C H THERON
Research
A word from the author on research
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I have always been intrigued by the histories and cultures of First Nations around the world. Before I moved to Southern California, I’d never heard of the Chumash, a civilization that dates back between
10,000 and 12,000 years. A visit to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History sparked a desire to learn more about this highly evolved society. The museum has a magnificent collection of artifacts, original documents, photographs, and dioramas, and it maintains a research relationship with the Chumash people. I read widely, and the more I did, the more I was moved to tell their story.
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The Mission at San Buenaventura in the city of Ventura, although rebuilt several times due to earthquakes and other disasters, remains to this day. Old photographs and lay-out sketches assisted me in recreating the mission as best as I could. The atrocities perpetrated here and at the other missions across Alta California are well-documented. A cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California’s Indians by the Spanish Missions by Elias Castillo was a heart wrenching and difficult read but it provided me with a picture of what the Chumash had to endure, and how mission life had impacted their existence.
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The Chumash Indian Museum in Thousand Oaks is a living history center and one of my favourite places in the Valley. I visited often and gathered invaluable information. Sometimes I merely walked to the replica village, entered an ap, and stared at the branches of big old oak trees through the hole in the roof.
Almost everything we know about the Chumash can rightfully be attributed to the obsessive anthropologist, John Peabody Harrington. He was particularly gifted with native languages, is believed to have spoken about forty, and lived with the Chumash for extended periods of time during the early 1900’s. He had Chumash informants and was a meticulous record-keeper. His research notes filled hundreds of boxes that were discovered all over the country after his death.
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The plunder, theft, destruction, and illegal smuggling of cultural heritage around the world is, sadly, very real. This is another subject close to my heart, and I trust that the novel will raise more awareness.
Resources
1. Blackburn, Thomas C., December’s Child: A Book of Chumash Oral Narratives (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press,1975)
2. Blackburn, Thomas C. and Hudson, Travis, The Material Culture of the Chumash interaction sphere (Ballena Press, Los Altos, Calif. and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, Calif. 1982)
3. Castillo, Elias, A cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California’s Indians by the Spanish Missions (Craven Street Books, Fresno, Calif. 2015)
4. Fagan, Brian, Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., Lanham, MD 2003)
5. Gamble, Lynn H., The Chumash World at European Contact: Power, Trade, and Feasting Among Complex Hunter-Gatherers (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif. 2008)
6. Grant, Campbell, The Rock Paintings of the Chumash: A Study of a California Indian Culture (University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif. 1965)
7. Hamilton, Sam, Discovering Mission San Buenaventura (Cavendish Square Publishing, New York, NY 2015)
8. Laird, Carobeth, Encounter with an angry God: recollections of my life with John Peabody Harrington (Malki Museum Press, Banning, Calif. 1975)
9. Lewis-Williams, David, The Mind in the Cave (Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, UK 2002)
10. Librado, Fernando, The Eye of the Flute: Chumash traditional history and ritual as told by Fernando Librado Kitsepawit to John P. Harrington (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, Calif. 1977)
11. Madley, Benjamin, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT & London, UK 2016)
12. Margaret, Amy, Mission San Buenaventura (PowerKids Press, New York, NY 2003)
13. Miller, Bruce W., Chumash: A Picture of Their World (Sand River Press, Los Osos, Calif. 1988)
14. Timbrook, Janice, Chumash Ethnobotany: Plant Knowledge Among the Chumash People of Southern California (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, Calif. and Heyday Books, Berkeley, Calif. 2007)
15. Young, Stanley, The Missions of California (Chronicle Books, San Francisco, Calif. 1988, 1998)