Pre-Settlement Foundations of a Maritime Trading Tradition

Gloria Bogdan, PhD, California State University Fullerton with Prof. Jerry King, University of California at Irvine

As the Western skies glow with the warm reflections of the setting sun, traditional trade routes and settlements, now fully developed cities on the Pacific Ocean Rim, bear witness to a heritage of the First Peoples to inhabit the new world as explorers of a promised new life of abundance.

The history of maritime activity with its settlements and trading opportunities do in fact reflect most positively on the rich and rewarding insights first realized by those peoples that preceded our modern, globalized, economic engine that is so representative of the Pacific Rim Nations, if not the economies of this modern world.

As the first inhabitants to the new land crossed land bridges, paddled dug out canoes and floated on rafts of reeds and straw to explore a vision, they discovered and settled in places they recognized for the value and opportunities they would seek out to insure for the needs of their people.

These places, the rivers, inlets, bays, estuaries as well as the productive ocean waters of this vast and overwhelming sea, produced as they do today, the great abundance of resources that provided the source of nourishment and trade that serve the needs of these newly settled villages. Each successive generation of inhabitants realizing the values seen and experiences by those who lived in these places before them, confirmed the importance and reflection of successful commerce and trading activity that has flourished and expanded, reflecting successful maritime investments.

It is the trading activity that enabled native peoples to survive and prosper, trading that provided for those peoples living on isolated islands, inland forest, and coastal peninsulas, and surrounding bays and estuaries is replicated in the trans ocean shipments that voyage to distant ports from what was once a meager beach, inlet or bay serving the same functional purpose that is the epitome of this grander world, a microcosm of this maritime dependent universe is still depended upon in our modern earthly state of human existence, thus building on our past to insure our future.

Thank you to Prof. Jerry King of UCI for writing that fine above introduction for this presentation.

Shown here is a we-ut or also known as a reed boat used by the ancestral Acajchemen (Juaneno Nation) tribal members to navigate the Pacific Ocean coastal waters and fresh waterways. My interview with Acajchemen Tribal Manager, Mrs. Joyce Perry and Acajchemen Chief David Belardes, enlightened me about this very durable watercraft. This we-ut is on display at the Blas Aguilar Adobe tribal museum in San Juan Capistrano, California. It is about 20 feet long.

The tule reeds to construct this boat came from an estuary called Newport Back Bay. One needed special tule reeds. They had to be harvested from a special place and at a certain time of the year. There is cordage rope binding the boat which has been covered with asphaltum from the beach tarred over to prevent water rot and to keep the cordage from cutting into the bound reeds. The Acajchemen would fish from this boat but the catch would have to be a manageable size. No large sharks or whale.

This boat type was created by professional specialists. Families who could afford to pay the artisan boat builder would have one. This one was taken down to the beach and launched. It carried 3 persons easily. On the oars are carved zigzagged patterns. To recreate this boat would cost $12,000.00 today. Other types of ocean going boats were created by these fine coastal American Indians.

Displayed here is an abalone fishhook handmade by Acajchemen artisan Domingo Belardes from the shell of a large red abalone from the California Pacific Ocean coastline. There were several variations in use over the centuries. Next to it is an exceptionally large 100 year old red abalone shell measuring 10-3/8th inches across. And finally a carved piece of abalone shell made into a pendent 300 years ago.

These are quohog clam shells from the Boston, Massachusetts harbor and three reproduction that were made with a diamond drill. These beads would have been made into great belts that would be used to commemorate important events, like peace treaties. The beads would be used as money among the northern east coast tribes.

Shells as money are the most commonly written about artifacts by archaeologists studying the Pacific southern coastal tribes. Here is a sampling of beads from several California Indian nations.

This photograph shows 3 cog stone reproductions created by artist Scott Findley.

and one authentic cog stone from Ellen Woods. Even though no one alive knows exactly what the cog stones were used for by the ancient First People of several thousands years ago in Orange County, California, we can surmise that there was for some of the cog stone creators a possible ocean relationship.

The late Armand Labbe’, Chief Curator of the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California, told me that several we were viewing were recreation of fish vertebras and therefore could have been used as a “sympathetic request” to the fish spirit to have the live fish give up their lives to feed the puny humans. There are many other important spiritual connections with water and what inhabits it among the many First People nations.

