Spring/Summer 2018

Spring/Summer 2018 Point Lobos Board of Directors Sue Addleman | Docent Administrator Kit Armstrong | President Chris Balog Jacolyn Harmer Ben Heinrich | Vice President Karen Hewitt Loren Hughes Diana Nichols Julie Oswald Ken Ruggerio Jim Rurka Joe Vargo | Secretary John Thibeau | Treasurer Cynthia Vernon California State Parks Liaison Sean James | sean.james@parks.ca.gov A team of State Parks staff, Point Lobos Docents and community volunteers take a much-needed break after Executive Director restoring coastal bluff habitat along the South Shore. Anna Patterson | anna@pointlobos.org Development Coordinator President’s message 3 Tracy Gillette Ricci | tracy@pointlobos.org Kit Armstrong Docent Coordinator and School Group Coordinator In their footsteps 4 Melissa Gobell | melissa.gobell@parks.ca.gov Linda Yamane Finance Specialist Shell of ages 7 Karen Cowdrey | karen@pointlobos.org Rae Schwaderer ‘iim ‘aa ‘ishxenta, makk rukk 9 Point Lobos Magazine Editor Reg Henry | regwriter43@gmail.com Louis Trevino Native plants and their uses 13 Front Cover Chuck Bancroft Linda Yamane weaves a twined work basket of local native plant materials. This bottomless basket sits on the rim of a From the editor 15 shallow stone mortar, most often attached to the rim with tar. Reg Henry Photo: Neil Bennet. Notes from the docent log 16 Photo Spread, pages 10-11 Compiled by Ruthann Donahue Illustration of Rumsen life by Linda Yamane. Acknowledgements 18 Memorials, tributes and grants Crossword 20 Ann Pendleton Our mission is to protect and nurture Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, to educate and inspire visitors to preserve its unique natural and cultural resources, and to strengthen the network of Carmel Area State Parks. pointlobos.org PO Box 221789 | Carmel, CA | 93922 | 866.338.7227 President’s message by Kit Armstrong 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the Point Lobos This year, the foundation will support California State Foundation. Jim Fife and Bob Culbertson, both State Park Parks and the Reserve by providing $77,000 of funding for Rangers at Point Lobos, established the organization — trail improvements, $143,000 for volunteer docent program then called the Point Lobos Natural History Association and school program support, $207,000 for natural resource — in 1978. protection including habitat restoration and research, $90,000 for regional work to benefit Point Lobos and At that time, the board of directors was comprised $85,000 for park maintenance and educational programs mostly of rangers and their spouses with a few frequent like Summer Adventures, PORTS, Junior Rangers. visitors from the local community. Community members included Pat Hughes and Ferd Ruth, both local teachers We also made a great leap who had brought classes to Point Lobos for many years, forward in hiring the foundation’s and Fran Ciesla, who was recognized for her knowledge of first executive director. Anna natural history and for her artistic drawings of flora and Patterson has been with the fauna. There was $2,736.93 in the treasury. organization since 2012, raising almost $2.5 million and overseeing Those funds were used to develop and expand tremendous growth in the breadth interpretive materials and to form a docent organization. of support and services provided Jud Vandevere, a local teacher, environmentalist and past to our community. She brings 17 summer naturalist at Point Lobos, offered the first class for years of experience working within leadership teams 20 prospective docents in 1981. for nonprofits and currently serves on the board of the California League of Park Associations. A lot has changed since then. The docent organization now includes 210 active volunteers on the ground 365 As we look back on the accomplishments and growth days of the year, adding to the experience for visitors. over the past 40 years — a small blip in time, really — it feels The number of people visiting Point Lobos has grown important to look back even further: to the unique cultural exponentially, and with that, a new and complex set of history and heritage that is embodied in Point Lobos and challenges in stewardship of the Reserve. And the Point the surrounding areas. We are just one, incredibly small, Lobos Foundation is now contributing hundreds of part of a much longer story. thousands of dollars each year to preserve and protect Point Lobos, thanks to your commitment and generosity. This special issue touches on that rich cultural history, and we thank each of the contributing authors. We also thank each of you for your ongoing dedication. Above left: Kit Armstrong, President of the Point Lobos Foundation and dedicated Point Lobos docent. Above right: Anna Patterson, Executive Director. Left: Restoration Ecologist Julia Fields working with a team of docent and community volunteers to remove invasive french broom from Hudson Meadow.. 