Sociopolitical Organization
The largest politically autonomous land-holding units in southcoastal California were tribelets, which consisted of one or more villages. The population of tribelets ranged from a few hundred to several thousand persons, depending on the richness of the locally available resources. Tribelet membership was based either on kinship (matrilineages or patrilineages) or political affiliation ("Big Man").
In tribelets where the lineage was the basic political unit, the lineage possessed all the necessary governmental procedures for the management of its public affairs including marriage regulation, rights of succession and inheritance, residence and kinship rules, the distribution of goods and resources, the observation of proper religious duties, and the recruitment of the necessary number of people for cooperative labor tasks or warfare. [NOTE: A lineage is a kin group whose members considered themselves biologically related because they can trace their descent in a direct line from a founding ancestor]. In multi-lineal tribelets, lineages were frequently politically allied into clans, with each clan having its allotted territories. The office of clan leader was generally hereditary through the male line, although among the Luiseño women occasionally served as clan leader. The tribelet's principal chief was usually a member of the most dominant clan, and major political, ritual, religious, and economic events would be held or articulated from his or her primary village residence.
Every village had at least one headperson or chief who was the moral authority over the people. In some areas, a chief ruled over a single village with such a village constituting the entire tribelet. In other areas, a chief might rule over a group of villages. Some villages had more than one leader and some areas along the coast were so heavily populated that the chiefs of several villages would form a council with one being made "big chief." Each village had its own hunting and gathering areas, the rights to which were jealously guarded and any infringement might lead to war.
The position of chief was inherited and both women and men have been reported among some of the coastal groups. A chief exercised power over many areas of daily life: gathering and dispensing of food, caring for the poor, feeding and entertaining visitors, declaring war and planning battles, as well as establishing dates for fiestas and inviting other villages to attend. Chiefs lived in relative luxury: their house and household were conspicuously large, clothing extravagant, and possession of signs of office, food stores, and wealth goods greater than others. A chief was usually released from ordinary labor and was supported by the community. Assisting a village chief was a series of officials who also were of high social status.
Society in south coastal California was a class society with at least three hierarchically ordered classes: an elite (often having a specialized language); a middle class (fairly well-to-do and long-established lineages); and a third class (everyone else). A person's class depended on family relationships, on knowledge and skills, and on wealth. Most people fell into the middle class while members of the village from the most important craft specialists groups, the shaman-doctors, the chiefs and their immediate families belonged to the upper class and were privileged in both position and wealth. Upper class people in each village often chose a partner from a village up to 100 miles away, creating networks that helped to unite groups within linguistic units as well as between linguistic units.
Among the Chumash society was further stratified by craft guilds: canoe builders, basket makers, bead makers, hunters, woodworking and weapon makers to name a few. Such guilds operated on a profit motive. Craft specialization encouraged the manufacture of more goods than could be used in one locale, thus leading to an increase in trade between villages and between nations. Such interregional exchange networks were facilitated by the use of shell-bead money. Additionally, because each local community was vulnerable to unexpected food shortages, elaborate trade networks were in place to distribute foodstuffs &exotic materials over large areas. To facilitate such redistribution, social organization often allowed for marriages between villagers living in different tribelets and different environments. Such marriages promoted economic interdependence in periods of scarcity. Chiefs stood at the center of such systems, often marrying several women, each from a village located in a different environmental zone. It was ties of reciprocity that were the political cement that held the entire economic systems of the various coastal groups together in the face of environmental hazards and common enemies.
For additional information on the Southern
Coastal Region,
please select a topic most applicable to your interests:
Languages | Subsistence | Settlement Patterns | Religion
Northwest
Coast | Northeast | Central
Coast and Central Valley
East of the Sierra Divide | Interior Desert | Southern Coastal
Native Peoples of California - Topics
To comment on this page please send email to Chuck Smith at crsmith@cabrillo.cc.ca.us.
Page last updated: 23 August 1999