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Other comments: The Rumsen language is
one of eight Ohlone languages, historically spoken by the Rumsen people
of Northern California. The Rumsen language was spoken from the Pajaro
River to Point Sur, and on the lower courses of the Pajaro, as well as
on the Salinas and Carmel Rivers, and the regioThe Ohlone (/oʊˈloʊni/
oh-LOH-nee), formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish costeño meaning
'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern
California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the
late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from
San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley. At
that time they spoke a variety of related languages. The Ohlone
languages make up a sub-family of the Utian language family. Older
proposals place Utian within the Penutian language phylum, while newer
proposals group it as Yok-Utian.
In pre-colonial times, the Ohlone lived in more than 50 distinct
landholding groups, and did not view themselves as a single unified
group. They lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering, in the typical
ethnographic California pattern. The members of these various bands
interacted freely with one another. The Ohlone people practiced the
Kuksu religion. Prior to the Gold Rush, the northern California region
was one of the most densely populated regions north of Mexico.
However, the arrival of Spanish colonizers to the area in 1769 vastly
changed tribal life forever. The Spanish constructed missions along the
California coast with the objective of Christianizing the native people
and culture. Between the years 1769 and 1834, the number of Indigenous
Californians dropped from 300,000 to 250,000. After California entered
into the Union in 1850, the state government perpetrated massacres
against the Ohlone people. Many of the leaders of these massacres were
rewarded with positions in state and federal government. These massacres
have been described as genocide. Many are now leading a push for
cultural and historical recognition of their tribe and what they have
gone through and had taken from them.
The Ohlone living today belong to one or another of a number of
geographically distinct groups, most, but not all, in their original
home territory. Tamien Nation citizens are direct lineal descendants
from Tamien speaking villages of the Santa Clara Valley. The Muwekma
Ohlone Tribe has members from around the San Francisco Bay Area, and is
composed of descendants of the Ohlones/Costanoans from the San Jose,
Santa Clara, and San Francisco missions. The Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen
Nation, consisting of descendants of intermarried Rumsen Costanoan and
Esselen speakers of Mission San Carlos Borromeo, are centered at
Monterey. The Amah Mutsun [Wikidata] tribe are descendants of Mutsun
Costanoan speakers of Mission San Juan Bautista, inland from Monterey
Bay. Most members of another group of Rumsien language, descendants from
Mission San Carlos, the Costanoan Rumsien Carmel Tribe of Pomona/Chino,
now live in southern California. These groups and others with smaller
memberships (See groups listed under "Present day" below) are separately
petitioning the federal government for tribal recognition.
British ethnologist Robert Gordon Latham originally used the term "Costanoan"
to refer to the linguistically similar but ethnically diverse Native
American tribes in the San Francisco Bay Area. The term was based on the
name of a group of Ramaytush speakers in the area of Mission Dolores
first mentioned in 1850 as "Olhones or Costanos". Based on the former,
American anthropologist Clinton Hart Merriam referred to the Costanoan
groups as "Olhonean" in the early 20th century in his posthumously
published field notes, and eventually, the term "Ohlone" has been
adopted by most ethnographers, historians, and writers of popular
literature.
Ohlone
comprises eight attested varieties: Awaswas, Chalon, Chochenyo (also
spelt as Chocheño), Karkin, Mutsun, Ramaytush, Rumsen, and Tamyen.
Overall, divergence among these languages seems to have been roughly
equivalent to that among the languages of the Romance sub-family of
Indo-European languages. Neighboring groups seem to have been able to
understand and speak to each other.
The number and geographic distribution of Ohlone language divisions
partially mirrors the distribution of Franciscan missions in their
original lands. While the known languages are, in most cases, quite
distinct, intermediate dialects may have been lost as local groups
gathered at the missions. A newly discovered text from Mission Santa
Clara provides evidence that Chochenyo of the East Bay area and Tamyen
of the Santa Clara Valley were closely related dialects of a single San
Francisco Bay Ohlone language.
The last native speakers of Ohlone languages died by the 1950s. However,
Chochenyo, Mutsun, and Rumsen are now in a state of revival (relearned
from saved records).
