Kizh

Kizh Kit’c (/kiːtʃ/) is the original name for the Gabrieleño people that is supported by the Kizh Nation (Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians).[1][2][3][4][5] The Kizh are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately 4,000 square miles (10,000 km2).[6][7] In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village name rather than by a pan-tribal name.[2][8]

Kizh
Total population
~500
Regions with significant populations
United States ( California)
Languages
English, Spanish, formerly Tongva

In 2013, it was reported that the Kizh Nation is based in San Gabriel, California and includes about 500 members.[9]

Name controversy

During colonization, the people were referred to as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño,[lower-alpha 1] names derived from the Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España.[lower-alpha 2] The misnomer name of Tongva https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/petition-calls-for-california-school-to-be-named-after-indigenous-hero is the subject of considerable controversy within the Kizh Nation, who understand it as coming into existence in 1903 from the accounts of one ethnographer, C. Hart Merriam. Conversely, the Kizh understand that the name Kizh has origins in the earliest records of contact as a name the people used to refer to the willow branch, tule, and brush houses they lived in and was used widely by various ethnographers in the 19th and early 20th century.[2][3][10] Despite this, Tongva remains the most widely circulated name, gaining popularity in the late 20th century.[11]

The word Tongva was recorded by C. Hart Merriam in October 1903 from a single informant, a 'Gabrieleño' woman named Mrs. James Rosemyre (née Narcisa Higuera), who lived around Fort Tejon, near Bakersfield.[12][13] Merriam could not pronounce the village name Toviscangna, misinterpreted her response as a pan-tribal identifier, and abbreviated it as “tonve” or “tonvey” in his field notes;[14] by his orthography, it would be pronounced /ˈtɒŋveɪ/, TONG-vay.[15] Since tribal members referred to themselves primarily by their village name rather than a "national" or "pan-tribal" name. It is argued that Rosemyre was referring to her village name, not a overarching tribal name. From the perspective of the Kizh, Tongva was falsely promoted in the 1980s and 1990s until the point that it reached favorability.[16][17][18]

As stated by Kizh Nation (Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians) tribal spokesperson Ernest Perez Teutimez Salas, Tongva gained notoriety in 1992 when the tribe was approached by non-Native people who expressed that in order to save a sacred spring in Santa Monica from a major development project and receive federal recognition that the tribe needed to use the name "Tongva." Although Salas had reservations about doing so and had never heard the term before, the tribe hesitantly supported the decision in order to save the spring, which was saved under the “Gabrieleño/Tongva Springs Foundation.” About a year later, contact with these individuals was cut off. As stated by Nadine Salas: "we used to have get-togethers, and then it was like they got what they wanted; they didn’t want anything to do with us anymore.” Kizh Nation biologist Matt Teutimez stated, "When you just throw it out into the universe, and it sticks, you go with it, and that’s what happened with the Tongva."[14]

E. Gary Stickel[19] observes that ethnologist John Peabody Harrington, who conducted extensive ethnographic work among the Southern California tribes, wrote in his notes (presently housed at the Smithsonian Institution archives) that the word tongva refers to where the Gabrieleño people ground their seeds on rocks, and that the noun must be accompanied by a positional prefix. Stickel writes that the term tongva has been used mistakenly to refer to the tribe "when, according to Harrington, it refers to what archaeologists call a 'bedrock mortar', which is a rock outcrop with depressions in it created by Indians pounding pestles into them to process acorns and other plant products."[20]

Kizh
"Desert Cahuilla woman" by Edward S. Curtis (1926). The neighboring ʔívil̃uqaletem (Cahuilla) referred to the Kizh as Kisianos[21] which has been cited as a potential source of Kizh.[22]

The name Kizh (pronounced Keech), sometimes spelled Kij, comes from the first construction of Mission San Gabriel in 1771. The people of the surrounding villages who were used as slave laborers to construct the mission referred to themselves as "Kizh" and the Spanish hispanicized the term as "Kichireños," as noted by ethnographer J.P. Harrington's consultant Raimundo Yorba. The word Kizh referred to the houses they lived in, "most of which were dome-shaped and made with a framework of willow branches and roofed over with thatching."[16][17][23] The neighboring ʔívil̃uqaletem (Cahuilla) referred to the people as Kisianos[21] or "people of the willow-brush houses,"[24] which has been cited as a potential source for the term Kizh.[22] Following the destruction of the original mission, the Spanish relocated the mission five miles north and began to refer to the Kizh as "Gabrieleño."[16]

...Kizh for the Indians living near San Gabriel (i.e. Whittier Narrows area)... According to Harrington's (ethnographer J.P. Harrington) consultant Raimundo Yorba, the Gabrielino in the Whittier Narrows area referred to themselves as Kichireno, one of a bunch of people that lived at that place of San Gabriel which is known as Mission Vieja. Kichereno is not a place name, but a tribe name, the name of a kind of people.[16][25]

