Description
The Esselen Tribe is a small group of Indigenous Hokan speaking People who have inhabited the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Big Sur coast from Carmel Mission South 40 miles to Pacific Valley for over 6,000 years. The Esselen were the smallest tribe and least known in California. In 1602 the Spanish explorer, Sebastian Vizcaino, first visited Monterey. One hundred fifty years later Junipero Serra, a Spanish missionary, traveled up the Pacific coast from Mexico to found the California Missions that still exists today. His goal was to convert the Esselen to Catholicism. Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the original people's territory once extended much farther north, into the San Francisco Bay Area, until they were displaced by the entrance of Ohlone people.
Language
Esselen was the language of the Esselen (or self-designated Huelel) Nation, which aboriginally occupied the mountainous Central Coast of California, immediately south of Monterey. Esselen may have been the first Californian language to become extinct.
Culture
Excavation at a second site at the mouth of the Carmel River found more projectile points, a variety of cores and modified flakes, bone awls, a bone tube, a bone gaming piece, and mortars and pestles. Prior to European contact, the people wore little clothing. The men were naked year-round and the women and girls may have worn a small apron. In cold weather they may have covered themselves with mud or rabbit or deerskin capes. No evidence of sandals or foot wear has been found. Due to the relative abundance of food resources, the Esselen people never developed agriculture and remained hunter-gatherers. They followed local food sources seasonally, living near the coast in winter, where they harvested rich stocks of mussels, limpets, abalone and other sea life. Evidence of baskets have been found and were probably the principal item used to furnish households. In the summer and fall they moved inland to harvest one of their staple foods, acorns, which were very abundant throughout Big Sur.