Ohlone Indians

The Ohlone ( 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 Ohlone were subject to the larger California genocide. Recent years have seen a renewed 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 various geographically distinct groups, most of which are still in their original home territory, though not all; none are currently federally recognized tribes. Members of the Tamien Nation 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 documented 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 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.