Galleons, Temples, and Beads: An Investigation of a Colonial Archaeological Assemblage from the Tongva Village of Nájquqar at Two Harbors, Pimu Santa Catalina Island, California (CA-SCaI-39)

In 1877, Paul Schumacher shipped what he called a "treasure" of archaeological materials to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (Putnam 1878:202). Known as "the Schumacher Collection," the archaeological assemblage contains an unusually large quantity of Euro-American manufactured materials from human burials at the Tongva Village of Nájquqar (CA-SCaI-39) on Pimu Santa Catalina Island, California. Previous attempts at analyzing these rare cultural materials did not include interpretations of their meanings within the context of ethnohistorical and ethnographical information in California. Multiple lines of evidence from documentary sources and archaeological analysis suggest that the Tongva islanders, known ethnographically known as the Pimu Tongva (McCawley 1996:79), opportunistically acquired trade goods from Euro-American seafarers at the time of "first contact" in 1542 until their final removal from the island sometime after 1820. The ways in which the Pimu Tongva meaningfully integrated introduced materials into pre-existing cultural practices, reveal how a coastal Californian group continued to craft their own identity in the face of domination.