Construction and Purpose of Chumash Tomol Coursework

Construction and Purpose of Chumash Tomol - Coursework Example The dimensions of the Chumash Indians’ canoe aimed at depth and speed with a minimum of materials. The resulting vessel was fully sea-worthy and it impressed even the early Spanish explorers. It could be used for fishing, transportation, and commerce around the islands. It was so efficient that some of the mission padres ordered construction to continue.The Chumash were a North American maritime culture, originally based on the mainland and Channel Islands on both sides of the Santa Barbara Channel in California. Even though the culture of Chumash living in the area today is not fully defined by maritime activities, the area is particularly rich in marine resources, and the Chumash used at least three kinds of boats to exploit them.At the time, cultural devastation was so rapid that canoe building was a dying art by the mid-nineteenth century. Fortunately, Fernando Librado, a Ventureno Chumash and one of the last members of the Brotherhood-of-the-Canoe, lived to the age of 111 , and even more fortunately, that ubiquitous ethnographer, J.P. Harrington2, discovered him. The two collaborated in constructing a replica of the plank canoe, which was exhibited for the first time during the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego on January 1, 1915.If Harrington had not taken detailed notes at the time, the elaborate art of canoe building would have been lost forever. As it was, it was moribund for fifty years until the vast collection of Harrington material became available. The editors sifted through box loads of Harrington's data in compiling the present volume, only those who have worked with these multilingual, cryptic and digressive notes can fully appreciate such a task.The book begins with a synoptic introduction. Precise instructions on plank canoe building follow, augmented by chapters on the tule balsa and the dugout canoe. There is an additional section on the uses of the canoe, one on myths and stories concerning the canoe, and another on the above mentioned Brotherhood-of-the-Canoe, the editors modestly attribute authorship of these chapters to Fernando or Harrington and Fernando. They conclude with an extensive bibliography and a set of photographs.The data on the construction of the canoe was tested by an actual construction of an actual canoe from driftwood under the sponsorship of the American Revolution Bicentennial Committee of Santa Barbara. The canoe builders were Chumash descendants, and the resulting craft, named the Helek, has been to see many times.