Shell-bead money and the mission period economy of Alta California

Summary This article describes the linguistic work of Felipe Arroyo de la Cuesta (1780–1840), a Franciscan missionary from Spain who lived and worked in the missions of Alta California for some 32 years. He was the most prolific chronicler of the indigenous languages of Alta California during the mission period, writing a vocabulary and grammar of the Costanoan/Ohlone language Mutsun, taking notes on a Yokuts language he called Nopthrinthres, and compiling shorter word lists and religious texts in numerous other languages. The present work seeks to bring together and analyze what information is available about Arroyo de la Cuesta’s life and writings and place these within the broader field of missionary linguistics.

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CRAFTING IDENTITY: ACQUISITION, PRODUCTION, USE, AND RECYCLING OF SOAPSTONE DURING THE MISSION PERIOD IN ALTA CALIFORNIA

American Antiquity ◽

10.1017/aaq.2018.2 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 83 (2) ◽

pp. 244-262 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Kaitlin M. Brown

Keyword(s):

Indigenous Peoples ◽

Raw Material ◽

Indigenous Identity ◽

Form And Function ◽

Alta California ◽

Mission Period ◽

Cultural Spaces ◽

Show Evidence ◽

Cooking Wares ◽

And Function

This article investigates the daily practices and social processes of indigenous identity negotiation in the Santa Barbara Channel region through an analysis of soapstone ollas, bowls, andcomales. After assessing the source of the raw material and using a typological classification based upon form and function, I discuss the ways in which soapstone cooking wares were used diachronically and across the colonial landscape. These finds show a reorganization of the soapstone industry inside the mission space: soapstone was acquired from new sources, an emphasis was placed on the production of bowls and comales, and more soapstone vessels show evidence of remodification. However, the continued use of traditional soapstone ollas in historically occupied Chumash villages outside the mission indicates persistent practices that linked indigenous peoples to a deep ancestral past. I argue that these changes and continuities illuminate a range of identities that existed between the cultural spaces previously described as “native” and “Spanish.” This study illustrates that indigenous peoples negotiated, redeployed, and expressed their identities in new ways that allowed them to adapt and persist under colonialism.

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Making Friends and Converts

California History ◽

10.1525/ch.2015.92.1.6 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 92 (1) ◽

pp. 6-26

Author(s):

P. Albert Lacson

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Sixteenth Century ◽

Crucial Role ◽

California Indians ◽

Indian People ◽

Alta California ◽

Death Toll ◽

Political Views ◽

Mission Period ◽

Making Friends

This article argues that cloth items played a crucial role in establishing friendships and creating Catholic converts between the sixteenth century and the end of the eighteenth century. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cloth products served as touchstones of friendship between California Indians and Spanish mariners. As a result of these early meetings, Indians developed a taste for cloth. This taste for cloth allowed Spanish colonists in 1769 to reconnoiter Alta California without a great deal of violence because Indians saw their initial meetings as a continuation of their previous encounters. During the mission period, Franciscan missionaries could rely on cloth items to attract Indians to mission communities. After living with the Spanish, however, especially after observing the death toll of Spanish-introduced diseases and major changes in the land, California Indian people began to reject Spanish ways, and they communicated their political views by rejecting Spanish-introduced clothing.

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Chasing Angels: The Sweet Wine Angelica

Gastronomica The Journal of Food and Culture ◽

10.1525/gfc.2008.8.3.74 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 74-78

Author(s):

hank shaw

Keyword(s):

The State ◽

The Real ◽

Mission Period ◽

History Of ◽

Uncertain Future ◽

Sweet Wine ◽

Made In

Portugal has port, Spain has sherry, Sicily has Marsala –– and California has angelica. Angelica is California's original wine: The intensely sweet, fortified dessert cordial has been made in the state for more than two centuries –– primarily made from Mission grapes, first brought to California by the Spanish friars. Angelica was once drunk in vast quantities, but now fewer than a dozen vintners make angelica today. These holdouts from an earlier age are each following a personal quest for the real. For unlike port and sherry, which have strict rules about their production, angelica never gelled into something so distinct that connoisseurs can say, ““This is angelica. This is not.”” This piece looks at the history of the drink, its foggy origins in the Mission period and on through angelica's heyday and down to its degeneration into a staple of the back-alley wino set. Several current vintners are profiled, and they suggest an uncertain future for this cordial.

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Family and Gender in Chicano and Border Studies Research: Familia: Migration and Adaptation in Baja and Alta California, 1800-1975 . Robert R. Alvarez, Jr.. ; Cannery Women/Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 . Vicki L. Ruiz. ; Women's Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley . Patricia Zavella. ; Women on the U. S.-Mexico Border: Responses to Change . Vicki L. Ruiz, Susan Tiano.

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos ◽

10.1525/msem.1990.6.1.03a00060 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 109-119

Author(s):

Mario T. Garcia

Keyword(s):

Food Processing ◽

Women's Work ◽

Border Studies ◽

Mexican Women ◽

Food Processing Industry ◽

Processing Industry ◽

Alta California ◽

Santa Clara Valley ◽

Mexico Border ◽

And Gender

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Continuity in Any Language

Southern California Quarterly ◽

10.1525/scq.2014.96.2.141 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 96 (2) ◽

pp. 141-171

Author(s):

Travis E. Ross

Keyword(s):

Ethnic Origin ◽

Home Rule ◽

Men And Women ◽

Creation Myths ◽

Alta California ◽

The Us

This article analyzes the memories of pre-1848 Alta California recounted in the 1870s to Hubert Howe Bancroft’s agent Thomas Savage by a multiethnic group of men and women. The narrators, regardless of ethnic origin, overwhelmingly told stories that insisted on continuity between Alta California in the 1830s and 1840s and the US state birthed in the late 1840s. Even if they had been on opposing sides of political upheavals, they all insisted that their altruistic efforts had helped to transition California peacefully from Mexican rule to home rule and from home rule to US control while preserving both California’s people and California’s culture. This multicultural memory of continuity was later supplanted by rupture-based Anglo Californian creation myths.

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