oth er ways. These backgrounds were not always acknowledged, and often, col onizers found it more advantageous and more palatable to Spanish colonial values to term themselves gente de razon, obscuring the fact that many if not most members of this "Spanish" casta were themselves partly of indi genous Mexican backgrounds. This was, however, common knowledge: Father Ramon C)lbes wrote in 1813 of pects of life, and images like The Virgin the inhabitants of Santa Barbara that
155
SACRED ART "although it is well known that not all
makeup of Franciscans and other reli-
are genuine Spaniards, if they were gious orders shifted. Such identity ne gotiations frequently manifested them
told to the contrary they would con sider it an affront.”®
selves among friars in terms of dress.
In the early to middle parts of the According to David Rickman's paper, eighteenth century, most Franciscans "A Venerable Fiabit: Continuity in the wore, of course, missionaries coming Dress of Franciscan Priests in Alta from Spain, intent upon founding mis- California 1769-1897, friars at the sions (and rapidly discovering that California Missions even diverged what the Church had tasked them from the Franciscan dress that had with not only involved conversion, but been the norm since the thirteenth cenalso the more mundane aspects of tury. Sometimes, this was for practical daily life involved in building, run- reasons—the climate of Alta California ning and paying for the infrastructure
proved too cold in
winter for the
of their mission enterprise).^ Yet as the simple sandals typically worn by the mission project progressed, Spanish Franciscans. Given the variations in colonization took hold, and Alta Cali- California climate, some Franciscans fornia was eventually absorbed by the
petitioned their superiors for permis-
imperial westward expansion of the sion to wear shoes. The broadtJnited States, the ethnic and social brimmed hats of the order would have
Practicality often dictatedforms of dressfor the Franciscan padres. These shoes of wood and leather were crafted by Chuniash neophytes. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
NOTICIAS
156
Felt hat said to have belonged to Fray Jose Maria Gonzalez Rubio. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
been practical in California summer sun and winter chill alike. The material composition of the sandals themselves embodies this cultural contact, At the Missions, Chumash woodcarvers were responsible for the carved wooden soles of these sandals, finishing the sandals with imported leather. One letter, sent from Soledad to San Jose, even identifies a particular indigenous shoemaker by name—^Jose Chugualis, demonstrating a connection between the Missions and their 10 Sandalindigenous craftspeople.
making at the Missions—like identitymaking—was a process of cultural synthesis that integrated indigenous practices into a Catholic framework, in this case through dress. Rickman, however, also notes that in a more dramatic assertion of identity, some Alta California priests of Mexican heritage wore their chaps and spurs beneath the simply gray-brown robes of the order, asserting their pride in vaquero heritage beneath the habits of their order. Such a strong statement of identity through dress exemplifies the
SACRED ART
157
complex identities that the Franciscans To commemorate and thank him, embodied, like those of the settlers members of the Santa Barbara com and Chumash people themselves. Fray Jose Marfa Gonzalez Rubio was a friar, missionary, administrator and teacher at the Santa Barbara Mis
munity commissioned this portrait in 1850. The commission document is
Guadalajara, and thus fell under the category of criollo. Rubio lived through the changing national status of his own birthplace from Spanish colonial pos session to independent Mexican state, and in Santa Barbara, to the territory of the United States. A portrait of Rubio provides some illumination into his relations with people from a variety of different subject positions. Fray Jose Marfa Gonzalez Rubio, by nineteenthcentury Italian painter Leonardo Barbieri, dates to 1850 according to archiv al documentation in the Santa Barbara
mark—and which this portrait explicitly honors—was far less cruel than those of
written in delicate calligraphy in small bubbles, arranged like grapes on a sion from 1833 to 1875, whose own bio vine, listing the names of the donors, graphy and relationships with others including a number of prominent demonstrate the complexity of historic Spanish Santa Barbarans. Doubtless, the benevolent attitude al identity.^ ^ Born to Spanish parents, he was nonetheless a native of that has become Rubio's historical hall
many previous missionaries toward Chumash people who resided at the mission. Indeed, in an 1840 letter to the Reverend Commissary Prefect Raphael Soria San Jose on the current state of the California Missions, Rubio says that "the evil today is certainly irreparable: our predecessors so entwined the spir itual and temporal interests of these [Chumash] neophytes that the one sus tained the other." The "evil" to which
Rubio is undoubtedly referring is the level of violence involved in the forced Mission Archive-Library. The image depicts Rubio, set against a brown-grey conversion of the Chumash by earlier ground, turning from his work making missionaries like Junfpero Serra, who notes in a book to make eye contact was famously responsible for providing with the viewer. Dressed simply in the native peoples with the "options" of brown habit of the Franciscan order, survival, meager food and shelter if with tonsured hair, Rubio looks with a they converted. The spiritual interests in measured gaze over a long, curving doing so, of course, were the Francis nose and a mouth that hints thinly at a cans' concern for the eternal salvation of smile. Current scholarship on the the Chumash within Catholic ideology. painting is nearly nonexistent; the wall The reference to entwining this concern text that accompanies the painting in with the "temporal framework" is more the Historical Museum praises Rubio sinister—it points to the fact that many for his financial acumen in running the Franciscans made the basic aspects of Santa Barbara Mission and stresses human life like food, shelter, and cloth how highly regarded he was in the city. ing contingent upon native conversion.
