Native American Tribes series.
Esselen
The Esselen were one of the least numerous groups in California, and are often cited,
incorrectly, as the first California Indian group to become culturally extinct. This picture of Esselen extinction, although pervasive in the literature, is wrong. Not only did the group not become extinct, there is even recent evidence that some Esselen escaped the missions entirely by retreating to the rugged interior mountains. It now appears that a small group survived into the 1840s before filtering to the ranchos and the outskirts of the growing towns.
The name Esselen probably derived from the name of a major native village, possibly from the village known as
Exse'ein, or the place called
Eslenes (the site of the Mission San Carlos). The village name is likely derived from a tribal location known as Ex’selen, "the rock," which is in turn derived from the phrase
Xue elo xonia eune, "I come from the rock." "The Rock" may refer to the 361 feet (110 m) tall promontory, visible for miles both up and down the coast, on which the Point Sur Lighthouse is situated. It may also have referred to Pico Blanco, the mountain they believed that all life came from.
The Esselen left hand prints on rock faces in several locations, including the Pine Valley area and a site a few miles east of Tassajara where about 250 hand prints are located in a rock shelter and elsewhere in the Tassajara Valley. The Esselen believed that because rocks held memory, when they put their hand into a hand that was carved on the rock, they could tune into everything that ever happened at the site. The Esselen people gave names to everything, including individual trees, large rocks, paths, even different portions of a path. They believed everything, including the stars, moon, breeze, ocean, streams, trees, and rocks, were alive and had power, emotion, intelligence, and memory.
Mondo's NAT #189 - Esselen
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