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Iris Kelly
NAS 103
24 April 2014
Chumash and Eskimo Cultures
Native American people have a few shared characteristics and many differences. To gain
a better understanding of this let us focus on just two groups, the Eskimo and the Chumash. The
Eskimo covered a huge area of land and include many different groups but for this paper they
will all be generalized as Eskimo. The land that they lived on was often frozen and winters were
very harsh. Adaptations must be made to survive the seasonal changes. The Chumash come from
the Santa Barbara area of California. They lived in an area with a temperate climate that rarely
froze making life much easier. By comparing the Chumash of Santa Barbara and the Eskimo
from the northern perimeter of North America we can see how different Native Americans
adapted to their differing climates. In comparing these two cultures I will focus on food,
clothing, houses, and travel.
Food for the two groups was obtained in very different ways. Although many tribes in
North America practiced some sort of agriculture the Chumash were not required to. For the
Chumash finding food was as easy as walking outside. The two main foods they ate were fish
and acorns. The best time for fishing in the Santa Barbara Channel was in the summer and fall.
There is evidence of over 150 different types of fish being eaten. Fish would be eaten in lots of
different ways, for example roasted or dried. To eat acorns there was more preparation needed.
The acorns were gathered in the fall. To be eaten they must be removed from their outer shell,
then ground, and leached. This was to remove the bitter tannin. The meal would then either be
stored or cooked (Miller 87-89). Summer was when most of the plant foods were harvested.
Berries were eaten fresh and pine nuts would be eaten fresh as well as storing some. In

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November there would be watercress, wild celery, and amaranth to collect. For sugar the tribal
woman would collect the sweet droppings of aphids (Boule 31).
The Eskimos had a considerably harder time finding food. The only food that was
available in any quantity was mammals and fish. Seals and whales were often hunted by
throwing a hook attached to a float into the animal. The animal would then try to escape but get
tired out by the drag of the float and slow down, giving the hunter an opportunity to kill it (Burch
51-52). Barren-ground caribou, also known as wild North American reindeer, were the most
important land animal. These were hunted by enticing the animals to enter an area that was easy
for hunters to get them. This was often done with cairns arranged in a large V-shape. As the
animals got to the point of the V there would be hunters waiting to kill them (Burch 58-60). Fish
were caught using a similar strategy to the caribou, their location was predicted and they were
ambushed. The most important fish to the Eskimo economy were the salmon, char and some
whitefish. All of these fish migrated seasonally from salt to fresh water. Migratory fish were
usually caught with nets. The nets were made from a variety of materials, depending on what
was most available to the group. To make and maintain a net required a lot of time and work,
often taking up the better part of a year. The Eskimo also ate sea otters, mountain sheep,
muskrats, foxes, river otters, shellfish, geese, and many more. Most of these were seasonal but
important resources. Since there were such harsh seasons and many of their main food animals
were migratory, large amounts of food must be stored when it was available and saved up for the
winter (Burch 65-67).
Clothing of the Eskimo is possibly the most effective cold weather apparel ever made.
The outfits varied depending on the group and weather but there were basic elements that were
shared. Men and women wore generally the same thing, possibly with small variation to account

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for different tasks the wearer was doing. The basic outfit included a parka, pants, boots, and
mittens. This outfit worn with two layers could keep a person warm in temperatures as low as
-58 degrees Fahrenheit. The only problem with these outfits was that they did not breathe so one
must be careful to make sure they dried their clothes well and did not sweat in them too much.
When hunters went on two- or three-day hunting trips they would often not bring any shelter but
simply sleep in their clothes, sitting upright (Burch 41-42).
Clothing was not a necessity for the Chumash, as it was for the Eskimo. There are
accounts of different types of outfits, ranging from nudity to a long cloak or skirt. In all
likelihood clothing was worn by the discretion of the wearer for warmth and protection and not
for style or modesty. Body painting was popular in ceremonies. Women sometimes wore short
skirts that could be dyed or embellished (Orr 3-4). Shell bead necklaces of many colors were a
popular type of adornment. Beads made from stones and seeds were used to vary the designs.
Hats were also made in the same way as baskets and worn for protection from the sun (Miller
93).
The greatest concentration of Chumash villages was between Carpinteria and Goleta,
with twenty-five to thirty villages. Not all were occupied at the same time. Sometimes villages
would be raided and the inhabitants would be forced to leave. Houses were built in a way that
resembles a basket. Willow poles were stuck into the ground in a circle and lashed together to
meet in the middle as the height of the building. Thatching or grass was then attached to the
frame. The houses were constructed with a hole in the top to allow smoke to exit and some light
to enter. The size of these houses varied with an average of sixteen to twenty feet in diameter.
There are a few accounts of houses reaching fifty feet in diameter and housing multiple families.