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NOTICIAS
Rubio has thus been understood by history, and deservingly so, as having kinder attitudes and gentler strategies for the spread of Catholicism than earlier and more overtly violent colonial 13 approaches. It is still, however, vital to examine
friars with a benevolent approach). Let us return to what the painting tells us about Rubio and the way he was perceived. The inscription in the image, painted at the lower right, translates to read, "The... Father Jose Maria de Jesus Gonzalez Rubio, of the order of Saint
the language surrounding Rubio's government of the Missions, in order to understand the ways in which the Mission relationship with indigenous Chumash peoples was fundamentally a hegemonic one (even when imposed by
Francis, governor of... lower California, here painted for the town of Santa Barbara in testament of his renowned affective and public life, conserved like a precious memory of his eminent virtues and as a... record of his tireless
The commission documentfor the portrait of Fray Jose Maria Gonzalez Rubio. Among the subscribers zverefamiliarfamilies including de la Guerra, Carrillo and Cota. Courtesy Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library.
SACRED ART
The tenure of Fray Jose Maria Gonzalez Rubio at Mission Santa Barbara lastedfrom 1833 to 1875. This oil on canvas was executed by Leonardo Barbieri in about 1850. Courtesy Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library.
159
●
160
NOTICIAS
charity to the poor and his love for cult it was to check their barbarous cus everyone. This description certainly toms...to lessen their prejudices...," dovetails with Rubio's expressed pater
Rubio writes. Even while expressing
pity for the Chumash sympathy for the Chumash in light of peoples who were legally, according to "the destructive warfare that is carried the government, and from his point of out against them," Rubio was still a
nalism
and
missionary with particular aims of con version, order and obedience to Cathol 16 the Commissary Prefect his dismay ic religious authority. The material and historical records that many Chumash at the Missions died without being saved—"Our neo of the Missions thus respectively tell a view, spiritually, under his care.
Rubio expressed in his 1840 letter to
without story of hybrid sociality, ethnic and support, without having almost any racial diversity, and a complicated rela thing to cover themselves with or to tionship with Catholicism that at once eat, excite the saddest compassion... was at once highly individual and phytes
without
protection,
How many of these unhappy wretches broadly hegemonic. As David Weber have died without the Sacraments and notes in his discussion of colonial Alta the Father Ministro has received the California, "the same person might news only after they have been buried in the field!"^^ This is the tone of char
abandon one identity for another and cross seemingly unbridgeable chasms
ity and concern for the Chumash for of
culture."17
Those
unbridgeable
which Rubio has been so often praised. chasms are the backdrop against which Rubio may have provided a less cruel Santa Barbara's early history played environment than other padres for the out, in a complicated interaction Chumash, but the tone that pervades between Chumash, Spanish, mestizaje, the letters unsurprisingly still paints criollo and other indigenous Mexican and identities, woven the Chumash people as childlike, in ethnicities ferior, barbarous, and in need of spir around one another across a vast mat itual guidance: "God knows how diffi- rix of experience and social hierarchies.
Hoces 1. Barbara Voss,"From Casta to Californio:
3. Ibid.
Social Identity and the Archaeology of Cul ture Contact," in American Archaeologist, 107 no. 3(September 2005); 461-474. 2. Mardith K. Schuetz-Miller,"Survival of Early Christian Symbolism in Monastic Churches of New Spain and Visions of the Millenial Kingdom," in Journal of the South west, 42 no. 4(2000): 795.
4_ Peterson, Jeanette Favrot. 2014. Visualiz¬ ing Guadalupefrom Black Madonna to Queen of the Americas. Austin, Tex; University of Texas Press. 5. Schuetz-Mueller,"Survival of Early Christian Symbolism,” 769.
161
SACRED ART 6. On the use of images for purposes of conversion in New Spain see Lara, Jaime. 2008. Christian textsfor Aztecs: Art and Liturgy in Colonial Mexico. Notre Dame,Ind: University of Notre Dame Press; Bargellini, Clara, Jonathan Brown, Marlene Chambers,
Change and Conflict," in Alta California: Peoples in Motion, Identities in Formation, 1769-1850, ed. Steven W. Hackel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010: 47-78. 10. For the letter discussing the shoemaker, see CMD 2380, from Juan Cabot O.F.M. to
Donna Pierce, and Rogelio Ruiz Gomar. 2005. Painting a Neuy World: Mexican Art and Life; 1521-1821; a publication of the Freder ick and Jan Mayer Center for Pre-Columbi an and Spanish Colonial Art at the Denver Art Museum;[on the occasion of the Paint
L. Arguello, January 14th, 1823.
ing a New World Exhibition organized by the Denver Art Museum, April 3-July 25, 2004]. Denver, Colo: Denver Art Museum; Hall, Linda B. 2004. Mary, Mother and War rior: the Virgui in Spain and the Americas. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. 7. Brian D. Haley and Larry R. Wilcoxon, "How Spaniards Became Chumash and Other Tales of Ethnogenesis," in American Anthropologist, 107 no. 3(2005): 439. 8. Louise Pubols discusses the relationship between the self-titled gente de razon and gente sin razon in her chapter "Becoming Californio: Jokes, Broadsides, and a Slap in the Face," in Alta California: Peoples in Mo tion, Identities in Formation, 1769-1850, ed. Steven W. Hackel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010): 131-155. 6lbes,
11. Ibid. 12. Michael C. Neri,"Jose Gonzalez Rubio; A Biographical Sketch," in Southern Califor nia Quarterly, 73 no. 2(Summer 1991): 107-124. 13. Rubio’s own letters demonstrate that he clearly harbored a less condemnatory atti tude towards the Chumash peoples he at tempted to convert than figures like Serra. See: letter from Rubio to Commissary Pre fect San Jose, on November 3,1840, Califor nia Mission Document 3793, courtesy Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library. Transla tion poss. Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt. 14. Translation, mine. 15. Letter from Rubio to Commissary Pre fect San Jose, on November 3,1840, Califor nia Mission Document 3793, courtesy Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library. Transla tion poss. Fr. Zephyrin Engelhardt.
quoted in Pubols, p. 134. 16.Ibid. 9. Jose Refugio de la Torre Curiel discusses the internal controversies within the
17. David J. Weber,"A New Borderlands
Church that erupted when new Spanish friars arrived to discover their older coun
Historiography," in Alta California: Peoples in Motion, Identities in Formation, 1769-1850,
terparts engaging in the daily business of the mission. "Franciscan Missionaries in Late Colonia Sonora: Five Decades of
ed. Steven W. Hackel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010): 215-234.
