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The Ohlone Indians were a collection of individual tribes living along the central coast of California. They were primarily hunter-gatherers and practiced shamanism. Spanish settlers brought Christianity and caused great harm, including the loss of traditional customs and many deaths. The Ohlone population was decimated by disease and poverty, and their languages died out. In recent years, there has been a movement to revive some Ohlone cultural traditions.
The Ohlone Indians are a group of Native Americans who originally lived along the central coast of what is now the state of California. For most of their history, they did not see themselves as a single group, but rather as a collection of individual tribes. They are often grouped together as Ohlone due in large part to their geographical proximity.
This tribe has also historically been known as the Costanoans, although this moniker is the less popular of the two and is used largely only by linguists. At its peak in the late 18th century, Ohlone’s population numbered as many as 18. By the 20,000 United States Census, however, that number was estimated to be only 2,000.
The Ohlones, prior to their contact with Europeans and subsequent integration into Western culture, lived in individual tribes that each had an average population of about 200. They were primarily hunter-gatherers, but also engaged in some basic forms of agriculture. Before the influence of Christian missionaries, the Ohlone Indians practiced the type of shamanism common to Native Americans in the western United States.
Spanish settlers first came into contact with the Ohlone Indians during the 1770s when Catholic missionaries reached the Pacific coast of North America. The Mission Age is known to have brought about great changes to virtually all Native American tribes, including the Ohlone Indians. While the degree to which the Ohlones were forced to accept Christianity remains in doubt, many were driven to live and work in missions set up throughout their territory.
A strong Spanish-Catholic influence continued to prevail over the Ohlones for decades and, in addition to the loss of traditional tribal customs, a great human cost was incurred, as many Ohlone people died due to poor sanitation and lack of medical care in the missions. Although the Mexican government ordered the secularization of previously Spanish-ruled areas in 1834, for Ohlone’s way of life, the damage had already been done.
Most Ohlone Indians continued to work as laborers and laborers into the 19th century. By the mid-1800s, when California had become the 31st state in the United States, Ohlone’s total population had been decimated by European disease, poverty, and other factors. It is estimated that, at one point in the middle of that century, fewer than 1,000 Ohlone Indians were alive.
While there was never a unified Ohlone language, there were a number of distinct dialects spoken by the various tribes included. Researchers have identified up to eight regional languages spoken by the Ohlone at one time or another, although the last fluent speaker of any of them died in 1939. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, c ‘was a grassroots movement to resurrect the teaching of some Ohlone languages, along with a revival of other pre-Western Ohlone cultural traditions.
