Talk:Tongva

message: My name is Joe Castillo, and I’m an independent historical researcher and author, and am presently completing a study on the evolution of the term ‘Tongva’. My research to date has included a review of 155 sources of information from 1774 through 2018. The study included a survey of multiple subject-related materials associated with the San Gabriel Mission, Southern California locations, Los Angeles and  California history and Native Americans cultural, historical and anthropological records. My research included the following types of resources: a) published books, b) various documents and manuscripts, c) legislative documents, d) posters, e) maps, f) sites and signage, g) articles and h) websites. In addition, I have interviewed a variety of Native American and ‘Tongva’ authorities to gain a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of the term ‘Tongva’.
My research has resulted in the following statements based on identified factual records:
·         The Gabrielino’s are recognized by the State of California as the aboriginal tribe of the Los Angeles basin. The Tongva are not recognized by the State of California which documented  in its 1994 legislative research that there was ‘no support’ for the ‘Tongva’ name;
·         The ‘Tongva’ term was first defined by C. Hart Merriam in 1903. Merriam was performing a study of California Indians by documenting their language, boundaries and tribal origins. In his notes, Merriam documented that the ‘Tongva’ were from Tejon and referenced the Indians at the San Gabriel Mission as ‘San Gabriels’. Even though Merriam wrote the notes, they were not published until 1955 and 1966, after being compiled and edited by university researchers. In addition, Merriam’s research practices were not considered conventional  and were not reviewed, critiqued and accepted by his colleagues in the anthropological field;
·         Prior to 1992, only 8 sources of the study population of 155 identified the term ‘Tongva’ and 7 of the 8 sources were based on information provided by Merriam.  From 1774 to 1992, a period of 218 years, only two separate researchers identified and applied the term ‘Tongva’ in their professional works, and even then it was not in reference to a Los Angeles area based tribe;
·         Since 1992, the study population identified 57 sources which reference the term ‘Tongva’ but do not provide detailed research data and information to support it as the authentic and accurate ancestral, cultural and historical name of the Gabrielinos.   
In summary, my research has led to the following conclusions:
·         The ‘Tongva’ name is inaccurate when referenced as a Los Angles based tribe with negligible support from historical records and unconfirmed in comprehensive research studies by professional anthropologists;  
·         The ‘Tongva’ term primarily evolved in 1992 casting significant doubt on its validity as the  aboriginal tribal name of Los Angeles based Indian tribes dating back to the Spanish Mission era and before. 
As such, it is my recommendation, that any organization choosing to be associated with an entity named with the term ‘Tongva’ should reconsider its relationship until additional confirmed and validated evidence can be offered to support its claim as the aboriginal tribe of the Los Angeles Basin. Each entity should be able to provide ancestral, cultural and historical evidence in support of its claim as the aboriginal tribe of the Los Angeles basin. However, it is highly unlikely that such evidence even exists as starting in 1992 the ‘Tongva’ term was first associated with a Los Angeles based tribe even with negligible support for its ancestral, cultural and historical foundation. My study is expected to be finalized in September 2018 and will provide additional factual documentation in support of the information provided in this memo.
Thank you for your consideration on this matter,
Joe Castillo
Historical Researcher
Joe Castillo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:B1C9:5900:FC10:5DB7:DB8D:29A (talk • contribs) 12 August 2018 (UTC)
Researcher response
I'll begin by noting that I'm not a disinterested party, but am a lineal descendant of Mrs. James Rosemeyre (née Narcisa Higuera), your photographed representative of the tribe. Our family has always used the term Tongva to refer to themselves, though I do recognize others may have a different history.
While I do recognize the tribal endonym is a source of contention, I also feel it necessary to point out (reluctant as I am to enter this fray) that the individual, Joe Castillo, portraying himself as an independent researcher, is anything but.  He is a member of the "kizh" faction, as you can see from his own postings here: http://www.gabrielenoindians.com/JOE_CASTILLO_NEWS.html
I just felt the need to point this out and to thank you as a collective for being careful with this fraught and sensitive issue. There are no simple answers, and I recognize the challenges you face not wishing to offend an indigenous people who have overwhelmingly (as your own research documented here points out) decided to apply a known if not definitive endonym to themselves, rather than to continue to use a patently colonial term. For what it is worth, I will note that I have absolutely no problem with the notation that other endonyms are used, but it would be wildly inaccurate and irresponsible to deny the use or legitimacy of the term Tongva. I greatly appreciate that you have so far resisted efforts to that effect. 
Wallace Cleaves  — Preceding unsigned comment added by WallaceC2 (talk • contribs) 07:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I just checked Alfred Kroeber's 1925 "Handbook of the Indians of California" , and there is no mention of the name "Tongva" whatsoever. Also, The ethnonym "Kizh" cited in the article is probably mistaken for "Kechi" or "Kech", which means "house, village", or a native designation for the vicinity of the mission (ibid. p. 648). This article should be named Gabrieleno canonically with "Tongva" redirecting to it, not the other way round. --83.137.6.59 (talk) 04:19, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Researcher 

