Subsistence Practices and Feasting Rites: Chumash Identity after European Colonization

Abstract

The Chumash Indians of southern California were active social agents after European contact, making choices in the traditions that they maintained despite drastic transformations in their daily lives. Archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence suggests that they continued to hold large ceremonial feasts with massive quantities of traditional foods prepared in oversized vessels, such as decorated mortars and steatite cooking pots. Many of these vessels proliferated or became more elaborate after the introduction of metal tools. The persistence and elaboration of traditional patterns of food procurement, preparation, and consumption served as a symbol of cultural identity among the Chumash and a means of maintaining and expanding social networks that extended over a wide region of California.