Ethnohistoric Salinan Acculturation

Abstract

No other group of California experienced so intensive or lengthy a period of acculturation as those living within the area of Spanish missions in the south and central coastal areas. And yet, it is possible to trace strands of continuity between the present and the prehistoric past. Recent archival and archaeological studies of the Salinan and other groups of Mission Indians have proven a profitable means of filling in details in the historical record and providing an integrated and continuous view of the processes of cultural change. The Salinans represent a group of coastal Californian natives who have experienced the complete transformation of their aboriginal culture over a period of about 200 years. Salinan, like its neighbors Esselen and Chumash, is a language of the vast Hokan family. Hokan-speakers were early arrivals in California, appearing from the Southwest perhaps by at least 7000 B.C. The ethnohistoric Salinans occupied a niche in the south-central Coast Ranges of California between Santa Lucia Peak in the north and Santa Margarita in the south. In modern terms, they occupied southern Monterey and northern San Luis Obispo counties. In prehistoric times, they held coastal, mountain and valley environments which provided an adequate base for the hunting and gathering activities of over 3000 persons (Kroeber 1925:547) in 1769, the beginning of the historic period. Recent archival studies by Robert 0. Gibson indicate that hereditary polygynous chiefs ruled districts containing multiple villages, collecting tribute at religious fiestas and cementing political ties with subject villages and neighboring territories by marriages into the elite families (Hoover and Costello n.d.). While Salinan material culture and natural resources were not as abundant as in the Costanoan area to the north or the Chumash area to the south, the Salinans served as a buffer between these two zones of primary cultural climax. Details of the prehistoric culture are imperfectly understood,