Their tribal government is based in San Fernando, California, and includes the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, the Tribal Senate, and the Council of Elders.[2][non-primary source needed] The current Tribal President of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians is Rudy Ortega Jr., who is a descendant of the village of Tochonanga.[3][4]
The Tataviam are a not federally recognized, which has prevented the tribe from being seen as sovereign and erased the identity of tribal members.[5][6] The tribe has established an Acknowledge Rent campaign to acknowledge "the financial hardships placed on non-federally recognized tribes."[7][6]
History
Pre-European settlement
The Santa Clarita Valley is believed to be the center of Tataviam territory, north of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.[citation needed] In 1776, they were noted as a distinct linguistic and cultural group, by Padre Francisco Garcés, and have been distinguished from the Kitanemuk and the Fernandeño.[8]
According to settler accounts, the Tataviam were called the Alliklik by their neighbors, the Chumash (Chumash: meaning grunter or stammerer), probably because of the way their language sounds to Chumash ears.[10]
Spanish colonization
The Spanish first encountered the Tataviam during their 1769-1770 expeditions.[citation needed] According to Chester King and Thomas C. Blackburn (1978:536), "By 1810, virtually all the Tataviam had been baptized at Mission San Fernando Rey de España."[citation needed] Like many other indigenous groups, they suffered high rates of fatalities from infectious diseases brought by the Spanish.[citation needed]
When the United States annexed California following the Mexican American War, these land grants made by the Mexican government became void, and as such when the California Land Act of 1851 passed, and with the Tataviam rejecting American citizenship, their land entered public domain and was auctioned off by the state.[11][non-primary source needed] Some Tataviam attempted to challenge this seizure in the Los Angeles Superior Court, however, the court found against the Tataviam, as the United States was under no obligation to respect Mexican land grants.[11][non-primary source needed] By 1900 the Tataviam had lost all their land, and as such where ineligible to receive an Indian Reservation.[11][non-primary source needed]
The United States Indian Affairs decided to group the Tataviam with other Indian Villages in the same region, which is now Fort Tejon Indian Reservation.[12][non-primary source needed]
During the California Genocide from 1846 to 1873, California’s Native American population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000.[13] Many contemporary Tataviam people trace their lineage back to the original Tataviam people through genealogical records,[8] demonstrating the resilience of the Tataviam people in the face of genocide.[citation needed]
Alfred L. Kroeber (1925:883) estimated the combined population of the Serrano, Kitanemuk, and Tataviam to be 3,500 people in 1770.[citation needed] By 1910, their population was recorded at 150.[citation needed]
The Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians claims that there are over 900 Tataviam, all of which are from one of three families; Ortega, Garcia, and Ortiz.[11][non-primary source needed]
On January 14, 2024, Land Veritas donated 500 acres of land between the Antelope Valley to the Pacific Ocean to the Tataviam Land Conservancy, a non-profit group founded by the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians.[14] The uninhabited land consists of a few unpaved roads, and a concrete pad that the conservancy hopes to turn into an educational center.[14]
Champagne, Duane and Goldberg, Carole. 2021. A Coalition of Lineages: The Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona.
King, Chester, and Thomas C. Blackburn. 1978. "Tataviam," In California, edited by Robert F. Heizer, pp.535–537. Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 8. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Kroeber, A. L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu in the south to Mt Pinos in the east. Their territory includes three of the Channel Islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and San Miguel; the smaller island of Anacapa was likely inhabited seasonally due to the lack of a consistent water source.
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.
San Fernando is a general-law city in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It is an enclave in the City of Los Angeles. As of the 2020 census the population of San Fernando was 23,946.
Newhall is the southernmost and oldest community in the city of Santa Clarita, California. Prior to the 1987 consolidation of Canyon Country, Saugus, Newhall, and Valencia into the city of Santa Clarita, it was an unincorporated area. It was the first permanent town in the Santa Clarita Valley.
