Chumash ethnobotany plant knowledge among the Chumash people of southern California

Synopsis

From islands off the shore of Santa Barbara to the chaparral-covered mountains of the dry inland regions, the land of the Chumash is a storehouse of plants, an area of great biological richness and variety. Living intimately within this land for more than nine thousand years, the Chumash developed an intense and sophisticated relationship with the plants around them. They collected and processed nuts, seeds, berries, roots, leaves, twigs, shoots, and wood from which they created practically everything they needed to live, from medicines to weapons to decorative items.