162
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CDaccisiaLic^j Anb cbe SAcpeb Deborah Spivak
Deborah Spivak received her Ph.D. in Art History from IIC Santa Barbara in 2015, loriting her dissertation on the Loro ceramic style of ancient Peru, and maintaining a secondary field in the arts of colonial Latin America. She is currently the Melloji Postdoctoral Felloiu in Ancient American Art at the St. Louis Art Museum.
Prior to the establishment of the mis sion system in the Santa Barbara area, Chumash artisans produced a variety of objects that held and communicated sacredness. Employing skill in the ma nipulation of local stone, wood, shell, pigments, among other materials, artis ans transformed elements of the natur al world into embodiments of the su
value to the various art-making materi als they encountered (such as gold, cochineal, or rubber) based on their
scarcity or potential capital, numerous indigenous peoples of the Americas ascribed a range of supernatural, anim ate and/or relational properties to the natural media that they transformed into material culture. For indigenous pernatural world. Archaeological and American peoples, elements of the nat ethnohistoric evidence indicates that, ural world evoked references to narrat
although thousands of Chumash were baptized and incorporated into the mis sion system, they retained elements of their pre-existing beliefs and reverence for the natural world, evident in the choices of materials used in sacred ob
ives, special places, or sacred things while in their original state, and re tained these meanings when modified to create works of art. This essay ad dresses the sacredness of three types of material and their function in Christian
jects in the missions.^ When used in art for the missions: the production of mission art, the sensorial and visual steatite objects, the reception of abaproperties of natural materials served lone, and the absence of local mineral multiple and intersecting purposes such as evoking community and his tory, compounding the sacredness of holy objects by connecting the spiritual essences of natural material and Chris
pigments. Once incorporated into the mission system, only select neophytes pro duced sacred art objects. Murals that decorated the interior of mission
tian imagery and creating a physical spaces were generally devoid of reli reminder of the past. While the Spanish gious iconography, instead consisting settlers of the New World ascribed of faux — marble painting, botanic
163
SACRED ART designs, and Vitruvian architectural motifs.^ These references to Classical and early modern spaces evoked grandeur in the often modest chapel spaces, but their decorative nature was deemed a separate artistic endeavor from the production of religious objects. Whenever possible, California missionaries imported objects of Christian devotion, such as images of holy figures, from New Spain, where academy-trained European or mestizo artists produced works in the sanetioned styles of the time."^ Nevertheless, numerous Chumash-made religious objects remain in mission collections and display a range of exposure to and education in Christian belief
nection between pre-contact past and colonial present, Steatite, also known as soapstone. was carved by the Chumash both before and during the mission era. The Chumash obtained steatite through trade with the neighboring Gabrieleno peoples who mined the stone from plentiful quarries located on Santa Catalina Island, in the southern Channel Islands.^ A relatively soft medium for carving, steatite was formed into various ritual items. With low heat conduction, steatite is an ideal medium for pipes, and while the Chumash smoked tobacco out of both clay and steatite pipes, they reserved steatite pipes for ritual events.^ The Chumash also
systems. Neophyte artisans imbued carved steatite into effigies, hand-held the Christian objects they made with objects representing birds, whales, sacred meaning that established a con- boats, phalluses, and abstract shapes.
Steatite zuas afavored mediuinfor carving ai7wng the CInnnash and was used to create any number of effigies, many of which carried spiritual significance such as this whale ejfigy. Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History
NOTICIAS
164 These effigies likely functioned as tails- various specialized mans, manifestations of supernatural
7 structures,
The
majority of Chumash steatite effigies
forces that held protective properties, take the forms of water-affiliated animWhile the majority of pre-contact Chu- als
and
objects
(seabirds,
whales,
mash steatite effigies in museum repos- sharks, fish, boats, and turtles), which itories were looted from their archae- suggests that the green, mottled stone ological contexts, effigies excavated was ascribed an aqueous association.® from burials, caches and architecture Steatite whale effigies are associated indicate that they were deliberately laid
with religious specialists in particular,
to rest as offerings or enhancements to and
assist the 'alchuklash (religious
This boll/ waterfont zvas placed just outside the chapel door at Mis sion Santa Barbara and zvas carved bp Chwnash neopin/tes out ofsteatite formijig a link betzueen Chumash and Catholic ideas of the sacred. Courtesy Old Mission Santa Barbara.
SACRED ART leader) along his spiritual journey.^ Be cause steatite was mined and exported from Santa Catalina Island, its move ment across the ocean correlates with the common subject matter of water and travel. Furthermore, as steatite is soft or greasy to the touch, it may also have had a tactile association with water.
165 between the Chumash's familiar asso ciations with steatite and the newly imposed sacredness of holy water. The steatite medium evoked continuity and memory for the Chumash neophytes who likely would have frequently ob served friars partaking in religious rituals with the water held in the font.
