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Chingichngish (also spelled Chengiichngech, [1] Chinigchinix, Chinigchinich, Changitchnish, etc.), also known as Quaoar (also Qua-o-ar, Kwawar, etc.) and by other names including Ouiamot, Tobet and Saor, [2] is an important mythological figure of the Mission Indians of coastal Southern California, a group of Takic-speaking peoples, today divided into the Payómkawichum (Luiseño), Tongva (Gabrieliño and Fernandeño), and Acjachemem (Juaneño) peoples.
Chinigchinix was born, or first appeared, after the death of Wiyot, [2] a tyrannical ruler of the first beings, who was poisoned by his sons. Wiyot's murder brought death into the world, and as a consequence, the male creator Night divided the first human ancestors into distinct peoples, assigning them languages and territories. [3]
In June 2002, 50000 Quaoar, a large trans-Neptunian object and ringed dwarf planet, was discovered and named after this deity. [4]
The name Ouiamot is ostensibly similar to Wiyot (Ouiot), the name of another important figure, the primeval tyrant killed just before the appearance of Chinigchinix. Ouiamot is possibly to be taken as Ouiamot the childhood name of Chinigchinix. [3]
The name Quaoar was first recorded by Hugo Reid in his 1852 description of Tongva, in the spelling Qua-o-ar. Quaoar's parents were Tacu and Auzar, or, according to other accounts, he was born of Tamaayawut (Mother Earth). According to yet other accounts, "He had neither father nor mother".
Both the Tongva religion and language are recorded only fragmentarily. As a consequence, the pronunciation of the name Quaoar is not known with certainty. Hugo Reid (1852) recorded it as Qua-o-ar, suggesting that it was trisyllabic. But the Spanish[ year needed ] transcribed it Quaguar, suggesting two syllables ( [ˈkwawaɾ] , reflecting the Spanish use of gu for [w]). Kroeber (1925) [5] spells it Kwawar, though he notes Reid's spelling as well: Kwawar (" Qua-o-ar "). Harrington (1933) gives the most precise transcription, K(w)áʼuwar, in interpreting an 1846 translation of a Spanish text. [6]
Given the general quality of Harrington's work, this might be expected to be the most accurate as well, approximately [ˈkʷaʔuwar] , with three syllables.[ citation needed ]
In English it is /ˈkwɑːwɑːr/ , with two syllables.[ citation needed ]
The Takic beliefs are known only fragmentarily, as these peoples were Christianized early, by Spanish missionaries, during the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Only sparse material has been collected by ethnologists from the few remaining native speakers during 19th century. Chingichngish has variously been represented as a creator deity, a culture hero or lawgiver figure or a "prophet", who became associated with the figure of Christ after the conversion of the Takic peoples.
This character was first mentioned in a description of the beliefs of the native peoples who were associated with the Mission San Juan Capistrano in accounts written by the Franciscan missionary Gerónimo Boscana in the 1820s. One version of Boscana's manuscript was subsequently published by Alfred Robinson (1846), who gave it "Chinigchinich" as a title. Some subsequent scholars have characterized Luiseño religion in general, or certain portions of it, or a set of some more widely shared traits, as a Chingichngish cult (DuBois 1908; Kroeber 1925; Moriarty 1969).
John Peabody Harrington (Boscana 1933) thought that Chingichngish might have been a historical figure, but most scholars have interpreted him as a deity. Alfred L. Kroeber (1925) suggested that Chingichngish beliefs were a historic-period native response to cultural shock of the missions, and Raymond C. White (1963) thought that they might have arisen in response to earlier contacts with European sailors along the California coast.
The most distinctive characteristic of Chingichngish beliefs concerned the existence of a set of "Chingichngish avengers" who spied on human beings and enforced the moral code. These figures included Raven, Rattlesnake, Bear, Mountain Lion, and others. There were also ceremonial items sacred to Chingichngish, including mortars and winnowing trays. Chingichngish beliefs were associated with the initiation ceremonies for adolescent boys, during which the hallucinogenic plant Datura (Toloache, Jimsonweed, Datura wrightii) was ingested, but elements of these ceremonies were much more widely shared than were belief in the specific character of Chingichngish.
