Long before Indians adopted the horse and Hollywood made this a part of the stereotypical image of the Indian, transportation tended to be water-based. Indian people made many different kinds of canoes, ranging from lightweight river and lake canoes which used bark coverings, to fairly large seagoing dugout canoes whose capacity is measured in tons. One of the most interesting Indian canoes is the tomol, a plank canoe made by the Chumash in the Santa Barbara Channel area of California.
The tomol is unlike other canoes used along the coast. Making a canoe, which could take up to six months of highly skilled labor, began with the selection of driftwood logs. From these logs of redwood, pine, and fir, the canoe maker would split planks using whale-bone wedges and stone tools.
The canoe maker then made a clay-lined pit which would hold water. The planks for the sideboards of the tomol were then boiled in these pits for several hours to make them pliable. To bring the water in the pits up to a boil, the Chumash would simply add red-hot rocks heated from a nearby fire.
The next step was to drill holes in the planks and then sew them together with waxed milkweed twine. By beveling the boards and overlapping them slightly, the canoe maker could get a snug fit. An adhesive known as asphaltum made from tar-and-pine pitch helped seal the boat.
The final step was to sand the boat with sharkskin and to paint it with red ocher. It was common to decorate the boat with painted designs and with shell inlay.
The final result was an aesthetically pleasing canoe about 25 feet in length, 3-4 feet wide, and about 3 feet in depth. The tomols held 8-12 people.
The Chumah tomols wove the coastal and island villages together into a system of trade, travel, and fishing. The tomols were under the guidance of the Brotherhood of the Canoe, a kinship-based society. Those who owned tomols commanded wealth and prestige and they wore bearskin capes to mark their status.
Compared to other watercraft being used along the Pacific coast of California—tule (reed) rafts and dugout canoes—the tomol was faster, more stable at sea, more durable, and capable of carrying larger loads.
Indian people have lived along the California coast for thousands of years and for thousands of years, Indian canoes have carried people and cargo up and down the Pacific Coast. According to archaeological evidence, nearly 30,000 years ago, Indian people were cooking and eating pygmy mammoth on Santa Rosa Island. The fact that they were living on an island is testimony to the fact that they had well-developed watercraft.
The first archaeological evidence for the Chumash tomol comes from about 1,300 years ago. At this time, Chumash society is undergoing a number of significant changes. First, in response to a long drought in the area, they are relying more on the sea for their subsistence. After 6,000 years of using the same style of fishhook—a straight bi-pointed bone which resembled a large toothpick—the Chumash change to a more elaborately carved and curved style of fishhook made by lashing two pieces of bone together.
Did the Chumash invent the tomol and the two-piece fishhook about 700 AD, or did they borrow the idea from some other culture? Cultural borrowing is a common form of culture change. But if they did borrow the concept, where did it come from? None of the other cultures in the area used plank canoes or the two-piece fishhook.
Understanding that Indian people in North America were not isolated from the rest of the world, there is an interesting possibility for the source of the idea for the tomol. Consider the following:
The compound fishhook adopted by the Chumash about 700 AD closely resembles the Polynesian fishhooks which were being used in Hawaii.
The plank canoe is found in three areas: the Chumash in California, the coast of Chile in South America, and in the Pacific Islands.
The Chumash word tomol does not appear to be related to other Chumash words, but does seem to be related to the Hawaiian word for "useful tree."
Could the Chumash have had some contact with the Polynesians and from this contact borrowed the idea for the tomol? We don’t know for sure, but there are some things to keep in mind:
The Polynesian people were colonizing Hawaii about 700 AD, close to the time when the Chumash first began building tomols.
Hawaii was settled by Polynesians who sailed about 2,000 miles across open sea from the Marquesas Islands. Santa Barbara is about 2,000 miles from Hawaii, so contact would be technologically feasible.
By 1,000 years ago, the Polynesians were raising sweet potatoes which they had obtained from South America, a fairly clear indicator of some contact between Polynesia and the Americas.
The current data does not suggest that Polynesians attempted to establish a colony in California or even that the Chumash and the Polynesians engaged in regular trade. What may have happened was a single contact, a Polynesian boat in need of repair, and as a result the Chumash saw a good idea and adopted it.
Cross Posted at Native American Netroots
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