That the font is made from a meaning ful stone confers sacredness on the wa Throughout New Spain, religious artwork made of materials such as ter it holds, thus making material the tropical bird feathers maintained their holiness of holy water. The Chumash sacred associations associations with pre-Conquest tradi of abalone shell also found resonance tions of the Mexica, Mixtec and Maya, superimposing indigenous sacredness in mission artwork. Abalone, a sea snail over Christian religious themes.^*^ Sim ilarly, the Chumash-carved holy water font maintains powerful indigenous religious associations through its ma terial. This steatite font, along with several others, was carved by a Chu mash artisan in the early life of the Santa Barbara Mission church around the same time as its extensive water
mollusk, was plentiful along the Cent ral California coast, long serving the Chumash as a food source and artistic medium. The Chumash employed vari ous naturally occurring colors of aba lone shells in ritual objects, infusing ornaments and talismans with sacred
power. Also, abalone was used in body adornments, such as earrings and neck system, including the lavadero and laces. Abalone talismans were often fountain. Of all of these Chumash- incised with linear and geometric made monuments used for holding designs, evoking sacred elements of and distributing water, only the holy cosmography.^^ In funerary ceremon water fonts were carved from steatite. ies, objects, and narratives, blue and The font illustrated here was originally white abalone acted as an animating placed on the porch outside the chapel intermediary between the body and the on either side of the entrance door, me afterlife. Shells laid on the eyes, ears, diating between the decorative and and mouth of the dead guided the workaday life of the water structures souls in the afterlife by empowering outside the Christian space, and the the senses. When inlaid in wooden ob steatite holy water fonts that punctuate jects used in funerary ceremonies, aba the chapel interior. As the Chumash lone shell represented the sacred ele entered the chapel, they engaged with ments of wind, fire, and water.^^ sacred water in a sacred vessel, signal Beyond serving as a medium for art ing the movement into Christian sac objects, abalone shells served special red space. The font also mediates ized functions as vessels. The smooth
166
NOTICIAS 17
convex shells acted as palettes for min eral pigments and possibly as crucibles to heat lumps of pitch, which was used as a pigment, pigment binder, and adSeveral excavated abalone hesive. shells currently housed in natural his tory museums have been x-rayed to show that these reconstituted shells housed ritual items such as beads, talis
culcated into new ritual behaviors.
Similarly, the Enconchado Virgin Mary melds familiar and foreign con cepts through its combination of oil painting and abalone shell. Likely brought to Mission La Purisima Con cepcion because the subject matter of the Immaculate Conception evokes the Mission's namesake, this painting served an additional religious function for the Chumash observers because of
mans, pendants, and knives, and were occasionally used as repositories for the bones of dead children and infants.^^The its material. The smooth, shimmery material of abalone shell was likely a quality of the interior of abalone shells deliberate choice for the resting places was valued by numerous coastal and of children, as their origin point per island cultures worldwide, including haps connected the young dead to the Japan, where artisans created furniture watery West towards which the Chu and other decorative arts featuring aba mash believed souls travel in death. lone shell inlay. Japanese-made houseThe above range of uses for abalone wares and furniture were highly val shell suggests that the Chumash associ ued in New Spain, and the demand for ated the material with interactions these luxury imports led to the devel between the realms of life and death, opment of shell inlay, or enconchado and the physical and ritual elements paintings. Enconchado paintings origin that guide those interactions. In the ated in late seventeenth-century New Mission period, objects made of aba Spain, blending the popular Japanese lone, such as a set of rosary beads, were lacquer technique with European oil likely understood as intermediaries paintings of holy scenes and figures. between the terrestrial and supernatur The elite of New Spain commissioned al worlds. Geometric designs incised in enconchado paintings to channel the the rosary beads are similar to those finery and decorative patterning of Asi carved into pre-contact abalone talis an imports through a Catholic lens.^^ mans, perhaps creating an iconographWhile the Enconchado Virgin would ic connection to the celestial worlds of have been proudly received among the the Chumash and Christian religions. missionaries at La Purisima as an eco The shell bead rosary connects the nomically valuable synthesis of transformative aspects of abalone to the European and Asian technique, its ma ritualized action of prayer. With rosary teriality would have resonated with the beads acting as physical tools of prayer, Chumash observers. Using both white their creation from abalone shell estab and blue abalone, the artist imbued lishes a connection and sense of famili select objects in the oil painting with arity for the Chumash individuals in¬ sacred substance. For the Chumash
SACRED ART
167
The mixed media of oil and abaloue in the Enconchado Virgin Mary zuould have resonated with both the colonists and the natives on the Mission-era South Coast. Courtesy California State Parks, La Purisima Mission State Historical Park.