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By looking at the housing of other California villages it can be said that the Chumash built the
best houses (Orr 7-8).
Housing for the Eskimo was more of a necessity than for the Chumash and was there for
built to be more protective against the elements. The basic house was built about three feet below
ground, giving it the name of semi-subterranean house. It was made from a framework of wood
or whale bone and then covered in sod. A ventilation shaft and skylight was put in the top of the
main room. An entrance tunnel and additional storage area were also part of the basic design.
The houses would sleep six to eight people generally but some cultures built them to hold an
entire village of thirty to forty people. The materials and design varied greatly depending on the
area and what was available. In the areas where wood was not available rocks would be stacked
to form the framework of the house. The well known dome-shaped igloo was only used in the
Central Arctic where the right wind conditions were to create suitably packed snow. To build a
snow house took great skill and precision. The bricks must be made out a certain type of snow
and then arranged so that they would perfectly meet at the top without falling in. Dwellings for
use in the summer were often skin-covered tents. They were used for wind and rain protection as
well as to keep off some of the persistent mosquitoes. Smokey fires of scrub willow were also
built by the door to repel the mosquitoes (Burch 43-45).
Travel through water was something the Chumash and Eskimo shared. The ways of
making their boats were very different though. The Chumash made a plank boat called a tomol.
It was used for fishing and to travel between the mainland and islands. Young men would be
specially chosen to be boatmen and then trained in the art of making these seagoing tomols. The
planks were split from logs using a whale rib. They were then shaped using shells, flint rocks,
and sharkskin for sandpaper. The planks were sown together with a strong plant fiber and then

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cracks were filled with tar. Decoration was added at the end. The building of these boats took
between two and six months. The boatmakers were highly respected in the village and took time
with their craft (Boule 34-35).
Movement of the Eskimo was done on land and by water. The boat used most in the
summer was the umiak, an open boat made with a wood frame covered in seal or walrus skins.
These boats used a combination of paddles, oars, and sails to move through the water. Another
boat, the kayak, was used mostly for hunting. Generally the kayaks were about twenty feet long
and just about three feet wide. They were constructed in the same way as the umiak, with a wood
frame covered in skins, except that they were covered completely with just a small hole to sit in
open. If only kayaks were available they could be lashed together to form a raft that could hold
more people. This was also done in storms to keep the individual kayaks from capsizing. In the
winter was when the most land travel happened. Sleds were pulled by dogs or people if the
family was too poor to have dogs. The dogs had many purposes including help with hunting and
finding seal-breathing holes. If it was needed for survival the dogs would also be eaten (Burch
83-87).
By studying these two cultures we can see that there are many similarities and differences
between them. While both the Chumash and Eskimo are marine cultures, the climates that the
cultures live in are very different forcing them to adapt to their land in different ways. The
Eskimo may have more fishing and hunting skill but this is only because they are forced to eat
almost entirely raw meat. The Chumash are able to develop their crafts and material culture more
because there is not a struggle for food, giving them more free time. These cultures are great
examples of the similarities and differences that Native American tribes had. Although they are
not around today it is very interesting to study the way people used to live on this land.

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Works Cited
Boule, Mary Null. California Native American Tribes: Chumash Tribe. Vashon, WA: Merryant
Publishing, 1992.
Burch, Ernest S. The Eskimos. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.
Miller, Bruce W. Chumash: A Picture of Their World. Los Osos, CA: Sand River Press, 1988.
Orr, Phil. Customes of the Canalino. Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History,
1943.