PREPARATORY NOTES FOR MCKITTRICK REGION – KOOSHUP LOCAL TRIBE

By Randall Milliken

The McKittrick region lies along the Kern-Santa Barbara county border and includes only one town—McKittrick in Kern County. The Kooshup people of missions La Purisima and Santa Barbara are the most likely contact-period occupants of this poorly documented region. They are known only from their appearance in the mission records, an appearance unaccompanied by direct locational information (see Mission Register discussion, below). Kooshup people moved to missions La Purisima and Santa Barbara over the 1800-1810 period. An alternative group for the area are the Chulucucunach people, who moved to Mission San Luis Obispo during the same period. The two names may be aliases for the same people, but evidence of close family ties between them is absent. The language of this McKittrick region was never documented, although the region’s location suggests that its inhabitants were Central Chumash speakers.

Environment

The McKittrick region straddles the Temblor Range, an inner spur of the South Coast Ranges overlooking Buena Vista Lake. McKittrick Peak, the range’s highest spot at 4,332 feet, is at the region’s center. On the west, the range slopes down to the central part of the Carrizo Plain at 1,940 feet, and on the east to the single corridor of Temblor and McKittrick valleys, 600-1,000 feet in elevation. Rainfall at the summit averages more than 12 inches, higher than the surrounding arid lowlands. The rain supplies a number of small seasonal drainages and permanent springs in the uplands. Water that flows west supplies land-locked Soda Lake, a shallow ephemeral body of water on the Carrizo Plain. Chico Martinez and Temblor creeks are the largest east-flowing watersheds; they can carry water all the way to the Buena Vista-Tulare Lake connector sloughs in neighboring regions. During the dry months the native inhabitants of the region certainly relied on springs for water. Native vegetation was primarily grassland and chaparral. Stands of blue oak and coast live oak are found in a relatively large area (4 x 8 miles) along the northern part of the high central area.

Early Expedition References

To be developed.

Mission Register References

To be developed.

1840-1900 Historical References

To be developed.

Classic Ethnographic References

Merriam was told by a Buenavista Yokuts speaker about a group called the "Temploa" during his visit to the Tejon Ranch headquarters (see Tejon Creek region) in November 1905. Temploa was a general term applied to the entire Temblor Range by local some residents during the early twentieth century, but we have not been able to document any particular spot with that name. We mention that name here only because our McKittrick region encompasses the center and highest portions of the Temblor Range. Merriam wrote:

Temploa. Tribe, Too-lol’-min (Yokut). In their own language (Too-lol’-min):

The place: We’-ah-wi’-ling-al

The rancheria: Ah’-kah’ke We’-ah-wi’-ting-al

The people: We’-ah-wi’-ting-al cha-ahtch

The tribe: Too-lol’-min (same as at Buena Vista and Kern Lakes)

A neighboring rancheria (exact site not known by me) was called Wah’-pe-et by both the Too—lol’-min and Tin’-lin-ne [Merriam 1967:436].

Kroeber (1925:Plate 47) mapped the eastern portion of the McKittrick region within the territory of the Tulamni Yokuts of the Buenavista region. He wrote, "They ranged westward to Wogitiu in the vicinity of McKittrick" (1925: Plate 47, 478). He also commented about the western portion of the region, noting, "The Carrizo plains are doubtful as between Chuamsh and Salinans, and may not have contained permanent villages" (Kroeber 1925:551).

Recent Ethnographic References

Wallace 1978. Wallace (1978:448) mapped the eastern portion of the McKittrick region as the land of Yokuts-speaking people, using the Coast Range crest boundary that had been inferred by all researchers since Alexander Taylor in the 1850s. He marked the town of McKittrick as the site of an unnamed Yokuts-speaking village, citing Kroeber and Latta [Wallace 1978:Figure 1]. Wallace (1978) offered no original data on the contact-period people of the McKittrick region.