The ancient turquoise mosaic piece here is on a Glycymeris traded up from the Mexican seashore to the Anasazi Indians in the Four Corners area of the of America and then fashioned into this pendent over 1,200 years ago.

The pieces of Glycymeris seashell are next to the pendent are from the same time period and the same Anasazi Indians who sliced the seashell to make bracelets. Notice that the umbone (the beak or apex of the shell) is present and it is naturally close to the shape of a bird’s head. The human artists then carved it to be obviously a bird’s head. Birds fly and go right up to the ear of the Creator and carry our requests for us. A whole glycymeris shell (common name is “bittersweet”) is also displayed here.

What we see here are beads from the California Indian ancestors. These body adornments that are commonly called olive shells, worm shells, and cone shells. Many other types of shells were also used for the same purpose.

It is important to have definitions for understanding trade and what is happening from a cultural perspective. Generally speaking there is “intra-tribal trade” and that is done within the tribe---among the people who are part of the tribe. There is “inter-tribal trade” and that is done between different tribes. No matter what you have read---trading does not require a certain age. Children are often fine traders and used in many cultures world-wide that need them as the go-betweens of cultural gender restrictions. Both genders make great traders. American Indian women were not confined to intra-tribal trade and would venture out if they so desired. It most often was the men because of the women having the close care of the children. But remember we lived in extended families and there were plenty others to take care of children if the mother had to tend to other matters unencumbered. What makes a good trader is not gender or age specific but instead is in the intellect and presentation.

There is an archaeological site we will use for a sample model of normal habitation patterns and for emphasizing the importance of maritime resources in the lives of the various California Indian tribes: CA-SDI-811, that is called the Red Beach Site. It has been in use for 3,000 years plus (2200 b.c.e. -900 c.e.) . This is a site that the ancestors of the Luiseno tribe had in the Las Flores Creek region of Camp Pendleton, California. This is like the many other residential sites that were shoreline and exploited by the humans. It was occupied, then abandoned and then again re-occupied. (Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 1999, page 72)

What would have been the reasons for abandoning the site? It could have been that the nearby resources of food, shelter, and tool materials might have become exhausted and needed to lay fallow, another reason could be that it was time to leave while the area was still livable but closing in on being unhealthy due to refuse, etc. We know that the seashells would still have bits of meat and other material stuck to the shell and that the bacteria that would live on this and it would become part of the process of rotting the leftover food remains . This would be harmful to the humans. But as the area re-established its natural supplies and became clean of any refuse the healthy life style could be regained. The fact that it was re-occupied shows us the importance of coastal sites.

There was a high density intact midden identified by the artifact and shellfish densities. What also was found was distributions of “flaked stone debitage, shell and other faunal remains.” (PCAS Quarterly, Volume 35, Number 1, Winter 1999, page 59) The richness of easily accessed ocean food of 13 taxa of fish, sea otter, and pinnipeds was in common with all other coastal sites. In addition to food from the sea the vertebrate assemblage also had a wide variety of “terrestrial resources of deer, coyote, dog, jackrabbit, cottontail or brush rabbit, ground squirrel, pocket gopher, woodrat and others.” The fresh water pound turtle was also consumed. Archaeologists stated that …”the highly diversified invertebrate assemblage consisted of 18 mutually exclusive taxa from a wide range of habitats. Despite the high diversity, only a few species (Little Bean clam, Venus clams, scallops) dominate the assemblage in terms of abundance. The overall assemblage indicates a pronounced emphasis on the exploitation of sandy shores with a moderate exploitation of bays and/or marine estuaries. Rocky shore species were present”. (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 1999, page 64).

The coastal sites offered manageable access to other human settlements so that trade routes by water were used extensively moving all sorts of goods and ideas about within a timely consideration and for California tribes before Spanish occupation it would been in safety. It was unheard of to have the vicious wars that would have one tribe annihilating other because there was essentially no shortages of life sustaining goods. Therefore there would be no intelligent reason to waste life and time on warfare. The weather would have been another factor considered by these American Indians---mild and relatively predictable. It is not to say that this area was without danger from the weather like floods, but on the whole it was stable. Fires started by lightening would be devastating from time to time.

