Gender Status Decline, Resistance, and Accommodation among Female Neophytes in the Missions of California: A San Gabriel Case Study

Abstract

Nearly eighty thousand California Indians were directly inducted into the Franciscan colonial labor and Christianization programs in Alta California. This study primarily focuses on the Kumivit, or Gabrielino, Indians of Southern California.' This native group spoke at least four dialects of the Takic family of languages derived from the larger Uto-Aztecan linguistic stock. According to the United Stated Bureau of Ethnology's linguist, John P. Harrington, they were divided into the Gabrielino proper, whose territory embraced the watershed of the Los Angeles and Santa Ana river basins, the Fernandeiio to the north, and the two dialects associated with Santa Catalina and San Nicholas islands.2 Encompassing several biotic zones, nearly 90 percent of their territory was in the extremely rich Sonoran life zone whose food resources included vast quantities of acorn, pine nut, small game, and deer. Sea resources such as fish, shellfish, and sea mammals were available for coastal groups and others through trade.3