In 1846, scholar Horatio Hale used the term Kizh in a United States government report on “Ethnography and Philology.” Lieutenant Amiel Weeks Whipple, Thomas Ewbank, and William Turner used Kizh when publishing a “Report upon the Indian Tribes” in 1855 for the U.S. War Department. German scholar Johann Carl Eduard Buschmann used the term in a study on language in 1856 published in the German Royal Academy of Science. Further notable scholars who used Kizh throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries include George Bell (in 1856), Robert Gordon Latham (in 1860), Lewis H. Morgan (in 1868), Albert Samuel Gatschet (in 1877),[26] Hubert Howe Bancroft (in 1883), Daniel G. Briton (in 1891), David Prescott Barrows (in 1900), and A. L. Kroeber (in 1907).[16]

In 1875, H. C. Yarrow stated that the name Kizh could not be verified at Mission San Gabriel. He reported that the natives called themselves Tobikhar and spoke the Spanish language more than their own.[27] In 1885, Hoffman also referred to the natives as Tobikhar.[28] In 1900, David Prescott Barrows used the term Kizh and stated that use of the term Tobikhar was incorrect: "Mr. Gatschet is in error when he speaks of the Serrano and San Gabriel Indians calling themselves Takhtam and Tobikhar, respectively. The words are unknown as tribal designations among these Indians themselves, and precisely this point constitutes the objections to them.”[16]

Gabrieleño

Gabrieleño was the name assigned to the Indigenous peoples surrounding Mission San Gabriel by the Spanish. It was not a name that the people ever used to refer to themselves. However, it remains a part of every official tribe's name, either as "Gabrieleño" or "Gabrielino."[29][30][31][32] Because of the disagreement between tribal groups surrounding usage of the term Tongva, Gabrieleño has been used as a mediating term. For example, when Debra Martin, a city council member from Pomona, led a project to dedicate wooden statues in local Ganesha Park to the Indigenous people of the area in 2017, there was considerable conflict over which name, Tongva or Kizh, would be used on the dedication plaque. A tentative agreement was reached to use the term Gabrieleño, despite its colonial origins.[33]

History and culture
Main articles: Tongva § History, Tongva § Culture, and Tongva § Contemporary tribe

For a summary of Kizh history and culture, see the relevant content available on Tongva.

Toponymy
Eagle Rock adjacent to California State Route 134 (the Ventura Freeway)[1]

From the Spanish colonial period, Kizh place names have been absorbed into general use in Southern California. Examples include Pacoima, Tujunga, Topanga, Rancho Cucamonga, Azusa (Azucsagna), and Cahuenga Pass.

Sacred sites that have not been totally demolished, destroyed, or built over include Puvunga, Kuruvungna Springs, and Eagle Rock. According to Kizh Nation chairman Andrew Salas, Eagle Rock was referred to as Ah-sowt-To-tah or "golden eagle rock" for the golden eagles that frequented that area.[1]

In other cases, toponyms or places have been recently named to honor the indigenous peoples. The Gabrielino Trail is a 28-mile path through the Angeles National Forest, created and named in 1970.[34]

Notable Kizh
  • Ernest P. Teutimez Salas, chief & spiritual leader of the Kizh Nation (Gabrieleño Band Of Mission Indians) and great-great-great grandchild of Nicolás José.[35] Author of Toypurina: The Joan of Arc of California, published in 2011 by Kizh Tribal Press.[36] Also known for his activism promoting the endonym Kizh instead of Tongva.[37]
  • Nicolás José, led two late-eighteenth century revolts against the Spanish colonizers in 1779 and 1785 in collaboration with Toypurina.[38]
  • Toypurina (1760–1799) was a Gabrieleño medicine woman who opposed the rule of colonization by Spanish missionaries in California, and led an unsuccessful rebellion against them in 1785.[38]

