Mystery of Takuyumam Solved!

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

Dr. John Johnson, curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and an authority on the Tataviam and Chumash Indians, writes to us by way of Dr. Alan Pollack, President of the SCV Historical Society about Takuyumam, which I wrote about earlier this week:

Takuyaman ( or Tacuyamam) is the Ventureno Chumash name for the Tataviam village called Tsawayung (called “Chaguayunga” or “Chaguayabit” in the San Fernando Mission records). The original village was at the rancho of the mission called San Francisco Xavier (near the Magic Mountain amusement park).

Of course the fact that Ventureno Chumash knew of the place and had a name for it in their language doesn’t mean that it was their village. Similarly, the name Camulos is derived from the Ventureno Chumash name Kamulus, meaning something like ‘at the juniper tree’; however the original village at Camulos was inhabited by Tataviam Indians and was known in their language by a completely different name.

Wow. So we know that A) Takuyumam existed and B) it was the Chumash name for a Tataviam place we are familiar with, Chaguayabit, which was located near present day Magic Mountain and C) the marker in the map is apparently in the wrong place.

Different names for the same places. Not so odd when you think about it. We do it too with our geography in the SCV today. For instance, lots of people call the villages along Soledad “Canyon Country.” I, however, with my pro-Newhall bias, call it Rough Neck City. Some call the villages along I-5 “Stevenson Ranch” while others call it “Stepford.”

And while I call Newhall “home,” others are likely to call it Little Tijuana. And so on.

So it is today with Google, which is apparently displaying an unfortunate Pro-Chumash bias by naming this place Takuyumam rather than Chaguayabit on their maps. I say unfortunate because the Chumash always get good, sympathetic press (there are 551,000 results on Google alone) while our hometown Tataviam (only 6,300 results) are largely forgotten and ignored by those outside the SCV.

Maybe a petition is in order to restore the proper name for this old Native American village on Google maps.

Many thanks to Dr. Johnson and Dr. Pollack for helping us clear this up!

MORE RESOURCES ON THE WEB:

Chumash Place names in SCV

Leon Worden article on Chaguayabit, the intersection of the Chumash and Tataviam

Timeline of SCV History

Dr. Johnson’s paper on Tataviam Geography and Ethnohistory

Comments (4)

AndyMay 13, 2010 at 10:05 am

Rancho San Francisco Xavier = Rancho San Francisco = Newhall Ranch?

Leon WordenMay 14, 2010 at 2:03 am

Yes, Rancho San Francisco = Newhall Ranch, but today’s 21,000-acre Newhall Ranch project area is only a part of the original 48,000 acre Rancho San Francisco. It stretched halfway to Canyon Country (which is awesome in its own right). Henry bought the place in 1875 but if memory serves, it wasn’t called “Newhall Ranch” till after Atholl McBean took the helm of the company in the 1930s. The roughly 1,000-acre Rancho Camulos had already been broken off of it by that time, so it wasn’t quite the full 48,000 acres when it was called “Newhall Ranch.” Good maps still show the boundaries of the Rancho San Francisco (Xavier, not to be confused with our northern neighbor San Francisco de Asis, which wasn’t a rancho) … and, on our southern border, the old Rancho San Fernando. There were “no man’s land” areas in between the old (privately owned) ranchos, where the U.S. government allowed people to homestead 160-acre parcels. Mentryville, for instance, was located in no man’s land between the San Francisco and San Fernando rancho boundaries, which is why so many different people were out there looking for oil. It wasn’t on either of the private rancho properties. With successful oil operations right next door, Atholl was determined to find oil on the Newhall Ranch, which eventually he did — transforming the Newhall Land and Farming Company from a family farming operation into a farming and oil concern.

BrianMay 13, 2010 at 11:54 am

Awesometown = ??? Historians will be scratching their heads!

Sean1978May 13, 2010 at 9:26 pm

Fantastic bit of historical research!

AndyMay 13, 2010 at 10:05 am
Rancho San Francisco Xavier = Rancho San Francisco = Newhall Ranch?
Leon WordenMay 14, 2010 at 2:03 am
Yes, Rancho San Francisco = Newhall Ranch, but today’s 21,000-acre Newhall Ranch project area is only a part of the original 48,000 acre Rancho San Francisco. It stretched halfway to Canyon Country (which is awesome in its own right). Henry bought the place in 1875 but if memory serves, it wasn’t called “Newhall Ranch” till after Atholl McBean took the helm of the company in the 1930s. The roughly 1,000-acre Rancho Camulos had already been broken off of it by that time, so it wasn’t quite the full 48,000 acres when it was called “Newhall Ranch.” Good maps still show the boundaries of the Rancho San Francisco (Xavier, not to be confused with our northern neighbor San Francisco de Asis, which wasn’t a rancho) … and, on our southern border, the old Rancho San Fernando. There were “no man’s land” areas in between the old (privately owned) ranchos, where the U.S. government allowed people to homestead 160-acre parcels. Mentryville, for instance, was located in no man’s land between the San Francisco and San Fernando rancho boundaries, which is why so many different people were out there looking for oil. It wasn’t on either of the private rancho properties. With successful oil operations right next door, Atholl was determined to find oil on the Newhall Ranch, which eventually he did — transforming the Newhall Land and Farming Company from a family farming operation into a farming and oil concern.
BrianMay 13, 2010 at 11:54 am
Awesometown = ??? Historians will be scratching their heads!
Sean1978May 13, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Fantastic bit of historical research!