3 In their footsteps Part of the Reserve’s beauty dwells in its ancient human past by Linda Yamane It’s no secret that Point Lobos is a place of spectacular natural enough evidence to support or reject beauty, where land meets sea and plant and animal species this theory, but we do know that the abound. But it is also a rich cultural landscape steeped in ancient Rumsen and Esselen have entirely human history, the evidence embedded in the soil of every inspiring different linguistic origins. It is the meadow, trail, rocky cliff and hillside. Rumsen people, who controlled the Monterey Peninsula, lower Carmel What was life like for the native peoples of Point Lobos? Who River valley and Carmel Bay environs were they? How did they live? These are questions dear to my heart, in 1770, whose lives I offer some brief and I have spent decades researching the answers — for some of insights into on these pages. these people were my ancestors. It was spring of 1770 when Portolá No one knows how long my Rumsen ancestors had been living and his men made their well-known here when the Spanish began settling the area in 1770. There is second visit to Monterey and Carmel evidence of local human activity dating as far back as 10,000 years, Bay, this time recognizing the port but I don’t know if those earlier people were genetically related they had searched for several months to my Rumsen community (also called Rumsien). The term refers earlier. At the mouth of San José not only to the tribal entity described here but also to the Ohlone Creek, they were greeted by a large (formerly called Costanoan) language spoken by them and some of group of unarmed native men. About their neighbors. 40 of them came forward, offering One theory suggests that the Esselen, also indigenous to baskets of toasted seed meal and Monterey County, were an earlier wave of people who were later some feather-tipped rods. Their leader pushed inland and that these older sites are theirs. I don’t have walked ahead of the others, his body 4 At left: Linda paddles a tule boat she created for the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Turning the Tide” summer deck program. Photo by Tim Thomas. At right: Rumsen villages in and around the mouth of Carmel Bay. Illustration by Linda Yamane. Pronunciation Guide Achista: AH-chees-tah Rumsen: ROOM-sen Tucutnut: TOO-koot-noot Echilat: ECH-ee-lot Rumsien: ROOMS-yen yaayariwx: YAH-yah-reewh Esselen: ES-seh-len Shokronta: SHO-krone-tah Yohenes: YO-hen-es Ishxenta: EESH-hen-tah Tatlun: TAT-loon 5 painted a shiny black. Surely this For special feasts and celebrations, she and other women would was the Rumsen captain, Tatlun. have filled baskets with foods such as cooked acorn, roasted seeds and seed cakes, bulbs, fresh greens, mussels, and roasted rabbit, squirrel Tatlun was about 45 years old and or sea birds. Wild game was slow-cooked in earth ovens. If in season, had likely been yaayariwx (tribal steelhead were speared by fishermen in the rivers and placed around leader) for some 20 years or so. A cooking fires, adding their aroma to the festive atmosphere. These hereditary position, he would have occasions included storytelling, games of chance, song and dance, with become leader of this multi-village dancers dressed in elaborate regalia specialized for each type of dance. tribal group at the death or disability of his father. He was responsible for Today, Ishxenta still has massive deposits of dark, ashy soil and rocks the well-being of roughly 500 people, from past cooking fires and roasting pits. Acres of this soil glitter with who at various times inhabited bits of abalone shells, pried from the rocks in huge numbers with whale five permanent villages and several rib tools. These iridescent abalone shells were valued for their jewel-like seasonal work encampments. The beauty. They were patiently shaped and drilled to form pendants, or five Rumsen villages were Ishxenta, attached with tar as surface ornamentation. Tucutnut, Achista, Echilat and Shokronta. Each village was more Through trade, abalone shells made their way throughout California like a broad district than a dense and beyond. Mussel shells, too, are abundant in the soil. Besides population center, and Point Lobos containing an important food, the mussels’ sturdy shells were carved was part of Ishxenta. into crescent shaped fishhooks. When Tatlun was baptized in Imagine living at Ishxenta. Here, surrounded by nature’s beauty, were 1775, he and his family were living marine and fresh water food sources that kept the Rumsen people well- at Ishxenta. But a year earlier, when nourished and thriving. In numbers unimaginable today were nesting three of his children were baptized, sea birds, runs of schooling fish, and noisy seals and sea lions. Seaweed the family was living at Tucutnut, was harvested and dried, salt was harvested and the nearby Carmel located near the confluence of River lagoon drew additional life to its shores.

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