When studying the various sites of Las Flores Creek it was found that due to its overall richness in the staffs of life for the humans that “were visiting this part of the coast by 8,000 years ago were utilizing a mixed subsistence strategy emphasizing bay and estuary habitats for shell fish and fish exploitation.” … They also hunted terrestrial mammals of various size-classes. It appears that people also utilized the ridgetops as short-term based camps during multiple seasons. More sites that date to that early period may have existed within the floodplain but probably have been deeply buried by alluvial sediments and at this time are not available for us to research. What we do see is that there begins an “intensive exploitation of Donax clams, demonstrating a shift away from bay and estuary habitat utilization to one focused on sandy- shore species” (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 1999, pages 77 & 78). Time changes everything which also applies to humans experiencing life.

It is important to know about other aspects of human activity that led to trading routes by sea and by land that were different from the use of seashell or sea animal or fish or previously mentioned fauna. The trading that happens, whether it goes one way or the other is of most importance in the goods getting around. The maritime trade will give rise to the land trade and visa versa. It is therefore very important for us to examine the land trade routes as well as the maritime ones. I am listing here briefly what else was a trade item or trade related and I will also include trade of the maritime origin:

From site Ora-197, which is part of the Newport Bay, California area. The cottonwood lithic (meaning human manipulated chipped stone) resemble finds of projectile points from the Great Basin area in style. This would be a triangular with concave base points. This is an artifact that was “manufactured from obsidian which was probably brought in from the desert (Great Basin area is desert). …Trade was frequent between the Cahuilla (desert American Indians around Palm Springs) and Gabrielino (sea coastal American Indians around Los Angeles, Orange County, Long Beach) and that the former would trade foodstuffs and natural resources (e.g. obsidian) for beads (shells beads and other like items made from the steatite stone from Catalina Island and manufactured by the later) and asphaltum” (from the sea shore oozing up through the sand). (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 18, Nos. 2 & 3, April & July, 1982, pages 26 & 27).

It is common knowledge that obsidian was a highly desired trade material. Obsidian flakes and projectile points have been found in all areas of California in varying amounts. This is also true to the adjacent Channel Islands. The obsidian came from the Coso Volcanic Field and was probably exchanged in finished tool forms. The debris of small pressure flakes found in the final destination indicate that these tools were repeatedly reshapened as was needed because of a different purpose or of breakage. The coastal Chumash Indians had direct contact with several of the inland tribes that had access to the Coso obsidian and obtained much of it from the Yokuts. …What was happening in the trading is called by archaeologists, “down-the-line exchange practices”. When looking at the raw material used for tool making it has been found that obsidian is relatively rare on the coast (because there was no local source) and various cherts were used as the dominant tool material. Obsidian artifacts were placed in burials so we know that it was highly valued. These obsidian tools were also used in trade of beautiful and lush sea otter pelts. We should mention that obsidian artifacts have also been found in Nevada and that the trade in this material was as far as Oregon. The procurement and exchange crossed numerous tribal territories and is indicative of active trade between the coastal people and the Great Basin inhabitants (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3, Summer, 2001, pages 27, 28, 37, 39, 40, 41).

Bead style from the Coachella Valley (inland central California) have been extensively studied to make notations of what was found in the coastal California regions. What is known is that if the style did not match it was obvious that there had been the trading of whole sea shells between the two groups, either directly or indirectly, which then the receiving group would make their own desired end product. And then there is the third comparison: the desert dwellers, who are a different group from the coastal and central California Indians and they chose to create the beads according to their own dictates since they did not match either previous groups. (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2 & 3, Spring & Summer, 2002, pages 47 – 64).

Beautiful red argillite beads have been found in sites in coastal Orange County, California, as well as inland. What is known is that the raw stone source is rare and occurs only in the outcroppings of the Sespe formation which is in the foothill region inland. The question begged here is whether or not the coastal Indians went inland and traded for the raw material or did they trade for the finished beads? Another question that includes the trading concept is that did the inland Indians come with the raw materials to the coast or did they come with the finished beads? Some scholars have a hypothesis that which ever way the trade between the humans was traversing that the finished product is what traded along. Why? Because the coastal Indians would have been carrying unfinished chunks or pebbles of rock for over 20 miles to get back home; it really is conveyance sensible to carry finished beads and not heavier chunks. Quote, ”It is far more likely that the coastal people received the finished items from the inland populations who traveled to the coastal villages to trade.”…What was traded in return…we are not sure but it more than likely was an “unknown perishable item” (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 1, February, 2002, pages 1 - 11).