Canyon Country is a neighborhood in the eastern part of the city of Santa Clarita, in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It lies along the Santa Clara River between the Sierra Pelona Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains. It is the most populous of Santa Clarita's four neighborhoods.
The Serrano are an Indigenous people of California. Their autonyms are Taaqtam meaning "people", Maarrênga’yam meaning "people from Morongo", and Yuhaaviatam meaning "people of the pines."
The Tataviam language was spoken by the Tataviam people of the upper Santa Clara River basin, Santa Susana Mountains, and Sierra Pelona Mountains in southern California. It had become extinct by 1916 and is known only from a few early records, notably a few words recorded by Alfred L. Kroeber and John P. Harrington in the early decades of the 20th century. These word lists were not from native speakers, but from the children of the last speakers who remembered a few words and phrases.
Elizabeth Lake is a natural sag pond that lies directly on the San Andreas Fault in the northern Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northwestern Los Angeles County, southern California.
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 Sierra Pelona, also known as the Sierra Pelona Ridge or the Sierra Pelona Mountains, is a mountain ridge in the Transverse Ranges in Southern California. Located in northwest Los Angeles County, the ridge is bordered on the north by the San Andreas Fault and lies within and is surrounded by the Angeles National Forest.
The history of the San Fernando Valley from its exploration by the 1769 Portola expedition to the annexation of much of it by the City of Los Angeles in 1915 is a story of booms and busts, as cattle ranching, sheep ranching, large-scale wheat farming, and fruit orchards flourished and faded. Throughout its history, settlement in the San Fernando Valley was shaped by availability of reliable water supplies and by proximity to the major transportation routes through the surrounding mountains.
Cahuenga ( or "place of the hill" is a former Tongva–Tataviam Native American settlement in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California. One source suggests kawe means mountain in Tongva language. Recent linguistic work suggests an alternative meaning of "place of the fox". The Tongva-language suffix -nga indicates place, and the suffix -bet or -bit indicates person from place; people from Cahuenga were recorded in mission registers as Capuebet.
Rancho El Escorpión was a 1,110-acre (4.5 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California given in 1845 by Governor Pío Pico to three Chumash Native Americans - Odón Chijulla, Urbano, and Mañuel. The half league square shaped Rancho El Escorpión was located at the west end of the San Fernando Valley on Bell Creek against the Simi Hills, and encompassed parts of present day West Hills and Woodland Hills.
Indigenous peoples of California, commonly known as Indigenous Californians or Native Californians, are a diverse group of nations and peoples that are indigenous to the geographic area within the current boundaries of California before and after European colonization. There are currently 109 federally recognized tribes in the state and over forty self-identified tribes or tribal bands that have applied for federal recognition. California has the second-largest Native American population in the United States.
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.
Achooykomenga is a former settlement that was located at the site of Mission San Fernando Rey de España before it was founded in 1797. Prior to the mission's founding, in the 1780s, it functioned as a shared native settlement for an agricultural rancho of Pueblo de Los Ángeles that was worked by Ventureño Chumash, Fernandeño (Tongva), and Tataviam laborers.
Tochonanga was a Tataviam village now located at the area of what is now Newhall, Santa Clarita, California, along the Santa Clara River.
Chaguayanga was a Tataviam village located at what is now Santa Clarita, California, around the Newhall, Valencia, and Castaic areas. Its original site was located approximately fifteen miles north and slightly west of the San Fernando Mission in the eastern areas of the San Fernando Valley. Mixed Chumash and Tataviam populations may have resided at the village.
Siutcanga, alternatively spelled Syútkanga, was a Tataviam and Tongva village that was located in what is now Los Encinos State Historic Park near the site of a natural spring. The traditional trading route which the village relied on to flourish is now the street known as Ventura Boulevard. The Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians organization has indicated that the majority of their members descend from the village and maintain a deep relationship to the site. People of the village are known as Siutcavitam.
María del Espíritu Santo Chijulla also known as Espíritu Chijulla; also spelled Chihuya; was an Indigenous Californian woman who became the first common-law spouse to win legal rights in California and inherited Rancho El Escorpión.
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