New University, Ancient Roots

The nonprofit Wishtoyo Foundation proposes that a Chumash Indian studies program and demonstration village be created at Cal State Channel Islands, the fledgling university being developed at the site of the former Camarillo State Hospital. Wishtoyo’s backers would like to see the village established at the foot of Round Mountain, a 520-foot-high hill just east of the intersection of Lewis Road and Potrero Road at the west end of the campus. The hill was identified in a 1933 report by archeologist John P. Harrington for the Smithsonian Institution as a site associated with traditional Indian ceremonies during summer solstice, when sunset and sunrise observed from the hill occur at distinctive points in relation to surrounding geographical features.

University academic planners received the suggestion in response to requests for input from hundreds of individuals in the region representing the sciences, commerce, education, the arts and the area’s cultural and ethnic groups.

Native people also have a unique interest in campus development because state law requires that in any project, they work with archeologists to document pre-construction discovery of artifacts and that they then monitor building activity. However, university President Handel Evans said that no significant construction is anticipated on the campus for at least a decade, when a parking structure may be needed to accommodate enrollment growth.

Even so, an archeological survey--short of digging--will be part of an environmental impact report on the development that is being prepared by Rincon Consultants Inc. of Ventura. That report, too, will include input from members of the Chumash community.

Times staff writer MICHAEL P. LUCAS discussed some of these issues with two Chumash leaders who have differing views on the importance of developing a Chumash village on campus: Mati Waiya, executive director of Wishtoyo, and Paul Varela, executive director of the Oakbrook Regional Park Chumash Interpretive Center at Thousand Oaks, which is developing a traditional village about 15 miles from the new university.

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Mati Waiya, 42, lives in Newbury Park and works as a contractor doing tenant improvement work. He is a native of Ventura and a lifelong resident of the area. In addition to his role with the Wishtoyo Foundation, he is a consultant for the National Park Service at the Satwiwa Native American Culture Center at Rancho Sierra Vista.

Question: Are you a member of the Turtle Clan?

Answer: Yes. There are different regions, territories with different groups of Chumash people. There are the Island people, and people of the coastal areas, and also the Tehachapi, San Joaquin Valley. There are different groups of Chumash people and different families within the different groups. Even today you have the Bear Clan and the Dolphin Clan, the Owl Clan, the brotherhood of Tomol [canoe].

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Q: What is the significance of Round Mountain?

A: The creation story tells of the rainbow bridge from the Channel Island to the high point of the end of the Santa Monica Mountains. The legend tells how islands were getting overpopulated. The creator provided the people with a rainbow bridge to come to the mainland where there was an abundance of food and land. So as they crossed this rainbow bridge, the creator warned them not to look down, or else they would fall through the rainbow. But some of them couldn’t resist the temptation, and as they fell the creator couldn’t stand the thought that they would die, so he turned them into dolphins. So the relationship between the Chumash and the dolphin is like brother and sister.

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Q: Are there burial sites or artifact sites at Round Mountain?

A: There were villages up and down Calleguas Creek. There are artifacts on the land of the university, and when they built that building . . . 50, 55 years ago, before there were laws to protect them, people would take artifacts home. I have spoken with people affiliated with Wishtoyo who have seen artifacts that were taken. One old person who returned artifacts said he has friends who worked there who said they have artifacts at home, old things they found while developing the site.

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Q: Describe the efforts being taken to repatriate artifacts.

A: We are seeking grants and working with trust funds that are considering working with us, which I don’t want to name. They found important foreign collections in Russia and France and they are inventoried in books that we have showing some of the things taken from this area in the American fur trade a couple of hundred years ago. We would like to go and take pictures that we could put online on the Internet, and have them three-dimensional, so schools would have access, to look at these foreign collections that were from this area. There would be a description of what these items are, how they were made what they were used for.

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Q: What are some of the artifacts that have been recovered?

A: Baskets and effigies, different ornaments, jewelry, necklaces, parts of tomols [canoes], stone bowls, hand tools, arrow tips, a variety of items.

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Q: The idea of a virtual museum online is interesting. Have you seen that elsewhere?

A: I’ve seen it at the Getty Museum, the new one. You see how they reconstructed Roman buildings and they let you walk through a courtyard and show how it must have been. To create a virtual museum of a demonstration village, you could walk into a big grass hut and look inside it and maybe see a little fire in the center. You walk out and you go into some cave painting areas. You walk through the tule ponds and see how to make duck traps or see how you would use the willow in the construction of a Chumash house, called the ap. You would get a good sense of how all this works.

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Q: Do you know of the university’s plans for a native studies program?

A: I met with them about a year ago. They were very open to that suggestion. I would think a university just getting underway would take in the efforts of many different groups, businesses, organizations, all with different things to offer.

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Q: When you say Wishtoyo would provide elders, ceremonial leaders and archeologists at the demonstration village, would these be volunteers or people employed by the university or another entity?

A: We would probably create an honorarium, and we would have a volunteer team. Like at the national parks, we have a lot of volunteer efforts. We would share stories and song and dance and share insight to share the culture.

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Q: How do you participate at the Satwiwa Native Cultural Center?

A: Through demonstrations and being an educator and working with the parks staff on education programs, at the elementary level, and with docents and teacher workshops. Everything I do there is on a volunteer basis. I’ve been volunteering about 10 years.

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Q: Have you participated in the Oakbrook Regional Park Chumash Interpretive Center?

A: No. There are some things that have taken place in our history where sometimes we are not necessarily always at an understanding. That whole area came to be because of something that took place as a trade-off, which some other groups didn’t condone. It is a sensitive issue having to do with burials.

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Q: The university is hearing from that group and they are saying, “Why should we build a new interpretive center when we’ve got this one here?” What are you going to say when they say that at the public hearing?

A: Here you have an opportunity where you could bring children to a demonstration village that is at a university setting, an educational facility. You can give them an insight and the encouragement to look at a setting of their future education.

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Q: Are you a signatory to the either of the pending applications to the U.S. government for tribal recognition by the Coastal Band of Chumash or the Oakbrook Chumash People?

A: You have three different types of Chumash people. You have the reservation Chumash who live at Santa Ynez, which are the federally recognized Chumash. Then you have the Mission Indians, the ones who submitted to the padres at the time of the Mission era, and then you have your non-Mission Chumash who didn’t want anything to do with being forced into a system that would strip them of their culture. That is how history played its role on the Indian people. I try not to dwell so much on the ugliness. Instead I try to look forward to the future and make something that will always grow into a better way and understanding.