Going back to maritime resources, the Yokut tribe had access to fresh water fish from the Kern

River or Buena Vista Lake. The fish, a hardhead minnow (MylopharodonU U conocephalus)U U and other species type would be dried and then traded with Western Mohave Desert Indian tribes. It is known that there was trading of these dried fresh water fish with the coastal Santa Barbara area Chumash Indians for ocean products. The Chumash were known to be actively trading with the Mohave Desert Indians (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4, October, 1984, page 51).

The Indians in the Antelope Valley were at the cross-roads of major east – west and north-south trade routes. We surmise that the Antelope Valley Indians acted as “middlemen” for these trade routes. What was occurring here was the overlapping of trade goods (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4, October, 1984, page 35).

This is taken from PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3, Summer, 2001, pages 46 ,47, 52), “ shells, often referred to as tooth or tusk shells because of their narrow cylindrical shape are hollow-shelled gastropods belonging to the Class Scaphopoda. Two types of Dentalium shells live along the Pacific Coast. … The Indian money tusk (D. pretiosum) ranges from to southern or Baja California…A second species, the Six-sided tusk (D. neohexagonum) ranges geographically from Monterey Bay to Baja California…..Dentalium shell ornaments were used as far north as the Yukon River and the south-central coast of Alaska. In southeast Alaska, the Yakutat Tlingit also reportedly obtained Dentalium shells by trade. Dentalium shells were available only along the west coast of in British Columbia, from where they were traded “throughout the Cascadian mountain range and the high plains of central ….This long distance trade began as much as 3,500 years ago. … There was a widespread use and exchange of Dentalium shells by California Indians.

Dentalium shells were the primary form of money in northwestern California, where they were abundant, but gradually gave way to clam disk and other types of bead money among the more southerly tribes

…Native American tribes of northwest California obtained Dentalium shells from the Puget Sound area.” Dentalium beads were also found on the Channel Islands. Just looking at San Miguel Island there was a recovery of 40 Dentalium shell beads from a 6,600 year-old midden and …”this provided evidence for a short-term specialized occupation focused on general maritime foraging, including an unusual emphasis on collecting and manufacturing Dentalium beads… .” . A beautiful stone of cryotocrystalline quartz with the coloration of red but can also be yellow, green, grayish-blue, and brown with a dull luster that is known as Jasper is a rare source material for whatever artifact the Indian wanted to make from it like knives, drills, and projectile points. It is rarely found and then it is in very small quantity. In southern California it can be in regions of the Mojave Desert and Colorado River areas that are of ancient volcanic activity. Tomato Springs is a site that had some of this jasper and is located Orange County California inland. Whatever was found there had to be transported a minimum of 175 km (about 100 miles) and more than likely a great deal farther following prehistoric trails. It took a great deal of effort to acquire the stone in any amount of bulk. The trade was between the inland desert Indians and the Coastal Indians. (Cottrell, Marie G., American Antiquity, 50 (4) , 1985, pages 833 - 849, 1985) I spoke to an Indian Elder who had a conversation with me about 10 years ago regarding artifact pieces that were beautiful to look at. I wanted to find petrified wood projectile points and points made from ancient Chinese pottery that were found washed upon the shoreline of the Northwest Coast Indians. She told me that her family had some points made from the Jasper that came from Orange County. It was brought up in trade that her ancestors were involved with. They used the ocean as their “highway” and after acquiring several beautiful points among other items they then traded for other goods as they came back to their Chumash village.

Trading could also have its negative influence on the Native First People . We can look to the Southeast of our United States and find great nations with large populations that controlled trade before contact with Europeans. Trade routes carried both ordinary implements and exotic curiosities. Over these long established networks one would find such items as white tail deer skins. Because the First People were so enamored by the European goods they abandoned their cultural laws and spirituality to always have more to trade with the Europeans. There was wholesale slaughter of the deer so that in a short time there were none left for the daily needs of the Indians. ( Krech, III, Shepard, The Ecological Indian, W.W. Norton & Company Press, 1999, pages 152 & 153)