viewers, the shimmering shell forming the spiritual and the realm of the the Virgin's dress, the mirror, the star, mundane. The Virgin, who suffers the and the Bible set these elements aside untimely death of her son, is cloaked in as intermediaries between the realm of a material that the Chumash had once
168
NOTICIAS 01
used to protect the bones of infants or were common trade goods/ These who had to travel to the realm of the minerals were ground and mixed to dead far too soon. The Virgin's body create a wide variety of colors, includ was thus transformed into a mournful ing red, yellow, green, white, pink, vessel that mediates between life and black, blue, and metallic silver-like 22
death, which underscores important Christian concepts about the Virgin Mary as intercessor. The mirror and star also took on syncretic meaning through their abalone medium. The purity and holiness symbolized by the mirror and the star combined with the Chumash understanding of the other worldly nature of light and celestial bodies, thus conferred a spiritual es sence onto these objects. The Bible hov ering above the Virgin's head is trans formed from a simple book to a sacred object through of its abalone inlay, en couraging Chumash viewers to under stand the Bible as a tool for spiritual metamorphosis. While the materiality of steatite and abalone tangibly connected Christian and pre-contact forms of holiness for Chumash neophytes, the decorative paintings on mission walls were notably produced without the use of local materials. Beyond the confines of the mission space, the Chumash used (and continue to use) local pigments to add color to reli gious objects, bodies engaged in ritu al, and sacred spaces. These pigments were primarily derived from mineral sources, including azurite, cinnabar, fuchsite, galena, hematite, kaolin, limonite, manganese dioxide, and ste atite. The Chumash carefully sought out natural sources of colorants,
grey.” In order to convert raw pig ments into paint, artisans combined mineral powders with urine, flesh of the prickly pear, or pitch. The Chumash did not view pig ments solely in their functional capa city as potential paints; rather mineral colorants themselves had a sacred es sence. In their raw form, mineral pig ments harnessed sacred power and were used to consecrate ritual spaces through scattering and painting. The act of extracting minerals from the landscape initiated a transformation of the physical sacred spaces of caves and earth. By extracting and grinding color ful minerals, the Chumash harnessed the spiritual power of environment. Scattering pigments to create ritual spaces allowed the tangible minerals to become ephemeral, binding the open dance space, for example, with the home of certain mineral pigments. During the Mission era, the most significant aspect of the materiality of local mineral pigments is their physical absence in Christian artwork. Numer ous letters and mission records docu
ment the mass importation of pigments from New Spain. Shipments of raw pigments from beyond Alta California measured in the tons, their transport requiring considerable labor and cost. These imported pigments were trans formed into paint by neophyte artis which were mined by the Chumash ans and primarily used to cover mis-
SACRED ART
.
169
sion interiors with murals and Clas contemporary Chumash, and raw min 26 If natur- eral pigments are respectfully absent sical-style ornamentation, al, locally-sourced pigments in a from display in this exhibition and pho range of colors were available in the tography for this essay. With limited records of Chumash mission environs, why did the mis sionaries seek and expend resources voices, it is difficult to know the exact of local materials on imports? It is possible that the mis interpretation formed into Christian art for the mis sionaries wanted to discourage or halt the trade networks that the Chumash sions. Were these materials used to had used to obtain pigments, or per haps the missionaries did not want the neophytes to leave the missions' proximity for the amount of time it would take to obtain pigments from their various sources. Another possib ility is that the missionaries were aware of the sacred power of these materials. While the missionaries
help substitute old religion with new in a faithful conversion effort, or were
aware of pigments' potency and capa city to conflict with Christian modes of spiritual reverence, missionaries in tercepted their use in the sanctified mission space, ensuring (what they saw as) the purely decorative intent of Chumash mural painting. Alternat ively, the lack of local pigments in mis sion murals may reflect Chumash agency. While some Chumash motifs made their way onto mission interiors and the practice of mural painting re tained continuity with Chumash tradi tions, these elements alone do not create
mash society functioned as practical substances for Chumash artisans who
they small acts of resistance, defiant ways to hold onto the past? The inten tion and intentionality of the incorpor ation of meaningful materials cannot be known with certainty. The objects, however, remain as tangible markers of indigenous appreciation for sacred could comprehend the economic materials and the transformation of value of steatite and abalone shell, worldly materials into otherworldly they may have seen the spiritual references. Imbued with indigenous sacrality, value that the Chumash placed on the material mediums found in Chu raw pigments as idolatrous. Possibly
constructed Catholic ritual objects. In using traditional sacred mediums, the artisans provided a symbolic point of access into the novel Catholic religious system. The association of ritual ob jects from the two divergent religious traditions created layers of meaning that no doubt resonated at times and
that produced the possibility for the formation of new religious and spir itual understandings. In the end, however, the use of sacred indigenous a sacred space. The Chumash painters materials more than likely served to denied the mission its sanctity by paint reinforce rather than undermine the ing with meaningless, imported paints. sacred among the Chumash parishion Pigments maintain sacred power for ers of Catholicism.
NOTICIAS
170
Qoces 1. Terisa Marion Green,"Archaeological Evidence for Post-Contact Native Reli
7. Constance Cameron,"Animal Effigies from Coastal Southern California," Pacific
Journal of California and Great Basin Anthro
Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 36, no. 2(2000): 30-52; Lee, The Portable Cos
pology 23, no. 2(2001): 319-28; Cook,
mos, 47.
gion: The Chuinash Land of the Dead,"
Sherburne F. 1976. The conflict between the California Indian and white civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 153.
2. See Marisa Lazzari,"Stones to Build a World: Circulation and Value of Materi als in Pre-Columbian Northwestern Ar gentina," Cambridge Archaeological Journal 26, no. 1 (2015): 1-22.
8. Hudson and Blackburn, Ceremonial Paraphernalia, Carnes, and Amusements, 171-219; Lee, The Portable Cosmos, 48-52. 9. Haas, Saints and Citizens, 87-88. 10. Alessandra Russo,"Plumes of Sacrifice: Transformations in Sixteenth-century Mexican Feather Art," RES 42(Autumn 2002): 227-250. See also Dean, Carolyn,
3. Mardith K. Schuetz-Miller, Building and Builders in Hispanic California 1769-1850 (Tucson: Southwestern Mission Research Center, 1994): 190.
