The Ojai Post

now of course (where Bear's head is?) the hill is scarred by oil wells, which can be seen from almost anywhere in the valley. I don't know if it got the moniker 'Black Mountain' from the oil wells, or because it may have been referred to in Chumash days as the 'Black' Bear (Brown Bear, Grizzly Bear?).

in the way WAY back -- when the Sabertooth Cats and Mammoths and Mastodons, and Giant Beavers, Giant Wolves, Giant Deer, Giant Condors etc. still ranged the valley -- there was also a Giant Pleistocene Bear, 'Giant Short Faced Bear', Arctodus Simus -- so we don't know how long the 'Bear' name/personality has been associated with this lone mountain.

I will ask our local Chumash Elder 'Red Bear' if he knew of the Kahus name from his 1950's youth, when Ceremonial Solstice and Harvest gatherings were still held by remaining tribal families here. (despite his name, Red Bear is from the Chumash Dolphin Clan, not Bear Clan, of which Gramma Adelina Padilla, and I believe Gramma Julie Tumamait, are members.)

other village placenames, from Coyote Creek to Santa Paula, that are still preserved today include Kaspat Kaxwa, Sulukukay, Nanuntsala'w, Koyo, Kalnahalkay, Kakuw, Matil'ha, Lewlew, Ketsiwin, A'aqta'waq, Ka'amamha, Auhay, Situk'e'm (lion creek), Sitotopa, Sihawha'w, Sisa, Siyopyop, Ka'alishaw ka'o, Aliwolhoyoy, Mupu, Kowach'iwshmu, Ka'alushyu hoch ka'o ...

Kaspat Kaxwa, or Kaspat Kahwa, translates as nest (kaspat) of the heron, and is the village area located just West of Ojala, South of Matilija Creek above the Matilija Lake. Koyo, 'beginning' or 'birth place', is the name of the Village on Coyote Creek, the river leading out of Mount Chismahoo, the creation goddess of the Matilija people.

Sulukukay and Nanuntsala'w are other villages on upper Coyote Creek; and Kalnahalkay and Kakuw are on the lower end of the creek, near Lake Casitas West. Kalnahalkay could be the famous 'demon with a pack-basket, 'Ka'alhelek'ech, but I may be off in in my spellings and pronunciations there, still checking that one. Lewlew village is just East of Lake Casitas, between it and the Matilija (Ventura) River, and just South of the expansive Matilija Village region. it was made famous in the "The Old Woman and the Lewlew" story, probably from Maria Solares, recorded by John P. Harrington in 1919, yet so far I can't recall reading about it, only finding it described as a "short semi-historical semi-mythological text" in the archives of the University of California, Berkeley (searching a Rutgers University site now ...)

ok, all I got out of the Rutgers database is that Lewlew was "a mythological creature" ... need to look in the "December's Child" book by Blackburn.

continuing: Ka'amamha, "to stalk", Village on our San Antonio creek; Sitoptopa means 'lots of cane' or 'lots of grass', for the village area between Senior and Horn canyons; Sihawha'w, Village of the Foxes, is in Upper Ojai, between Horn and the Sycamore and Sisar canyons; Sisa ("eyelash") is the village just beyond 'Sisar' canyon; Siyopyop Village, "much tar" is in our Canada de la Brea neighborhood; Ka'alishaw ka'o (Ka'Alishaw, the Sun) is the hot springs at Sulphur Mountain, again in Upper Ojai, just before Camp Bartlett, on the Ranches where the Chumash Princess and many other graves were uncovered decades ago, and committed to Museum boxes until a new home land preserve is found for them. [there is a famous valley story of the boy who discovered one of the skulls, and was haunted/possessed until the skull was returned to the place of its discovery.]

Aliwolhoyoy, or 'Alaliwolhoyoyo, was the Village at "One that Falls", the waterfall just past the Punch Bowl on Santa Paula Creek; Mupu Village site at Arroyo Mupu, become Sananta Paula, Santa Paula.

have been spending many hours of late in the Chumash collections at the Ventura Museum library, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History library, and downloading lots of journal articles and dictionaries off the net, and scribbling lots of notes, but as yet haven't had time to organize them -- so will have many many more animal and placenames, and stars and constellations, and stories soon, to add to this 'little bear' of a start.

