The Island Chumash: Behavioral Ecology of a Maritime Society.

Greenwood, Roberta S.

THE ISLAND CHUMASH: BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY OF A MARITIME SOCIETY

By Douglas J. Kennett (Berkeley: University of California, 2005, 298 PP., $35 cloth)

THE CHUMASH AND THE PRESIDIO OF SANTA BARBARA: EVOLUTION OF A RELATIONSHIP, 1782-1823

These two books are different in approach and vocabulary but present a valuable chronological continuum and new material in the expanding literature about southern California's Native American people. The Island Chumash describes the settlement patterns, way of life, and trade relationships in this maritime environment during the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene years, touching the historical period only to mention villages on the four northern Channel Islands after contact. Duggan, on the other hand, takes up the narrative after Santa Barbara mission and presidio had already been established, and focuses narrowly on the Indians' complex relationships with the latter.

Kennett draws together updated archaeological and ethnohistoric data to test various explanatory models about subsistence patterns, social organization, spatial and seasonal variation in village locations, population flux, patterns of exchange, and craft specialization. He weighs questions such as whether wealth was a product of, or a basis for, social status in reviewing the development of sociopolitical complexity in the Late Period. One of the most valuable contributions of the book is the review and synthesis of pioneer and current theories about life on the islands, and the degree to which older hypotheses are congruent with new data.

Kennett offers a detailed review of strategies such as maritime foraging, intensification and distribution, and competition within a strong emphasis on the environmental context, and defines his interpretation of human behavioral ecology. Overly simplified here, his model posits the formation of social hierarchies as a density-dependent phenomenon that occurs in regions where resources are unevenly distributed. Where all economically favored locations are settled, or resources inaccessible, and emigration is not an option, social hierarchies will develop.

Archaeologists will find this data-packed volume the newest, best, and most even-handed synthesis of Channel Islands Chumash research. It is a good example of the relevance of ethnohistory, a useful illustration of the archaeological method and theoretical approach, and a comprehensive reference for the Channel Islands.

Duggan's slim volume is altogether different, narrowly focused on the economic relationships between the Chumash of mainland Santa Barbara, the presidio, and the mission primarily between 1782 and 1823. The buildings of both the secular and religious communities were largely built by Indian hands, their crops and flocks tended by the Native Americans, and many necessities of life made by newly trained neophytes. She describes how the military and missionaries competed for Indian labor, the interdependence of the three groups, and the manner in which the Chumash sought to maximize their rewards and, eventually, express their resistance. The negotiation and cooperation of the early years yielded to rising tensions, and the relative equilibrium between military and religious authority was ended by the Chumash Revolt of 1824 and ultimately, by secularization of the mission. While much has been written about the missions, this is a new insight into the role of the military in relationship both to the Indians and the local mission, an altogether new and vivid picture of the interaction between small groups.

ROBERTA S. GREENWOOD, GREENWOOD AND ASSOCIATES, PACIFIC PALISADES, CA, AUTHOR OF MANY PUBLICATIONS ON THE CHUMASH INDIANS AND THE CALIFORNIA MISSIONS