The Komikraangna Project is an initiative to re-discover the lost history of one key village which stood in Santa Monica Canyon for several thousand years, right into the present era, and whose descendants are still amongst us though scattered around southern California and beyond now.
The project is sponsored by La Senora Research Institute. It is managed by LSRI Fellows Dr. Teri Brewer and Dr. Wendy Teeter together with archaeological and historical experts of Tongva descent including educator Craig Torres (a descendant of families form Komikraangna), Cindi Alvitre and Desiree Martinez. We are joined by noted local historian and Rancho descendant Ernest Marquez and Rancho descendant Sharon Kilbride. The project seeks to engage the larger community of village descendants, archaeologists, canyon residents and Santa Monica, West Los Angeles and Pacific Palisades area supporters. Working ogether we can recover a longer past for our area.
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Until after the end of the Mexican era in California, the Santa Monica we know today was mostly centered on one specific area- Now we call it Santa Monica Canyon, or in Spanish, after its’ location at the mouth of a major stream, La Boca de Santa Monica But of course for many centuries before that it had another name, one still remembered amongst the descendants of that Tongva/ Gabrieleno village, amongst local historians, archaeologists, local ethnographers and a few others. That village of Komikraangna (also known as Comicraibit) was an important place, and not just for its native families. The key place with ample water from streams and springs at the western end of the Santa Monica Mountains, Komikraangna was a center for trade between the Tongva communities of the greater Los Angeles Basin and the south coast, and the Chumash and other communities to the north and east. In the early historic period, there were few people from the Los Angeles area of any descent who would not have stopped here and been given hospitality, trade, directions or assistance if they had business in the greater Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades area. Old trails, many still in use in the canyons of the Santa Monicas attest to this, as does the distribution of artifacts, both prehistoric and historic from regional archaeological sites.
The beach at Komikraangna was once the launching place for the Ti’ats of local Tongva clans. These huge canoes were capable of ranging long distances up and down the coast, taking advantage of the relatively sheltered waters of Santa Monica Bay, the “kelp highway” and the southern Channel Islands in particular not only for social and trade visits with distant villages but to access special local resources for favorite foods from sea and land, and for tool and fibre materials too.
The later history of the area has dominated the research focus of local historians for many years, who had plenty to interest them in the rapid changes that the period 1820- 2000 brought to the area. Tarchaeology of La Boca de Santa Monica was greatly disturbed by massive earth works for the construction of the Long Wharf, in the late 19th century, by flood works to take the stream after catastrophic floods in the 1930’s and by rapid housing development in the mid 20th century, but nevertheless, through the family stories of descendants of the village and the rancho which were sometimes recorded, through the recollection of archaeologists involved in early surveys, through the writings of early ethnographers found in the Smithsonian and in mission records as well as other museums and archives, surprising details and even stories of the village survive.
Our project involves gleaning the information available and putting back together the longer story of community at Santa Monica Canyon, reintegrating the history of Komikraanngna with that of the more recent settlements here. And in doing so we can show some continuities between past and present as well as better understanding the physical changes to the local landscape which have resulted from changing patterns of occupation and routes of travel and trade.
We are immensely grateful to the families of early relic hunters, and later gardeners who managed to preserve some of the evidence of the past found in amateur excavations done before the period of professional archaeology, and in noting and sharing casual finds during landscaping and construction work. Many of them donated collections and offered information to local museums. For some, finds are and stories about them are still in families but we cordially invite them to share information and bring in relics now for documentation and to help us recover a lost history. We are also grateful to the contemporary descendants of Komikraangna, most of whose old family stories include devastating episodes of alienation and loss as ancestors were forced to leave a beloved home and resettle in other areas away from kin and friends, while taking on new languages and lifeways. We hope to make a film about the project as it develops over 2015-2016.
As part of this project we will be holding several events at La Senora which anyone interested is welcome to attend. Join our mailing list or watch the La Srnora Cellar page for updates and events.