Not unlike other researchers interested in the Chumash, I too had taken Chumash surnames for granted, but then I began to ask the above questions, searching lists of names for patterns and latent meanings, although only taking a cursory look into the problem. The results of this initial study are the subject of this paper. My findings are not offered as "final," but rather "indicative" in that I have not attempted a comprehensive analysis. I present them here, however, because of three reasons I consider to be important in California Indian studies: (1) they provide some indication as to how Chumash personal names were derived in aboriginal times; (2) they offer important insights into the post-Mission period of acculturation (1830's-1870's), a subject about which we currently know little (Blackburn 1975:4); and (3) the patterns by which post-Mission Hispanic names were derived have applicability for other Mission Indian peoples in California—something which I hope my fellow researchers will find of interest.

Not wishing to see such confusion continue, it is my purpose here to attempt to clarify what is known from what is assumed, what is explicit from what is implicit, and what the limited data at hand currently support in the way of hypotheses on who these people were and what language they spoke. Since the nature of the problem focuses upon linguistic identities and ethnic boundaries, the organization of this paper will follow accordingly.

Whatever the explanation, the discovery of a charmstone in waters off California represents not only a unique find, but perhaps one with special importance as we come to know more about California's past.

Sculptured in the round, the unusual stone object pictured here (Fig. 1) was recovered some ten years ago on San Clemente Island. The finder, Mr. Michael Hammer, discovered it on the surface near a small cave, high above Seal Cove, along the west coast of the island. No less than ten small shell middens are known along the tops of the cliffs on the seaward edge of Seal Cove (McKusick and Warren 1959:122), but unfortunately the effigy was not directly associated with any archaeological midden in the area. Mr. Hammer noted, however, that midden debris was nearby. The specimen has been kindly loaned to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History by Mr. Hammer for the description presented here.

For more than a century, the story of the "Lone Woman" of San Nicolas Island has captured the interest of scholars and laymen alike. The tale was popularized because of the romanticism of a Robinson Crusoe sort of existence by a woman abandoned (18367-1853) on a tiny island off the California coast. The details of her culture have been carefully sifted out to provide at least some understanding of the Nicoleno by such scholars as Kroeber (1925:633-635), Meighan and Eberhart (1953), and Heizer and Elsasser (1973), the latter researchers bringing together all of the important historic accounts concerning the woman's story.

Blackburn (1975a), while researching the ethnographic notes of John P. Harrington, located an Inesedo Chumash account of the 1824 revolt against the missions. Apparently, the note had been recorded in 1914, some 90 years or so after this important historic event had taken place. The consultant was Maria Solares, a nonparticipant, who had passed on to Harrington what she had heard from her older relatives and friends.

Rather than confirm or reject their model, this paper will attempt to expand it, based on direct experience in Chumash marine architecture, craft handling capabilities, and comments by two Santa Barbara master boat builders who took part in the reconstruction of our Chumash plank canoe, Helek (Hudson 1976, 1977; Hudson, Timbrook, and Rempe1978; Howorth 1980). Our experiences provide a slightly different view of the variables involved and their relative importance, but are offered constructively to clarify various aspects of the Jobson-Hildebrandt model. It will be shown that larger dugouts were not more seaworthy than smaller ones, and that the reasons for large dugout use in offshore waters were associated with their greater cargo capacity.

Narratives which concern shamanism among the Gabrielino of southern California are always important, since so little of this aspect of their culture has survived. It was thus with great delight that I discovered one such narrative among some notes on Gabrielino material culture that I had ordered from the Smithsonian Institution. The account, recorded by John P. Harrington, pertains to shamanism at Mission San Gabriel and Santa Catalina Island, and its rich detail provides the opportunity to make comparative studies. I have lightly edited the account, and at the end of the narrative the reader will find a few notes made where confusion or contradiction existed, or elaboration was felt justified.

Although Harrington's notes on Costanoan astronomy are unfortunately brief and cryptic, they nonetheless indicate that these people shared in a number of concepts about the sky found among the Chumash to the south and the Pomo to the north. Given the complexity of astronomical knowledge known for both of these groups, it would suggest that the centrally positioned Costanoan very probably possessed a similar complexity. Perhaps additional Harrington notes will be found to provide further insight into this question.

There can be little doubt that religious beliefs (and the ritual practices associated with them) constituted exceptionally important elements in the daily lives of the native peoples of south-central California. Complex mythologies, elaborate cosmographies, and interlocking belief systems served to link both the individual and the community with the realm of the sacred, and in turn were given dramatic expression (in both concrete and abstract form) by shamans, priests, and various other ritualists. The primary setting for these community-oriented religious activities was the "fiesta," a complex of events which also constituted an important medium for significant social, political, economic, and aesthetic interaction (Blackburn 1974; Bean 1972). These ceremonial occasions appear in fact to have drawn many different communities into a coherent yet flexible network of interacting subsystems that transcended normal ethnic, political, and linguistic boundaries. It seems clear to us that a reconstruction of this system, involving both a delimitation of the constituent components and a description of their integration, should be a major goal for future ethnohistoric research in the region; however, it seems equally clear that a necessary prerequisite to the achievement of this goal must be a general overview of the ideological bases (i.e., ritual practices and mythological beliefs) which served as the primary rationale for ceremonial interaction. We hope that the present paper will serve as an initial step toward the ultimate achievement of just such an overview.