4. Lisbeth Haas, Saints and Citizens: Indigen ous Histories of Colonial Missions and Mex ican California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014): 83-86.
and Dana Leibsohn. 2003.’’Hybridity and Its Discontents: Considering Visual Cul ture in Colonial Spanish America*". Colo nial Latin American Reviezo. 12(1): 5-35. 11. Lee, The Portable Cosnws, 32-33. 12. Ibid., 33
13. Travis Hudson and Ernest Underhay, 5. Georgia Lee, The Portable Cosmos: Effigies,
Crystals in the Sky: An Intellectual Odyssey
Ornaments, and Incised Stonefrom the Chu mash Area (Socorro, NM: Ballena Press, 1981): 25.
Involving Chumash Astronomy, Cosmology, and Rock Art(Socorro, N.M.: Ballena
6. Travis Hudson and Thomas C. Black
Press, 1978): 104. 14. Travis Hudson and Thomas C. Black
burn, Ceremonial Paraphernalia, Games and Amusements, volume 4 of The Material
burn, Manufacturing Processes, Metrology, and Trade, volume 5 of The Material Cul
Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere (Los Altos, CA: Ballena Press, 1986): 118-129.
ture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere (Los Altos, CA: Ballena Press, 1987): 171-172. 15. Henry C. Koerper, Armand J. Labbe,
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171
and A. J. T. Jull,"An Abalone ’Treasure-
lena Manuport from an Orange Country
Pot" From Coastal Southern California,"
Rock Art Site," Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 38, no. 4(2002): 1-20.
Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 38, no. 2 & 3(2002): 87-97.
21. Hudson and Blackburn, Manufacturing 16. Green,"Archaeological Evidence for
Processes, Metrology, and Trade, 179-186.
Post-Contact Native Religion." 22. Koerper and Strudwick,"Native Em 17. Personal communication with Mia Lopez, Chumash Cultural Educator, Santa Cruz Island Chumash
ployment of Mineral Pigments." 23. Ibid.; Schuetz-Miller, Building and Build
ers, 110. 18. Mitchell Codding,"Decorative arts in Latin America, 1492-1820," in The Arts in Latin America, 1492-1820 (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2006): 105.
24. Haas, Samts and Citizens, 100; Hudson and Blackburn, Ceremonial Paraphernalia, Games, and Amusements, 140; Alfred L. Kroeber, The Religion of the Indians of Cali
19. Donna Pierce,"By the Boatload: Receiv ing and Recreating the Arts of Asia," in Made in the Americas: The New World Dis covers Asia, edited by Dennis Carr(Bo ston: MFA Publications, 2015): 62-65.
fornia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1907): 240-242. 25. Haas, Saints and Citizens, 85.
26. Schuetz-Miller, Building and Builders, 28. 20. Koerper, Henry C., and Ivan H. Strud wick, "Native Employment of Mineral Pigments with Special Reference to a Ga-
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Gli^nescine be Soco An Interview with Diva Zumaya June 4, 2017
Ernestine de Soto is a Chumash Eider zoho can date her lineage in Santa Barbara back at least six generations, to the era offirst contact with the Spanish. Ernestine is a leadingfigure in the revival ofChumash culture, particularly in the preservation of the Chumashan Barbareno language recorded by her mother Mary Yee, its last native speaker, in her work with linguist John P. Harrington. Wlnle Ernestine embodies generations of Chumash peoples, she is also grounded in the circumstaiices thatface native people in the present day, in the political sphere and everyday life. In our casual conversation at her home, Ernestine discussed many different aspects of her experience as a Chumash person, and her experience with the sacred. As a devout Catholic and a Chumash Elder, Ernestine's worldview demonstrates the multi-layered nature of native identity, in zvhich different faiths, identities and positions often zvork together. Hers is only one perspective of many, hozoever, and different Chumash peoples have experienced the weight of Missionization's violent history in dramatically different ivays. It is our hope that the objects and voices brought together in Sacred Art in the Age of Contact zaill vibrantly demonstrate these multiple perspectives.
D: For you, what are some common
can do that, and it's insulting -1 should
assumptions that people have about
go over there and put evil spirits in
the Chumash, or about native people,
there but 1 don't do anything, I just tell
that you've encountered?
them go to a different movie or
something, 1 just tell them no. Now,if 1 E: That we're not Catholic, that some of was dishonest, I could very easily go in us do all of this four directions stuff... there and do some kind of a flim-flam I've had some weird phone calls—not thing and walk out with probably $500 lately, but a while back, probably two to $1,000 maybe, but 1 don't do those years ago, to come and get the evil spir things. I just tell them, I don't do them! its out of their house. They assume I
173
SACRED ART D: The assumption is that you have some special powers. E: Yeah, and I do not have any powers.
ugly little habits of a spoiled brat. But I think, 1 don't really honest-to-god know if she was preserving it hoping
If I did, I wouldn't be living here.
that we would, you know, carry it on, but 1 think maybe in the back of her
D: How do you dispel those kinds of
mind she was. And thank God for my
assumptions?
nephew, he could pick it up, and my granddaughter—it skipped a lot of generations—^but he's the one who could best answer that, as he's the one
E: I just tell them the truth—Tm Cath olic, 1 don't believe in evil spirits in your house—I believe they exist, of course, otherwise I wouldn't be a Cath
teaching us today. So, when you lose your language, you lose your culture.
olic, and I can't help you. I will, and 1 don't do this normally, when a mental
And so that's the significance of re trieving it.
health center was opened, only because it was for the mentally ill and I know
D: Are there other examples, in your
how schizophrenia is, there was a
experience, of how Chumash peoples
murder there. They asked us, or me, to
have tried to preserve cultural prac tices?
