Description
The Tongva are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately 4,000 square miles. In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name. Along with the neighboring Chumash, the Tongva were the most influential people at the time of European encounter. Many lines of evidence suggest that the Tongva are descended from people who originated in what is now Nevada, and moved southwest into coastal Southern California 3,500 years ago.
Language
Uto-Aztecan
Culture
The Tongva lived in the main part of the most fertile lowland of southern California, including a stretch of sheltered coast with a pleasant climate and abundant food resources. Therefore, resources such as plants, animals, and earth minerals were diverse and used for various purposes, including for food and materials. They fished and hunted in the estuary of the Los Angeles River, and like the Chumash, their neighbors to the north and west along the Pacific coast, the Gabrieleño built seaworthy plank canoes, called te'aat, from driftwood. In the Tongva economic system, food resources were managed by the village chief, who was given a portion of the yield of each day's hunting, fishing, or gathering to add to the communal food reserves.