Carrying that theme a bit farther, here is a quote, “Economic and political motives often propelled Indians to use fire aggressively, as against traders and trappers like David Thompson and Kit Carson, who trespassed and poached, threatening the new Indian economic livelihood. The Cree set fire to their own territory against trespassing Assiniboine hunters, hoping to drive them back to their own territory. Indians near Fort Garry, angry at the implications of a merger of fur trading companies for the favorable exchange rates they had been receiving in a period of competition, burned grasslands to keep bison at a distance and starve the traders. In other instances, Indians burned other native people’s hunting territory to force them farther away or burned near a post to prevent hunting and enhance the value of their own provisions. The strategy sometimes backfired: In 1781 the Cree and Assiniboine set fires so that they alone would have provisions to trade, but drove bison so far away that they were compelled to beg for food.” (Krech III, Shepard, The Ecological Indian, W.W. Norton & Company Press, 1999, page108).

Somehow there is a preconceived notion that the maritime trade routes ended at different earlier times and often did not last long enough for the Europeans to have witnessed or participated in. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rodriguez Cabrillo came in 1542 anchored off of Point Mugu. It wasn’t long before close to 20 Indians paddled over to do a lively trade with his crew. The had sea-otter skins and other animals that they offered for iron implements and beads which they knew about and desired.

This tells me that these Indians had traded with Europeans before. These Canalino Indians had long acquired their needed commodities through trade. Such items as fishing line made from sea-grass or sea-weed fiber, fish hooks made from bone or shells, shellfish as food, and much more. These coastal Indians also did open ocean travel to the Channel Islands and there they traded bear skins, , antelope, and other animal skins and parts, food stuffs that were not found on the islands for the much needed soapstone known to us as steatite. The Island Indians also traded sea-otter skins, which they had in abundance, and an edible root which is similar to the sweet potato of today to the land Indians (PCAS Quarterly, Vol.1, No. 2, April, 1965, pages 3, 7, 8).

A very interesting example of prehistoric exchange was found at a site known as Bolsa Chica near Huntington Beach, California. A Cowry shell, Little Deer Cowry, that was unearthed here certainly indicated that there had been trade that brought this Gulf of California seashell to the Southern California Indians. This was found at the famous cog stone site CA-ORA-83. In another burial site, which was not disclosed, a Cypraea moneta or Money Cowry was found in a prehistoric burial as part of a necklace. This cowry is from the South Seas. It has been inferred that there was a trade between the Canalinos Indians and the Polynesian Islanders. Some questions of how this trade item came here have arisen: did it come on a Manila Galleon? Did it come in the stomach of a sea critter that made the long journey? Possibly the stomach of a sea bird badly blown off course from its normal South Pacific territory? (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2 & 3, Spring & Summer, 1999, pages 81 – 86) Could it have come with Polynesian traders – it is no secret about their maritime skills as they traversed the Pacific Ocean. We could look at the Olmec Indians’ colossal head sculptures in Mexico and see Polynesian facial features. It is something to think about.

Here is another interesting maritime question: “Manila Galleons As Maritime Vectors?” the section title reads! …”These maritime expeditions may be the tip of the iceberg, poised atop a significantly larger number of undocumented maritime contacts between Native Californians and Spanish Manila galleon crews. Most chroniclers of Pacific Coast exploration and contact history have dismissed or under emphasized the importance of the Manila galleon trade linking the Philippines and New Spain, probably because the vast wealth carried by the trade was “in such secrecy that the rest of the world could know nothing of these argosies and their tempting cargoes. There are several reasons to suspect that Manila galleon contacts with Native Californians were more extensive than generally portrayed.

The Manila galleon trade, which began in 1565 c.e. and ended 250 years later in 1815 c.e. was carried on with surprising regularity from the beginning. Galleons came and went almost every year, the continuity of the line broken only by the chance of shipwreck or war. In some years, multiple galleons sailed for New Spain, an arduous voyage that averaged about six months. The galleons followed the prevailing westerly trade winds across the North Pacific, usually crossing between about 36 and 40 degrees north latitude. The Manila galleons were crammed to the gunwales with cargo, supplies, and passengers, with the deck a veritable barnyard of fresh meat, they were unusually prone to infestations of rats and other pests and were incubators for disease.” (PCAS Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3, Summer, 2001, page 14) I add that venereal diseases were also brought over and “traded” about.

