Did You Know… that November is National Native American Heritage Month?
For more than 10,000 years, the Chumash people have called California’s Central Coast and the Channel Islands home — including the land we now know as Ventura County. They were remarkable ocean navigators, traveling the coastline in hand-crafted plank canoes called tomols, a technology found nowhere else in North America.
One of their coastal villages, Šíxolop (Shisholop), sat near what is now downtown Ventura. It was a thriving community centered around fishing, trade, and craftsmanship. The Chumash built extensive trade networks, left behind beautiful rock art, and maintained a deep spiritual relationship with the land and sea — a way of life that shaped everything they did.
The land and the sea are our relatives — not resources.
Today, the Chumash community continues to preserve its language, traditions, and sacred ties to this place — keeping their story alive as an essential part of Ventura County’s past, present, and future.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
