The Indigenous People of LA: Kizh (Tongva)

Xochitl, Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wiki edit, Wisdom Quarterly

 

Gabrieleno Chief Salas (gabrielenoindians.org)

The Tongva or Kizh are Native Americans of the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands (Catalina, San Nicolas, etc.), an area covering approximately 4,000 square miles (10,000 km²).

The Kizh or Tongva, who were called Gabrieleños (San Gabriel Mountains) and Fernandeños (San Fernando Valley) by Spanish invading colonial slavemongers, names the Spaniards derived from Spanish missions (forts used as concentration camps) built on and near Kizh/Tongva territory: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España.

 

Indigenous Native American Tongva/Kizh lands of Los Angeles and Southern California

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Imaginary image of heroine Toypurina

Along with the neighboring Chumash (the self-described "Beautiful People" of Malibu, Ventura, and coastal  California areas), the Kizh/Tongva were the most powerful indigenous people to inhabit Southern California.

At the time of European "contact" (invasion, ethnic cleansing, enslavement, and genocide), they may have numbered 5,000 to 10,000* [after being decimated?] but were likely much more numerous than Caucasian counters say.

• *Lepowsky, M. (2004). "Indian revolts and cargo cults: Ritual violence and revitalization in California and New Guinea". In Harkin, M. E. Reassessing revitalization movements: Perspectives from North America and the Pacific Island. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 1–61.

Hegemonic Roman Catholic concentration camps were called Spanish "missions"

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The Arroyo in Pasadena, Hahamongna

Many lines of evidence suggest that the Tongva/Kizh are related to Uto-Aztecan-speaking peoples from Nevada, the US Southwest, who moved into coastal Southern California an estimated 3,500 years ago, although this differs from their own origin story accounts.
 

If they were indeed migrants, they would either have absorbed or displaced the Hokan-speaking peoples in the region. By 500 AD, they had come to occupy all of the lands, what is today Los Angeles County and other lands, now associated with them.**

• **Sutton, M. Q. (2009). "People and language: Defining the Takic expansion into southern California" (PDF). Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly. 41 (1–2): 31–93, and Kerr, S. L.; Georganna, M. H. (2002). "Population replacement on the Southern Channel Islands: New evidence from San Nicolas Island" (PDF). Proceedings of the Fifth California Islands Symposium. Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: 546–554.

A dynamic study of the villages and locations of the Gabrielenos (tongvapeople.org)