message: The Tongva tribal community is very upset by the vandalization of this page by editors who keep inserting the term "Kizh" an unattested endonym, into the article.  We respect thier right to create their own page and to use any name they wish, but Tongva is historically attested (Merriam, C. Hart; Studies of California Indians, pp. 77-86) and used by the vast majority of our people.
I have removed a number of cases where the term "Kizh" was simply inserted or replaced the endonym Tongva.  It does not seem appropriate to allow this page, titled "Tongva," to be modified in this fashion, particularly against the request of the Tongva Tribal community. May I suggest that the "Kizh" create their own page if they wish to discuss their chosen endonym, which is simply the Tongva word for "house" (Munro, Pamela; Gabrielino/Tongva/Fernandeno Vocabulary with an English Index, p.14,49).
I also removed citations to the discredited and self published (by the Kizh group) article by Gary Stickel.
Wendy Teeter, the director of the Fowler Museum at UCLA, has issued this statement about Stickel and his work:
In reference to statements you provide below Gary Stickel did graduate from UCLA and has worked on different excavations around the world. He taught for extension a few times several decades ago, but that’s the end of his relationship with UCLA. His professional ethics have been called into question continuously. As an example he helped to convict several daycare providers in the Manhattan Beach area (fortunately later overturned) and this piece was published about him:
http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume7/j7_2_1_17.htm
Please see the article for full details on the unprofessional nature of this individual and evidence for why his "scholarship" should not be recognized here.
I know this is a sensitive issue, but it does not seem appropriate to allow the site that references our endonym to be vandalized by someone without consent of our community. Again, I suggest they create a "Kizh" page where they can put whatever material they wish.
For the record, I am an enrolled member of the Gabreileno Tongva, an Associate Professor of Teaching at the University of California at Riverside, and it was my three times great grandmother, Narcisa Higuera, whose picture is used at the beginning of the article.  She was the Tongva, along with several others (as the publicly available Merriam papers make clear) who reported the endonym and recorded much of the language. We have used the term continuously in this manner and continue to do so.
'Aweeshkone xaa,
Wallace Cleaves  — Preceding unsigned comment added by WallaceC2 (talk • contribs) 19:18, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tongva page, not Kizh page 

message: Since the first photo of a human being is a daguerrotype dating to 1838, these women were clearly not pictured in 1830.
Furthermore, a version of the picture here (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/75/5f/b6/755fb6f37df3c44ef780ae987b4ff7cc.jpg) claims that they are 100 and 130 years old, which seems just as absurd.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.102.152.118 (talk) 17:48, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photo of "two Tongva women pictured in 1830" 

message: This might be of some interest to the extant article as a reference or citation: University Land Grant -- Gabrieleño though the article takes a detailed, deep look at how Native American lands were seized and distributed among the States for the putative creation of Universities. The history of the Gabrieleño and the killing of tribal members to force the selling of their ownership is one aspect of why California's current governor lamented the attempted genocide of natives nation wide. SoftwareThing (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  High Country News on Gabrieleño re University Grant 

message: "Kizh" can refer to two things; an alternate name for the people more commonly referred to as Tongva, and one of the several groups claiming to represent said people that has adopted and advocates for the "Kizh" name. Neither seem worthy of an article of their own to me. The Kizh article is also heavily biased towards the aforementioned "Kizh" group. --Eldomtom2 (talk) 13:43, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: What constitutes worthiness? Harryawhite (talk) 01:31, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

text: What nonsense; from the article on the Tongva it's obvious that "Kizh" refers to three tribes of Indians not things, (1) the long-suffering Kizh Nation whose culture predates contact with the Spanish in the mid 1530s, (2) the Tongva-Gabrieleno founded in the 1990s by Yahoos in academia, and (3) the Tongva/Gabrieleno founded in the 1990s by other Yahoos in academia. Why just the other day, Larry Sanger, founder of Wikipedia, warned that the website can no longer be trusted — insisting it is now just “propaganda” for academia and the left-leaning “establishment” (nypost.com). Harryawhite (talk) 00:05, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

text: Bone up Harryawhite (talk) 00:08, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

text: "I simply don't know enough about this issue to have a truly considered opinion on it." In the early 1990s non-natives led by people in academia established the Tongva-Gabrieleno and the Tongva/Gabrieleno organizations (hoping to achieve federal recognition and a casino) began to promote the term "Tongva" while demoting the Kizh (Wikipedia, etc.), as the ivory tower of academia tends to do. There never was a tribe of Tongva before 1992. It's not the first time Native Americans have been taken advantage of; however, Kizh tribal spokesperson Ernest Perez Teutimez Salas, who will forever regret helping them make the “Gabrieleño/Tongva Springs Foundation” possible, soon cut off contact with T-G and T/G leaders after its leaders got what they wanted, (“Gabrieleño/Tongva Springs Foundation”), but the damage had been done. They had succeeded in promoting the term "Tongva" on Wikipedia, in the literary world, etc. to the detriment of the Kizh. Harryawhite (talk) 23:08, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal