Chumash Food Before the Europeans

When a certain community lives near in the body of water such as ocean, sea or river, there is a greater probability that many people will rely on the resources that it gives. The main job of this community is no doubt, fishing. Because of the early development of canoe designs, the fishermen and other coastal people could acquire fish and other aquatic animals that can be found in the deep sea.

Shellfish is one of the easiest and most abundant sea animals that can be found in the ocean. It has a very good taste and gives a lot of nutrients in the body. There are many varieties of shellfish. However, those who were favored and most preferred by many are those who grew in tidal zones. Shellfish is plentiful especially during winter until spring. When they are closer to the shore, it can be easily collected and gathered by the society. There are other species that can be consumed by the people as well and these are mussels, abalone and clams.

Chumash Food Facts

Animals that live in the ocean like otters and seals were once believed to be the primary food of the tribal people. But according to recent reports, there were evidences that those tribes have been trading with their ocean products to the terrestrial products from the other tribes. It is a fact though that most of the ancient men knew how to catch fishes but what made the coastal tribe different from them is that they can catch bigger fishes like the swordfish. Swordfishes and other big fishes that live in the sea are very hard to catch.

Even the technology we had today cannot be compared with the tomol plank canoe. The tomol plank canoe was one of their greatest ancient thing they had and created. It not only catches those impossible to catch fish but also it can be used in facilitating the trade routes between the villages.

Chumash Natural Resources

Chumash Food can be divide into two. There were those interior Chumash who only depends in terrestrial resources. The other one was called the coastal Chumash who greatly depends in the water resources. Before the arrival of the Europeans to the land of the coastal Chumash, they really do not rely on resources other than the maritime. This also is the case of the interior Chumash except they do not rely on any other sources but what they can gather on the land. Nevertheless, all of them can devour the same resources.

Deer is the most essential and the mainland mammal the Chumash hunt. These deer are hunted anywhere in the region. The interior Chumash give great importance to the deer. They even had special strategy for hunting practice for them. This group wore deer costumes and scattered in the places with some other animals until the hunters can use their arrows to them. Those coastal Chumash also hunted deer but they can only hunt a few. The most available land meat they had were from rabbits and birds.

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