go out there and bless it and dispel any bad karma there, which 1 did—and I
E: That's a really hard one to answer, have no power whatsoever, but I got my cousin to go with me who is three quarters Chumash, and we both said prayers, we both left sage and I left salt, and that's it. If there was anything, Tm sure that it's not there now.
because my mother was not one of these people, she didn't burn sage, if she said anything in prayer in Chu mash, I didn't know it. So I would say that my mother was just herself, and 1 have to aspire to her only. But she
D: For you, what's the significance of
knew things. When I was younger, 1
the Chumash languages' survival,
probably saw things but I wasn't pay
which thankfully was facilitated by your mother?
ing attention. It seems unfortunately Indian people used to drink a lot {Tm sure now they do worse than that) and
E: I wish I knew a true answer to that.
that's the only time it was ever brought My mother was working feverishly with linguists and I think part of it was that it kept her language alive because she always maintained it, and the other thing is they did give her a small sti pend, which maintained me, and my
to surface. Not saying my mother was an alcoholic or anything, but my dad was, but I just know I've heard her stories over and over of what life was like for her over on the ranch, or the Indian Orchard.^ There's a lot of stories
174
NOTICIAS soul, and you know that's the one. It's
in there but I don't think today's civil ization would understand or care.
kind of like how you met your hus
People call it superstition, I call it fact —animals, birds, owls, bones.
band, you know that's the one! Well that's the same thing.
D: What's the significance of nature and animals in Chumash culture?
D: How would you say that certain ma terials are important for Chumash cul ture, like abalone or shell, for instance?
E: The significance of animals is heav E: For today, I really can't say, I'm too
enly—we thought of them as the first people, and actually if our culture had remained like that then I don't think
busy fighting to get in the grocery store. But back then, material was like
we'd be in the mess we're in today.
basketry material that was just neces
They were honorable creatures that we admired and honored, and in some
sary for utilitarian use, and gathering,
cases I guess some people worshipped them, I don't know, that wasn't my
and for ceremony, offering, and also saved our lives I assume, like down in Ventura area. We don't come from bas-
family—in fact I don't even think you'd ketmakers, our family, although I do have a niece that is quite gifted. In or call it worship, it's just honoring. You just didn't take anything as we do
der to survive and earn money to buy
today, you didn't go out and get a li cense and kill "x" amount of deer or
food, some Spaniard would hire you to
elk, and we were grateful that they al lowed us to sustain our own life. We
{as you'll see in the museums), and
took only what we needed for the tribe
or whatever they were using at the time. The shells, the abalone shells
back then, and the same thing for plant life and the sea. They were honorable creatures and you wouldn't slaughter them for profit, just for your existence.
make a basket of his particular design they probably got a few pesos for that
were used for ceremony - they were also used I'm sure for utilitarian pur poses also. And the olivela shell that was our money market until the Span
The animals have a stronger, deeper connection than we do, they see things that we don't see. I think if you equate yourself with what they call a totem today, like for instance my mother was
iards got here, and brought the Euro dollar which was beads. Many things that have come from the earth, includ ing a lot of the medicine you are taking today, came from that, and it works.
the bear and my family has a lot of bear D: There's no word for "religion" in stories (I even wrote a Sugar Bear story), it's by association. Some animal Chumashan languages. But how would just happens to come to you, into your
you describe a sense of spirituality for
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SACRED ART
Chumash Elder Ernestine de Soto. Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. the Chumash, their distinct perspective on the sacred in the world?
rocks also are considered sacred, espe cially certain rocks. There was a friend of mine who gave me a charm stone
E: I didn't even know that they be lieved in the third world, you know, the middle world, because we were so Christianized. But prior to that the ocean was sacred and she still is, only they don't call her that, they just call her "the woman," the mountains— there are certain mountains that are sacred to other tribes, the land itself is sacred to anybody (or should be), since we're destroying it. And the trees, oak trees, that was our sustenance. The
also. Everything that could be utilized for medicine or food was considered sacred. And of course the constellations which 1 know nothing about. Everything on this earth is sacred, but of course it isn't treated that way any more. She's gonna get you guys! D: Growing up, how did you learn about Chumash spiritual practice? E: Well, my mother's stories. She used
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176
Mary Yee, mother of Ernestine de Soto, at the Indian Orchard. Courtesy Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
177
SACRED ART to tell me these stories all the time and repetitively, so 1 retained some of them and some of them I didn't. And they're in her books, and there's a lot more all over the Smithsonian and Berkeley, and now the internet, so nothing's sac red anymore. D: Has your relationship to Chumash spiritual life changed over the course of your life?
take him to his resting place. I made my first basket, it wasn't traditional— it was pine needle, and I put it in his coffin to go with him. And it was won derful, the priest was cooperative—if we would have done that back in the '80s, we would have been crucified, so it was beautiful. And then I had the privilege of going to an Apache reser vation where a priest has been there for quite some time, and I participated
E: Oh, absolutely. When we were Christianized, none of this was dis
with my friend in the funeral for an Indian woman from Southern Califor
cussed. At least not in my family—we became Catholics. And now I can't
nia. It's a three-day affair, and when
speak for the ancestors, the elders I know my grandmother did both, and I never realized how well it works, but it does. It isn't having strange gods be fore you, it's just having the very thing that he created before you to honor so
we got to what they call the waling for three days, we said the rosary because some of them are Catholic—not a lot, but some. And we all got up there, the priest myself and my friend and said the rosary, and then they continued, and we remained. You can integrate
that's just another fringe benefit. It
both, there's nothing sacrilegious
changed in the fact that we were
about it, it's not taking away from God
strictly Catholic and nothing else, and
—there I said it, God—it's not taking
today we are still Catholic but we re
away from him or his mother.
cognize our mother, which I will be fighting for on June 6 at City Hall, for
D: As you are well aware, for Catholics images and objects play a big part.