a short, unfinished, list of animal, star, constellation and place names -- from a notepad at hand -- Ahsak, turtle place; 'Ahwawilashmu, dancing place; 'Akiwo, Star; 'Alahsaiyai, "Una Cosa Sagrada", a sacred thing; 'Alapay, sky; Ahlaj-bai, above in the sky; 'Alj-hia, 'anaqpuw, wildcat, near Maricopa; 'Aluwuk'u, eater of people, NorthWest of Ventura; Anap-ahp-man, racoon; Hoy, ancient flying creature; Huspat (Kaspat) hulkilik, nest of the kilik songbird; 'Ilihiy, Iluhui, Little Bear, Little Dipper, Guardian Stars constellation; 'ili'wi, the lost one; 'Iqut 'i qup, a comet, "news without foundation"; Iwihinmu, Liyik'shup, Mt. Pinos, Center of the Earth, "the place nobody knows where", "whence came the spirit"; 'Iyitaku, Yitimasih 'akiwi, the Pleiades; Kamup, "the cave"; Kasap shi'ishaw, "House of the Sun" on Red Mountain, NorthWest of Ventura; Kashomshomoy, "kind of animal", Village at Santa Ana, between Lewlew and Matilija; Kaspat kaslo'w, nest of the Eagle; Kayiwishiwash, the Skull, near Canada Larga; Kayowoyow, the demon; Kinapuh'e, vicinity of ocean mouth of Matilija River; Manohonoh awawaw, boys transformed into Geese, probably the Big Dipper; Maptalamaxax, Masaxihua, Orion's Belt aka Masiq loka 'iyilike, Three Bear Shamans, 'Three Steady People in their Places"; Mech, the Seven-Starred constellation in the South when Canis Major and Leporis are visible, resembles the Little Dipper; Mitsqanaqa'n, Jaw of the Coyote, Santa Buenaventura Mission Village; Pat 'akwich, nest of the Falcon; Pi'awaphew, house of the Pelican; Qinomnomo, hill between Ventura and Ojai;

Qshap, Rattlesnake; 'Qwa', kind of duck; S'aptut'u, house of the Squint-Eyed-Man, confluence of Canada Larga and Mailija River; Shak, Saq, Turtle; Shelmesmu' ach'ili, canyon "Where the Antelope jumps across"; Shishwashuy, place near Punta Gorda; Shish uch'i', den of the WoodRat; Si'ap sima', "house of the Rabbits", Sihi'm hul'ashk'a', "storage basket of the Coyotes", Sih'usus, one of the two Thunder Brothers, probably Venus as the Morning Star; Si'o n'atsk'a', water (spring) of the little coyotes; Siyo'kilik, water of the Kilik songbird; Sishulkuy, "One is Seated on it", Wheeler Gorge; Sismahk'u'y, placename near Santa Ana, viz. under Chisamahoo, Cismuhu; Si w'k, Deer; Sma'aiyi 'i akiwi, Venus as the Evening Star; Sonoq, at the Buzzard; Sqen'n, Shoulder, Village, North of Maricopa; Tikshma', "Ear of the Rabbit"; Tonto'n, Flying Squirrel in Casitas Canyon; Tsiwaya, sacred hanging-down place, San Emigdio Mtn; Tspok'ow, place near Santa Buenaventura Mission; Waha'as, Ominous, San Cayetano Mtn; Wayamu, sacred hanging-down place; Wash-tik-oi, Rainbow;

Black, White and Red colours: Akhimay, black; 'O'wow, white; Tasin, Red.

I am also scheduling what I hope will become regular short interviews with Gramma Julie Tumamait, our Matilija-Ojai Chumash Matriarch, in order to compile a much more extensive and comprehensive listing of the native placenames of the villages, creeks, canyons, mountains, springs, and other which can be shared publicly ... as well as the ceremonial sites and similar sacred names which will need to stay unpublished for a few more years perhaps, until the priceless ancestral heritage of our living-herstory landscape and culture is honored and protected for its infinite spiritual, and economic, wealth.

imagery note: the WHOLE greater Matilija-Ojai Valley region is a StoneHenge, 'Hanging-down-from-the-Sky' sacred site, home to tens of thousands of subtly, and not so subtly, Giant Carved Stones, and mountains. faces, effigies, profiles, figure-sculptures, ranging from a few feet in length to hundreds of meters in length. much of the pantheon of Todas Las Cosas, all our relations, including the Sky Deities, Pacific Ocean life, and more, is found here. on top, or underneath, that are tens or hundreds of millions of smaller effigy and sacred stones, once held in the pouches of astronomer/astrologer/healer/rainmaker shamans, grandmothers, leaders, and all peoples ... or kept in front of their homes, or at sacred sites, or kept on necklaces, or buried with them in ceremony.

the Stone People speak, sing the tens of thousands of years of Stone Age oral tradition, and art, culture, and 'architecture', and are here as an infinite outdoor museum and university of the sacred wisdom ways of humans-kind, the harmonies of all spiritual traditions, of all times ...