19 Facts About Tongva people

The name Tongva is the most widely circulated term for these people and gained popularity in the late 20th century to refer to both groups.

However, a close-knit community of the Tongva people remained in contact with one another between Tejon Pass and San Gabriel township into the 20th century.

The historical Tongva people lands made up what is called "the coastal region of Los Angeles County, the northwest portion of Orange County and off-lying islands.

Many lines of evidence suggest that the Tongva are descended from Uto-Aztecan-speaking peoples who originated in what is Nevada, and moved southwest into coastal Southern California 3, 500 years ago.

Majority of Tongva people territory was located in what has been referred to as the Sonoran life zone, with rich ecological resources of acorn, pine nut, small game, and deer.

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The Tongva people understand time as nonlinear and there is constant communication with ancestors.

The following day, Cabrillo and his men, the first Europeans known to have interacted with the Gabrieleno Tongva people, entered a large bay on the mainland, which they named "Baya de los Fumos" on account of the many smoke fires they saw there.

Gaspar de Portola expedition in 1769 was the first contact by land to reach Tongva people territory, marking the beginning of Spanish colonization.

Landless and unrecognized, the Tongva people faced continued violence, subjugation, and enslavement under American occupation.

Some of the Tongva people were displaced to small Mexican and Native communities in the Eagle Rock and Highland Park districts of Los Angeles as well as Pauma, Pala, Temecula, Pechanga, and San Jacinto.

Tongva people's reported that there were a considerable number of people "in the colonies in the San Gabriel Valley, where they live like gypsies in brush huts, here today, gone tomorrow, eking out a miserable existence by days' work.

Tongva people lived in the main part of the most fertile lowland of southern California, including a stretch of sheltered coast with a pleasant climate and abundant food resources, and the most habitable of the Santa Barbara Islands.

The Tongva territory was the center of a flourishing trade network that extended from the Channel Islands in the west to the Colorado River in the east, allowing the people to maintain trade relations with the Cahuilla, Serrano, Luiseno, Chumash, and Mohave.

Situating their villages at these resource islands enabled the Tongva people to gather the plant products of two or more zones in close proximity.

Tongva people did not practice horticulture or agriculture, as their well-developed hunter-gatherer and trade economy provided adequate food resources.

Tongva people used the leaves of tule reeds as well as those of cattails to weave mats and thatch their shelters.

The Gabrieleno Tongva people now speak English but a few are attempting to revive their language by using it in everyday conversation and ceremonial contexts.

The Tongva people have challenged local development plans in the courts in order to protect and preserve some of their sacred grounds.

The Tongva people consider the springs, which flow at 22, 000 gallons per day, to be one of their last remaining sacred sites and they regularly make them the centerpiece of ceremonial events.