The Chemehuevi are an indigenous people of the Great Basin. They are the southernmost branch of Southern Paiute. Today, Chemehuevi people are enrolled in the following federally recognized tribes:
Mission San Juan Capistrano is a Spanish mission in San Juan Capistrano, Orange County, California. Founded November 1, 1776 in colonial Las Californias by Spanish Catholic missionaries of the Franciscan Order, it was named for Saint John of Capistrano. The Spanish Colonial Baroque style church was located in the Alta California province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Mission was founded less than 60 yards from the village of Acjacheme. The Mission was secularized by the Mexican government in 1833, and returned to the Roman Catholic Church by the United States government in 1865. The Mission was damaged over the years by a number of natural disasters, but restoration and renovation efforts date from around 1910. It functions today as a museum.
The Tongva 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). In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name. During colonization, the Spanish referred to these people as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño, names derived from the Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España. Tongva is the most widely circulated endonym among the people, used by Narcisa Higuera in 1905 to refer to inhabitants in the vicinity of Mission San Gabriel. Some people who identify as direct lineal descendants of the people advocate the use of their ancestral name Kizh as an endonym.
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The Luiseño or Payómkawichum are an Indigenous people of California who, at the time of the first contacts with the Spanish in the 16th century, inhabited the coastal area of southern California, ranging 50 miles (80 km) from the present-day southern part of Los Angeles County to the northern part of San Diego County, and inland 30 miles (48 km). In the Luiseño language, the people call themselves Payómkawichum, meaning "People of the West." After the establishment of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, "the Payómkawichum began to be called San Luiseños, and later, just Luiseños by Spanish missionaries due to their proximity to this San Luis Rey mission.
Mission Indians are the Indigenous peoples of California who lived in Southern california and were forcibly relocated from their traditional dwellings, villages, and homelands to live and work at 15 Franciscan missions in Southern California and the Asistencias and Estancias established between 1769 and 1823 in the Las Californias Province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
The Lake Miwok are a branch of the Miwok, a Native American people of Northern California. The Lake Miwok lived in the Clear Lake basin of what is now called Lake County. While they did not have an overarching name for themselves, the Lake Miwok word for people, Hotsa-ho, was suggested by A. L. Kroeber as a possible endonym, keeping with a common practice among tribal groups and the ethnographers studying them in the early 20th Century and with the term Miwok itself, which is the Central Sierra Miwok word for people.
Gerónimo Boscana was an early 19th-century Franciscan missionary in Spanish Las Californias and Mexican Alta California. He is noted for producing the most detailed ethnographic picture of a Native Californian culture to come out of the missionary period, an account that "for his time and profession, is liberal and enlightened".
Constance Goddard DuBois was an American novelist and an ethnographer, writing extensively between 1899 and 1908 about the native peoples and cultures of southern California.
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The Acjachemen are an Indigenous people of California. Published maps often identify their ancestral lands as extending from the beach to the mountains, south from what is now known as Aliso Creek in Orange County to the Las Pulgas Canyon in the northwestern part of San Diego County. However, sources also show that Acjachemen people shared sites with other Indigenous nations as far north as Puvunga in contemporary Long Beach.
Kuksu was a religion in Northern California practiced by members within several Indigenous peoples of California before and during contact with the arriving European settlers. The religious belief system was held by several tribes in Central California and Northern California, from the Sacramento Valley west to the Pacific Ocean.
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Luiseño traditional narratives include myths, legends, tales, and oral histories preserved by the Luiseño people of southwestern California.
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Kizh, or Kit’c, are the Mission Indians of San Gabriel, an Indigenous peoples of California. They belong to a group commonly known by the Spanish name, Gabrieleño.
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