{Channel Islands National Park originally posted by US Interior} The Channel Islands are the homeland of the Chumash - on the islands within the park - and Tongva people on the southern islands. These two nations lived on the Channel Islands and throughout coastal southern California for thousands of years before the Spanish arrived. In Chumash, the Channel Islands are called limuw (Santa Cruz), wi’ma (Santa Rosa), tuqan (San Miguel), anyapakh (Anacapa), shooynga (San Nicolas), kiinkenga/xaraashnga (San Clemente), pimuu’nga (Catalina). After contact with the Spanish in the 1540’s, Chumash and Tongva communities were disrupted by disease and missionization. Mexican independence and eventual American settlement of California led to severe land loss. Today, the Chumash have just one 127-acre reservation in Santa Ynez and the Tongva, although formally acknowledged as the indigenous people of Southern California, have not been federally recognized.

Despite this, both nations are striving for cultural resurgence with the Tonga fighting for formal recognition and the Chumash revitalizing traditional seafaring with the tomol crossing to the islands. #publiclandisnativeland