See also

References
  1. Salas, Andrew (2014). "The Land, the First People and the Legend". In Warren, Eric H.; Parrello, Frank F. (eds.). Pioneers of Eagle Rock. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781614239611.
  2. Stickel, E. Gary (27 September 2017). "Why the Original Indian Tribe of the Greater Los Angeles Area is Called Kizh not Tongva" (PDF). Kizh Tribal Press: 1–5.
  3. Scalf, Darlene (14 June 2018). "Native American Kizh tribe called this area home". Fontana Herald News.
  4. "KIZH NATION (Pronounced Keech), Gabrieleño Band Of Mission Indians". KIZH Nation. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
  5. Saldaña, Marisa (7 September 2018). "Fighting History". La Verne Magazine. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  6. Lepowsky, M. (2004). "Indian revolts and cargo cults: Ritual violence and revitalization in California and New Guinea". In Harkin, M. E. (ed.). Reassessing revitalization movements: Perspectives from North America and the Pacific Island. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. p. 51, note 1. ISBN 978-0-8032-2406-3. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  7. Strawther, Larry (2014). "The Basics". Seal Beach: A Brief History. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781625850355.
  8. Dietler, John; Gibson, Heather; Vargas, Benjamin (2018). ""A Mourning Dirge Was Sung": Community and Remembrance at Mission San Gabriel". Forging Communities in Colonial Alta California. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 9780816538928.
  9. Salas, Andrew (2014). "The Land, the First People and the Legend". In Warren, Eric H.; Parrello, Frank F. (eds.). Pioneers of Eagle Rock. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781614239611.
  10. Salas, Andrew (2014). "The Land, the First People and the Legend". In Warren, Eric H.; Parrello, Frank F. (eds.). Pioneers of Eagle Rock. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781614239611.
  11. Saldaña, Marisa (7 September 2018). "Fighting History". La Verne Magazine. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  12. Heizer, Robert F. (1968). The Indians of Los Angeles County: Hugo Reid's Letters of 1852 (PDF). Southwest Museum. p. 6, Introduction. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 12, 2019. Retrieved May 31, 2019.
  13. Lepowsky, M. (2004). "Indian revolts and cargo cults: Ritual violence and revitalization in California and New Guinea". In Harkin, M. E. (ed.). Reassessing revitalization movements: Perspectives from North America and the Pacific Island. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. p. 51, note 1. ISBN 978-0-8032-2406-3. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  14. Saldaña, Marisa (7 September 2018). "Fighting History". La Verne Magazine. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  15. Golla, Victor (2 August 2011). California Indian Languages. University of California Press. p. 312. ISBN 978-0-520-26667-4. Archived from the original on December 24, 2019. Retrieved June 2, 2019. Merriam recorded the Gabrieleño self-designation as "Tong-vā," presumably [toŋve]
  16. Stickel, E. Gary (27 September 2017). "Why the Original Indian Tribe of the Greater Los Angeles Area is Called Kizh not Tongva" (PDF). Kizh Tribal Press: 1–5.
  17. Scalf, Darlene (14 June 2018). "Native American Kizh tribe called this area home". Fontana Herald News.
  18. "What Are the Original People of Los Angeles County Called?". Los Angeles Almanac. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  19. "Search Results: All Fields: Stickel%2C E. Gary". Digital Archaeological Record. Digital Antiquity. 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
  20. E. Gary Stickel (2016). "Why the Original Indian Tribe of the Greater Los Angeles Area is called Kizh not Tongva". Kizh Tribal Press. pp. 5, A–15. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
  21. Duncan Strong, William (1929). Aboriginal Society in Southern California (PDF). University of California Press. pp. 8, 98.
  22. Johnston, Bernice (1962). California's Gabrielino Indians. Southwest Museum. p. 15.
  23. Salas, Andrew (2014). "The Land, the First People and the Legend". In Warren, Eric H.; Parrello, Frank F. (eds.). Pioneers of Eagle Rock. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781614239611.
  24. Teutimez, Matthew. "A Compendium of Kizh/Gabrieleno Utilized Flora and Fauna". Kizh Tribal Press.
  25. Arnold, Richard J. (2013). San Gabriel. Arcadia Publishing. p. 7. ISBN 9781467130615.
  26. Gatschet, Albert Samuel (1877). Indian Languages of the Pacific States and Territories. New York Public Library. p. 152. ISBN 9780659972897.
  27. Yarrow, H. C. (1876). Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers to the Secretary of War for the Year 1876. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 542. Archived from the original on December 29, 2019. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
  28. Hugo Ried, notes by W.J. Hoffman (1885). "Notes on Hugo Ried's Account of the Indians of Los Angeles, California". Bulletin of the Essex Institute. Salem, Massachusetts. 17 (1): 26, Note 1.
  29. "KIZH Nation". KIZH Nation. Archived from the original on 18 March 2018. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
  30. "Tribal home of the Gabrieleno/Tongva Nation". Archived from the original on 2001-09-23. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
  31. "Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe – A California Indian Tribe historically known as San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians". www.gabrielinotribe.org. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
  32. "tongvatribe.net". tongvatribe.net. Archived from the original on 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
  33. Saldaña, Marisa (7 September 2018). "Fighting History". La Verne Magazine. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  34. "adamspackstation.com". Archived from the original on 2007-01-08. several existing trails were renamed to make a 'new' 28.5 mile trail in 1970
  35. "KIZH NATION (Pronounced Keech), Gabrieleño Band Of Mission Indians". KIZH Nation. Retrieved 18 September 2020.
  36. John, Maria (15 May 2014). "Toypurina: A Legend Etched in the Landscape of Los Angeles". KCET. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  37. Saldaña, Marisa (7 September 2018). "Fighting History". La Verne Magazine. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  38. Dietler, John; Gibson, Heather; Vargas, Benjamin (2018). ""A Mourning Dirge Was Sung": Community and Remembrance at Mission San Gabriel". Forging Communities in Colonial Alta California. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 9780816538928.
  1. Alternate spellings include Gabrielino and Fernardino.
  2. The Spanish did not always differentiate between communities or ethnic groups. For example, the Spanish referred to both the Tongva in the San Fernando Valley and the nearby Tataviam people, who spoke a different language, as "Fernandeño," because they were covered by that mission.
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