Awaswas

The term Awaswas is an exonym derived from the Mutsun language that may refer and translate to "north". It may have been used by the Mutsun to refer to the Awaswas, who lived to the north of them. Unfortunately, translations for villages in Awaswas territory are difficult to piece together, as very little of the Awaswas language is still in circulation or on record. Many of the names for Monterey Bay places come from Mutsun words. The Awaswas spoke an Ohlone dialect that has some structural affiliation to San Francisco Bay Ohlone and some affiliation to Mutsun Ohlone. An analysis of Awaswas shows it to represent disparate dialects spoken by Natives who were apparently in the midst of language shift from a divergent form of San Francisco Bay to Mutsun. There is evidence that this grouping was more geographic than linguistic, and that the records of the 'Santa Cruz Costanoan' language in fact represent several diverse dialects. Awaswas Ohlone continues to be considered a separate language, but the degree to which it originally extended to the east of present-day Santa Cruz County is completely unknown. == Divisions ==

The Awaswas were six distinct tribes,). The Aptos tribe was one of the larger Awaswas groups in the region. They held kinship ties with the Uypi, Calendaruc (a Mutsun speaking people), and Cajastaca. At the time of their first interactions with the Spanish, the chief of the Aptos was Molegnis. The Spanish renamed the people "San Lucas". • Cajastaca :Living to the south of the Aptos, the Cajastaca ("Jackrabbit") were a sub-group of the larger Aptos tribe. The Spanish renamed the people "San Antonio". Sayanta The Sayanta tribe was a smaller Awaswas group that lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains around the Zayante Creek drainage, near present-day Scotts Valley, Glenwood, and Laurel to the north and east. They held kinship ties with the Chaloctaca and Achistaca. The Spanish renamed the people "San Juan Capistrano". Chaloctaca The Chaloctaca lived along the crest of the Santa Cruz Mountains around Loma Prieta Creek. They may have been a separate village community of one larger group with the Sayanta. They held kinship ties with the Sayanta, Achistaca, Cotoni, Partacsi of Santa Clara Valley, and Somontoc. The Spanish renamed the people "Jesus" (Mission Santa Cruz) and "San Carlos" (Mission Santa Clara de Asís). == History ==

The Awaswas were one of the Ohlone peoples, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Ohlone groups, such as peoples of the Mutsun, Ramaytush, Rumsen, and Tamien. The Santa Cruz Mountain tribes were united linguistically, as they spoke a language called Awaswas, a branch of the larger Ohlonean language family. They inhabited multilingual regions interconnected through shared symbols and rituals as well as monetary, trade, and complex kinship relationships. This shared culture connected with a larger Indigenous California, where long-distance trade relations and communication characterized linguistically diverse societies that shared a variety of resources and practicies, spiritual and physical, tracing back over thousands of years. Archaeological excavations suggest these early dates but it is possible that human habitation goes back further, as it is generally believed that sites of earlier habitation may have been washed away by stream action or submerged on the continental shelf. Archaeological evidence points to a major change beginning around 1,000 years old, with the arrival of new technologies such as notched line sinkers and circular shell fishhooks, bows and arrows, flanged steatite pipes, stone "flower-pot" mortars, new Olivella shell bead types, and "banjo" effigy ornaments signifying the development of the Kuksui secret society. exchanging food for Spanish glass beads and cloth; an overture which was readily accepted by the Spanish. The expedition was traveling through the area during the fall, a time when Awaswas tribes left their coastal village sites for their winter forest homes to hunt and gather, not encountering people and, being unfamiliar with the land, were badly in need of food. Loss of recognition In 1925, Alfred Kroeber, then director of the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, declared the Ohlone extinct, which directly led to the tribe's losing federal recognition and land rights. == Legacy ==

There are no living survivors of the Awaswas, who are spoken for by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. In 2011, a march was held in Santa Cruz to preserve "the Knoll", the 6,000-year-old burial site of a child, located near Branciforte Creek. Awaswas people, the "documented descendants of Missions San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz", have become members of the tribal band. In 2012, Amah Mutsun Tribal Chairman Valentin Lopez stated that "tribe members are scattered. Few can afford to live in their historic lands today," and many now make their homes in the Central Valley. ==See also==

• Kroeber, Alfred L. (1925). Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office; Smithsonian Institution. p. 465 (map of villages). • Kroeber, A. L. (1966) [1925]. Handbook of the Indians of California (reprint ed.). Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Berkeley, Calif.: California Book Company. p. 465 (map of villages). • Milliken, Randall (1995). A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication. (alk. paper). • Rizzo-Martinez, Martin (2022). We Are Not Animals: Indigenous Politics of Survival, Rebellion, and Reconstitution in Nineteenth-Century California. University of Nebraska Press. • Teixeira, Lauren (1997). The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area, A Research Guide. Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication. . • Yamane, Linda, ed. (2002). "A Gathering of Voices: The Native Peoples of the Central California Coast". Santa Cruz County History Journal, Number 5. Santa Cruz, CA: Museum of Art & History. .