Chumash Conversions: The Historical Dynamics of Religious Change in Native California

Abstract

The historical dynamics of religious change among the Chumash constitute a compelling case for the academic study of conversion. Within 250 years the community has experienced two major cultural transitions: first, European colonization after 1772, and second, indigenous revitalization since 1968. Although both events implicate changes in religiosity, ethnohistorians and anthropologists tend to regard religious conversion as a byproduct of other cultural forces. This paper takes a different approach because conversion is understood as a force that in itself contributes to cultural transition. The relative distribution of the four most significant religious traditions since colonization is traced using a model that synthesizes prevailing insights from conversion research into an analytical matrix that may be applied to historical and contemporary qualitative data. Approaching cultural change among indigenous peoples as conversion brings a renewed focus on religiosity as a cultural strategy at the same time as it contributes to a cross-cultural perspective on conversion.

The Demise, Dissolution and Elimination of Religions

“…In many cases one can observe surprising tendencies of resilience, rarely however do we find deliberate programs of strategic persistence, like in Second Temple Judaism (Weitzman 2005). There are various forms of adaptations and transformations, or even some degrees of revitalizations (such as in the case of the Chumash of Southern California, see Paldam 2017). This, of course, requires memory or memorialization of the former religion.…”