Rumsen

Infobox Language
name=Rumsen (San Carlos)
familycolor=Penutian
states= United States (California)
speakers=extinct
fam1=Penutian
fam2=Yok-Utian
fam3=Utian
fam4=Costanoan
fam5=Southern Ohlone
script=Latin alphabet
iso1=-|iso2=nai|iso3=css|

The Rumsen (also known as the Rumsien) are one of eight divisions of the Ohlone (Coastanoan) Native American people of Northern California. The Rumsen people resided from the Pajaro River to Point Sur, and the lower courses of the Pajaro, as well as on the Salinas and Carmel Rivers, and the present-day cities of Salinas, Monterey and Carmel.

Rumsen (also known as "San Carlos Costanoan" and "Carmeleno") is also the name of their spoken language on the Carmel, Sur and lower Salinas Rivers. It was listed as one of the Coastanoan dialects in the Utian family. It became the primary native language spoken at the Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo founded in 1770. The last fluent native speaker of Rumsen, Isabelle Meadows, died in 1938. However, the language is extensively documented in the unpublished fieldnotes of Bureau of American Ethnology linguist John Peabody Harrington.

Their Monterey Bay territory was bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Awaswas to the north, the Mutsun to the east, the Chalon in the south east, and the Esselen to the south.

History

The Rumsen were the first Costanoan people to be seen and documented by the Spanish explorers of Northern California, when Sebastian Vizcaíno documented their existence when he reached Monterey in 1602. Since this first Spanish contact, Manila galleons may have occasionally ventured up the California coastline and stopped in Monterey Bay between 1602 and 1796. [Levy 1978:486; Teixeira 1997:15.]

During the era of Spanish missions in California, the Rumsen people's lives changed with the incoming Spaniards who came from the south to build the Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo and the Monterey Presidio in their territory. Most of the Rumsen moved into this mission and were baptized, lived and educated to be Catholic "neophytes", also known as Mission Indians, until the missions were discontinued by the Mexican Government in 1834. See also: .

The last fluent speaker of Rumsen (and probably the last fluent speaker of any Costanoan language) was Isabel Meadows, who died in 1939. Linguist John Peabody Harrington conducted very extensive fieldwork with Meadows in the last several years of her life. These notes, still mostly unpublished, now constitute the foundation for current linguistic research and revitalization efforts on the Rumsen language.

At least since the mission era, the people of the Esselen Nation claim close association with the Rumsen Ohlone, through Mission integration and intermarriage.

Rumsen tribes and villages

The Rumsen main village site was mapped on the Carmel River, several miles inland from the Mission in Carmel. Kroeber, 1925, Map p. 465 ] See also:

* Ohlone tribes and villages in the Monterey Bay Area

External links

* [http://www.costanoanrumsen.org/ Costanoan Rumsen Chino Tribe] website.
* [http://www.esselennation.com/ Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation] website.

References

* Kroeber, Alfred L. 1925. "Handbook of the Indians of California". Washington, D.C: "Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin" No. 78. (map of villages, page 465)
* Levy, Richard. 1978. "Costanoan", in "Handbook of North American Indians", Vol. 8 (California). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer, eds. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. ISBN 0-16-004578-9 / 0160045754, pages 485-495.
* Milliken, Randall. "A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910" Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1995. ISBN 0-87919-132-5 (alk. paper)
* Teixeira, Lauren. "The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area, A Research Guide". Menlo Park, CA: Ballena Press Publication, 1997. ISBN 0-87919-141-4.

Notes