to fully understand the importance of the tomol and the
brotherhood in classical times, it is necessary to analyze the
region’s economy prior to the Spanish arrival.
TRADE AND TRAVEL. As the Chumash interaction sphere ex-
ists within a coastal zone and encompasses some eight to ten
thousand years (since, roughly, the recession of the last coast-
al ice- age permafrost), it should not be construed as a stable
environment. Changes in rainfall patterns and sea surface
temperatures and their resulting impacts on terrestrial and
ocean resources prompted the Chumash to rely upon a com-
plex trade system in order to mitigate against shortfalls. As
Daniel Larson and his colleagues state in “Missionization
Among the Coastal Chumash of Central California”:
As Chumash population levels increased there was a
greater dependence on exchange of food from one set-
tlement to the next. This reciprocity allowed groups to
meet their provisioning needs when there were short-
falls within a village’s cachment. As populations contin-
ued to grow, subsistence strategies expanded and inten-
sified, settlements became increasingly interdependent,
and mutual trade became critical to subsistence success.
Tied to the mutual trading relationship was a hierarchi-
cal political system involving chiefs who acted as bro-
kers in the exchange relationships. They were also re-
sponsible for the scheduling of feasts, ceremonies, and
celebrations, which were essential to intervillage social
interaction and conflict resolution. (p. 264)The tomol was the tool par excellence for the maintenance
of this system of trade, enabling the reciprocal exchange of
goods and ideas and galvanizing the network of interdepen-
dence that contemporary Chumash see as fundamental to
their ethical system. Owing to its role as facilitator for the
trade system, the tomol represents an investment of time, in-
genuity, and resource management techniques. In addition
to requiring an estimated 180 to 540 person-days of labor
to complete, not to mention great amounts of skill in order
to produce a sea-worthy vessel, the raw materials for the
tomol represent sometimes years of careful management be-
fore they ever make it to the production level.
The key ingredients of the canoe are, of course, wood,
with redwood driftwood (washed down from the northern
California coast) being the most prized; natural fiber cordage
for lashing the planks together as well as for tether and an-
chor lines; a mixture of asphaltum (naturally occurring pe-
troleum deposits and pine pitch) for caulking and sealing;
and the assorted tools (adzes, drills, etc.) for the manufactur-
ing process. These raw materials are employed as a result of
preproduction processes such as gathering (or purchasing via
the aforementioned trade system), preparation (curing and
planking the wood), knowledge of availability (in the case of
asphaltum deposits); and ongoing resource management.
This last point is especially true with regard to stands
of red milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) and/or dogbane (Apo-
cynum canabis) for the approximately one mile of cordage
needed for the finished tomol. In this last case, contemporary
Chumash assert that the availability of large amounts of this
important resource depended upon management. Chumash
ethnobotanist Julie Cordero states that the plant simply will
not occur in useable stands if merely left to its own growth
patterns. Clearly, the tomol required a vast amount of person-
nel and resource management before the manufacturing even
began.
PADDLING AS PRACTICE. This system does not stop at the
production level. Crew responsibilities and the environmen-
tal knowledge required for safe travel are also important. It
is this last point that provides the clearest metaphorical con-
nection between the contemporary tomol crew and their clas-
sic predecessors. The rowing of a relatively small vessel in the
hazardous Santa Barbara Channel requires great skill and
teamwork for safety and efficiency. Individual paddlers must
be physically capable, mentally adroit, and socially connected
to the other paddlers for the safe and successful operation of
the tomol.
The nature of the vessel is such that individual balance
while compensating for the movement of the other paddlers
and synchronous strokes of the paddles are key for the
smooth movement of the canoe. For this to occur, it is opti-
mal that the crew be experienced with the other members so
they will be aware of their style and physical types and their
various strengths and weaknesses, and for the formation of
personal bonds of trust, as the process, even in the contem-
porary context, is not without some measure of risk. It is pre-
cisely this relationship-building, among both paddlers and
non-paddling support and building crews, that gives the
Chumash involved in paddling the tomol the tangible ele-
ments for understanding the underlying ethos viewed as
uniquely Chumash.
In the process of learning the behaviors and skills re-
quired for the rowing of the tomol, the contemporary Chu-
mash have also begun to fashion a rhetorical system within
which the tomol protocol, as well as the actual requirements
for paddling, are transmitted to others. This oratory ranges
from practical concerns regarding canoe operation to onto-
logical statements of emotive quality that are seen as perti-
nent to living a proper life. Maintenance of the tomol is liked
to maintenance of interpersonal relationships. Paddling to-
gether is connected to bonds of trust, interdependence, and
ancestral honor. Suffice it to say that, in the reprise of canoe
culture for the Chumash, the tomol provides both an exem-
plar of the entire ethos seen as essentially Chumash, as well
as an opportunity to express through practice what it is that
comprises the particular Chumash ethic.
The tomol, for the Chumash who are involved in the re-
vival of their maritime culture, provides a key symbol of an
ancient ethos that navigated its way through some ten thou-
sand years of history, through many transformations in cli-
mate, and continues to provide a vessel with which they can
carry their children into a future that regards their past as
continually present.SEE ALSO North American Indians, article on Indians of
California and the Intermountain Region.TOMOL 9229