Standing Rock.^ D: In your experience, how do Catholic and Chumash beliefs and spiritualties work together? E: They work beautifully. I've had two privileges—I went to the first real Chu mash funeral in the '90s. There was a beautiful funeral in Ojai at Thomas Aquinas Church, and we were able to offer up prayer both ways—burn sage.
E: People say it's worshipping idols but it isn't—I'm sure you have your husband's picture on your desk, don't you? It's the same thing—by having this around me.I'm surrounded and I know where they are and where they live, I just have them here to keep me connected and reminded. D: Do you think that images play a
178 role in Chumash spiritual life too?
NOTICIAS to the destruction of a culture—^just by removing its language that's enough,
E: Oh, absolutely. Well, charms, my scapulas are charms—the Indian people wear various rocks, or chiichupate—a root that you carry. My mother didn't do that, or if she did I didn't
because that's like putting a muffler covering your mouth up. Your religion was no longer able to be practiced again, and we did get put in the Mis sion. I'm sure it was pretty hot then,
know. There's a lot of things that we wear and carry— beads, not necessar
and Tm sure working in the heat—
ily rosary beads but they could be used
they weren't running out there with bottles of water for us, and we had a
as that, bracelets, anything that's ad orning but has meaning. I understand on the reservation and in other Indian
quota. And separating families, like if you and your husband weren't mar
tribes tattoos are considered sacred and
ried, they would separate you. So
they use them for whatever your posi tion is.
everything was removed completely and your land was destroyed. Trying to be kindly and friendly, going out
You wear animal effigies, or even an
there and throwing seeds, offerings to
imal—with his permission, of course,
the cattle that they brought in here -
hoofs, you don't waste an animal, you
that pretty much cooked us because
make all your rattles and everything out of animals. Nothing gets wasted, even their teeth and claws. Feathers of
they ate up everything we lived off of. And the water, well, we were in a time of a big drought, so it was easy for us
course, my friend asked me—I wished
to go in, some of us—we stayed out as
I had the access but Tm not going to go around killing woodpeckers—for the
long as we could, and then when there
little feathers for the top knot. Everything has significance, we're not
course my grandfather four genera tions back was a chief then, and it was
like this country today—we didn't
all said and done which is the story of
waste anything, nothing got thrown
our life, there was nothing left to rule.
away, and nothing got polluted.
We hung out, but when you don't
D: From your experience, what was the far-reaching impact of Missionization and the arrival of the Spanish on the Chumash people? E: It's a devastation: a devastation of a culture, a society, a way of life, and a way of the earth. There's many facets
was nobody left, we went in. And of
have your friends around you any more and your family is already in there, you just fall in with the herd. That's how they get the cows when they have trouble taking them in there, they talk the calves in and they'll follow, well that's with any an imal. Here we sit, we are the residual
179
SACRED ART leftovers, picking up the pieces today. D: What do the Missions, the sites themselves, mean to Chumash people today? E: When I w^as younger, I probably wasn't too crazy about it. But as 1 got older I got to realize, you know. I'm a Catholic, they had a job to do when
do. Now the Presidio soldiers, that's a horse of a different color—because if it wasn't for the Padres, we would have all been raped and murdered —and some of us were, but not all of us. 1 would say a small percentage, I hope. We survived, somehow we did. And yes, we carry their blood unfortunately, but we can't do anything about that.
they came in here—and they're still doing it today, in other countries.
It's foolish, as my mother would say to
There's good and bad in everybody, I
me, it's like "cutting off your nose to
don't care who you are—Indian, padre, spite your face" was one of her favorite or President, or whatever, or what race sayings. And it's true, we cannot des you are. I believe when they came in
troy the Mission, it's like cutting off our
here the politicians knew what they're
history.
doing and they sent them over here to D: Is there anything else you would like convert us—well, how easier to destroy to close with, about art or its role in a civilization without firing a shot? your life? Did your mother have any I have no animosity towards them—if
connection with art, and images?
you asked me when I was your age, 1 probably would have said yes, but
E: She used to doodle all the time, she had them in her books. And like 1 said,
today I have no animosity at all. In fact, when they were talking against the Mission and saying we should burn it down, protesting, I thought my God
Harrington's caricature from her book is on display in the Indian Hall.^ She was, I understand, very artistic when
she was young—no pencil and paper, that's the only thing we have left as a monument. We built that with our own just drawing on the ground—there was such a thing back in Hopi land where blood, sweat and tears, why would we they call it sand painting—well, she destroy our own artwork? If you have didn't paint but she drew, and it was any sense at all, those padres today pretty lifelike, they say. I love art, but I didn't do anything to us, and what don't have her talent. She was always happened was what you call war, and drawing, in fact, she taught me. war is hell. They were in there doing what they thought they were sent to
180
NOTICIAS
Qoces 1. The Indian Orchard was a nickname given to a parcel of land, owned by Ernestine's great-great-grandmother, Luisa Ignacia (1798-1865) in present-day Goleta, on Old San Marcos Pass Road. 2. Ernestine refers to her activism in favor of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which continues to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil pipeline which would run through their sacred land and comprise their access to safe water. 3. The Chumash Indian Hall at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
The exhibition was made possible with supportfroni California Humanities, a Jion-profit partner of the National Endowmentfor the Humanities. Visit zvww.calhum.org
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HOCICIAS
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CONTENTS Pg. 121: Sacred Art in the Age of Contact: Chumash and Latin American Traditions in Santa Barbara
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