Chumash
Painted Cave rock art in the hills above Santa Barbara; courtesy The Bancroft Library, U.C. Berkeley
The Chumash Indians inhabited a large area of coastal California, from Morro Bay in the north to Malibu in the south. Like all native Californians, the Chumash were hunter-gatherers. Much of what they lived on came from the sea. They were skilled builders of tomols (oceangoing canoes), which they used to hunt seal and fish.
The Chumash Creation Story
In the Chumash story "The Rainbow Bridge," the Earth Goddess Hutash created the first people on Santa Cruz Island from seeds she gathered from a magic plant. One day Hutash's husband, the Sky Snake (the Milky Way), gave the people the gift of fire. This gift warmed them and was used to cook food, which helped the people to grow strong and thrive. Soon the island became overcrowded. Hutash decided that some of the people would have to move to the mainland, and that's how the Chumash came to populate the coastal mainland and what are now known as the Channel Islands.