The classification below is based primarily on Callaghan (2001). Other
classifications list Northern Costanoan, Southern Costanoan, and Karkin
as single languages, with the following subgroups of each considered as
dialects:
Karkin (also known as Carquin)
Duration: 1 hour, 28 minutes and 34 seconds.1:28:34
Vincent Medina presents in the Chochenyo Ohlone language at the San
Francisco Public Library
Northern Costanoan
San Francisco Bay Costanoan
Tamyen (also known as Tamien, Santa Clara Costanoan)
Chochenyo (also known as Chocheño, Chocheno, East Bay Costanoan)
Ramaytush (also known as San Francisco Costanoan)
Awaswas (also known as Santa Cruz Costanoan) – There may have been more
than one Costanoan language spoken within the proposed Awaswas area, as
the small amount of linguistic material attributed to Mission Santa Cruz
Costanoans is highly variable.
Chalon (also known as Cholon, Soledad) – Chalon may be a transitional
language between Northern and Southern Costanoan.
Southern Costanoan
Mutsun (also known as San Juan Bautista Costanoan)
Rumsen (also known as Rumsien, San Carlos, Carmel)
The Muwekma-Tah-Ruk theme house at Stanford University: Muwekma-Tah-Ruk
means "house of the people" in Ohlone
More recently, Callaghan (2014): 17 groups Awaswas together with Mutsun
as part of a South Central Costanoan subgroup with the Southern
Costanoan branch.
Dialect or language debate: Regarding the eight Ohlone branches, sources
differ on if they were eight language dialects, or eight separate
languages. Richard Levy, himself a linguist, contradicted himself on
this point: First he said "Costanoans themselves were a set of tribelets
[small tribes] who spoke a common language... distinguished from one
another by slight differences in dialect"; however after saying that, he
concluded: "The eight branches of the Costanoan family were separate
languages (not dialects) as different from one another as Spanish is
from French" (Levy, 1978:485, "Language and Territory"). Randall
Milliken (1995:24–26) stated in 1995 that there were eight dialects,
citing missionary-linguist Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta to the effect that
the idioms seemed distinct as one traveled from mission to mission, but
actually formed a dialect chain from one neighboring local tribe to
another. Catherine Callaghan (1997, 2001), a linguist who steeped
herself in the primary documents, offered evidence that the Costanoan
languages were distinct, with only Ramaytush, Tamyen, and Chochenyo
possibly being dialects of a single language. Milliken (2008:6), himself
an ethnohistorian and not a linguist, shifted his position in 2008 to
follow Callaghan, referring to separate Costanoan languages rather than
dialects.
Native placenames: The Ohlone native people belonged to one or more
tribes, bands or villages, and to one or more of the eight linguistic
group regions (as assigned by ethnolinguists). Native names listed in
the mission records were, in some cases, clearly principal village
names, in others the name assigned to the region of a "multifamily
landholding group" (per Milliken). Although many native names have been
written in historical records, the exact spelling and pronunciations
were not entirely standardized in modern English. Ethnohistorians have
resorted to approximating their indigenous regional boundaries as well.
(The word that Kroeber coined to designate California tribes, bands and
villages, tribelet, has been published in many records but is advisably
offensive and incorrect, per the Ohlone people.)
Many of the known tribal and village names were recorded in the
California mission records of baptism, marriage, and death. Some names
have come from Spanish and Mexican settlers, some from early
Anglo-European travelers, and some from the memories of Native American
informants. Speakers were natives still alive who could remember their
group's native language and details.
Some of the former tribe and village names were gleaned from the land
maps ("diseños de terreno") submitted by grantees in applying for
Spanish and Mexican land grants or designs ("diseños") that were drawn
up in Alta California prior to the Mexican–American War. In this regard,
large amounts of untranslated material is available for research in the
records of Clinton H. Merriam
housed at the Bancroft Library, and more material continues to be
published by local historical societies and associations.
The Rumsen language is one of
eight Ohlone languages, historically spoken by the Rumsen people of
Northern California. The Rumsen language was spoken from the Pajaro
River to Point Sur, and on the lower courses of the Pajaro, as well as
on the Salinas and Carmel Rivers, and the region.
Rumsen
dialect (also known as Rumsien, San Carlos, Carmel) of
Southern Ohlone
language
has only recorded traditional numerals from 1 to 10 many years ago,
not sure if they were used a traditional decimal or vigesimal system
before, New data for numbers after ten is required. |