Salt was a major commodity of trade. If the amount of salt destined for trading was changed or shifted to another consumer it became a very destructive force on the trading networks of nations. The Maya empire of Mexico used salt as an important trade item across Southern Mexico and northern for over 2,000 years. It has been given credit for being a building block of the great empire and also for its later destruction. It was moved about in all types of maritime conveyances and packed in over land trade routes to the remotest of villages.

Salty estuary waters would be evaporated through various methods and then made into salt loafs. There were salt trade networks that had almost exclusive turfs—one in the north and one in the south. In the northern area the salt came from coastal lagoons of the Yucatan plus from the Gulf and Caribbean coasts. There were large areas and long distanced trade networks to be serviced and the salt moved along the coasts and up rivers. (ARCHAEOLOGY magazine, Vol. 33, No. 4, July/August, 1980, pages 24 – 33)

Now to bring this into our modern time:

A newslink by Signal Staff Writer, Judy O”Rourke, 3/25/07, reports that a California Mission Indian has a DNA connection with an ancestor buried 1,000 years ago. This is among the many proofs that the current tribal people are descendants of the ancient first people. This not only gives us credibility to ownership of the land but also to its rich history that includes our trading and maritime past. Going further with the article there are ritual beads from a 1,000 year-old burial that were created by the Chumash and Gabrielino of the Santa Barbara Channel coast. “Ornaments were crafted from abalone, mussel, and clam shells. …The remains of the shellfish would not have been imported for food reasons (by these Indians). The items were traded as far east as the Rio Grande River in New Mexico….this Palmdale, California site, a Vanyume Indian village, could have been a stop along the trade network. It certainly is providing ‘insights into the patterns of the Mohave Desert Indians’. “…The discoveries shed light on the tribe’s relations with other tribes….’We know that they had a trade network up the coast and with the interior, and possibly with Colorado River (tribes) along the Coso Range (in the interior of California and one of the few sources of obsidian in California) , …we know of shell beads and shellfish remains. …Pieces of obsidian (black volcanic glass) were chipped into finished and rough arrowheads and knives. These tools were traded with the coastal tribes. ”

Was trading important? Yes, of course. People all over the world do all sorts of trading and always have. We, as humans, have infinite curiosity and desires of any item we feel will better the lives of our families and ourselves. In fact trading was so important that for one of the Great Plains tribes there was always an erect tipi complete with all the necessities to make a stay comfortable. This tipi was for the trader---whoever that might be and whenever that person(s) came to trade.

What also needs to be remembered is that the easiest way to get the trade goods from one point to another has always been by WATER!

Resources: Conversation with Acajchemen Tribal Manager Mrs. Joyce Perry Conversation with Chief David Belardes Acajchemen Nation Excellent reproductions by Artist Domingo Belardes, Acajchemen Photographs by Thomas Bogdan, JD PCAS Quarterlys, various magazines and books www.pcas.org Outstanding cog stone reproductions by Artist Scott Findley

As with all these wonderful experiences that happen in my life there are many persons to express deepest gratitude to: my husband who is always there for whatever is needed to be done…my heartfelt gratitude Counselor Bogdan. Deborah Martin for the immediate repair of this gorgeous Santa Domingo Pueblo (New Mexico) necklace made from an orange spondylus sea shell from Mexico as a trade item and to both her and Heisel Martin for delicious meals to keep us going while we needed to do research and create this presentation, Irene Morales of Ortega’s Trading Post for this necklace, Maria Trujillo for the immediate hemming of this dress by 4 inches because I have lost 45 pounds and didn’t think to try it on ahead of time so she would have been able to do it leisurely, Mrs. Joyce Perry for consultation and research books and articles, Chief David Belardes for consultation and making the Blas Aguilar Adobe Museum for the Acajchemen Nation in San Juan Capistrano, California available to us to photograph the fine reed boat, Artist Domingo Belardes for creating and generously making available excellent reproductions to bring to this presentation, Rene and Bob Brace for all the help in procuring the PCAS Quarterlys that I needed, Joe Hodulik for many culturally relevant magazines and California sea shells, Don Bertrand for east coast American sea shells, Artist Scott Findley for creating the outstanding reproduction cog stones, and to Dean, Dr. Steve Kreta and his excellent administrative associates plus cadets of the CSU Maritime Academy for a conference of such fine quality it will always be remembered.