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The Esselen were a Native American
Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
 linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan language
Hokan languages

The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California and Mexico. In nearly a century since Edward Sapir first proposed the "Hokan" hypothesis, little additional evidence has been found that these families were Comparative method to each other....
 family, who resided in what is now known as Big Sur
Big Sur

Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the central California, United States, coast where the Santa Lucia Range rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean....
 in the Monterey Bay Area, California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
. Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the original people's territory once extended much further north, into the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, or the Bay, is a metropolitan region that surrounds the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay Bays in Northern California....
, until they were displaced by the entrance of Ohlone
Ohlone

The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan and as the Muwekma, are the Native Americans in the United States of Northern California who have lived in the San Francisco Bay and Monterey Bay areas since the sixth century, spanning south into the Salinas Valley....
 speakers.






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Esselen Lang
The Esselen were a Native American
Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii....
 linguistic group in the hypothetical Hokan language
Hokan languages

The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California and Mexico. In nearly a century since Edward Sapir first proposed the "Hokan" hypothesis, little additional evidence has been found that these families were Comparative method to each other....
 family, who resided in what is now known as Big Sur
Big Sur

Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the central California, United States, coast where the Santa Lucia Range rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean....
 in the Monterey Bay Area, California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
. Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the original people's territory once extended much further north, into the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, or the Bay, is a metropolitan region that surrounds the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay Bays in Northern California....
, until they were displaced by the entrance of Ohlone
Ohlone

The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan and as the Muwekma, are the Native Americans in the United States of Northern California who have lived in the San Francisco Bay and Monterey Bay areas since the sixth century, spanning south into the Salinas Valley....
 speakers. Richard Levy places the displacement around AD 500 based on linguistic evidence.

The Esselen resided along the upper Carmel
Carmel River

The Carmel River is a river, long, on the central coast of Monterey County, California. It is often considered as the northern boundary of Big Sur....
 and Arroyo Seco Rivers
Arroyo Seco (Alameda County)

Arroyo Seco is a watercourse in Alameda County, California which traverses through the city of Livermore, California. Arroyo Seco means dry stream in Spanish language....
, and along the Big Sur coast. There were also settlements in the coastal mountains. They were hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary List of subsistence techniques involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either....
s who resided in small groups with no centralized political authority.

The Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute

Esalen Institute is a center in Big Sur, California, in the United States, for humanism alternative education and a nonprofit organization devoted to multidisciplinary studies ordinarily neglected or unfavoured by traditional academia....
 in Big Sur is named after this group.

The Esselen Nation is currently petitioning the federal government for recognition.

Etymology

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
Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, also known as the Carmel Mission, is a historic Roman Catholic Spanish missions in California in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California....
). Another possibility is that "Exse'ein" or "The Rock" refers to the large promontory on which the Pt. Sur Light station is situated; it is visible for miles both up and down the coast. The Spanish extended the term to mean the entire linguistic group. Variant spellings exist in old records, including Aschatliens, Ecclemach, Eslen, Eslenes, Excelen, and Escelen. "Aschatliens" may refer to a group around Mission San Carlos
Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, also known as the Carmel Mission, is a historic Roman Catholic Spanish missions in California in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California....
, in and around the village or Achasta. See Breschini and Haversat (2004).

Population

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred L. Kroeber

Alfred Louis Kroeber was one of the most influential figures in United States anthropology in the first half of the twentieth century.Kroeber was born in Hoboken, New Jersey and attended Columbia College at the age of 16, earning an A.B....
 suggests a 1770 population for the Esselen of 500. Sherburne F. Cook
Sherburne F. Cook

Sherburne Friend Cook was a physiologist by training, and served as professor and chairman of the department of physiology at the University of California, Berkeley....
 raises this estimate to 750. A more recent calculation (based on baptism
Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which one is admitted as a full member of the Christian Church and, in the view of some, as a member of the particular Church in which the baptism is administered....
 records and density) is that they numbered 1,185-1,285.

The Esselen were absorbed into the population of Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo
Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo

Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, also known as the Carmel Mission, is a historic Roman Catholic Spanish missions in California in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California....
 in present-day Carmel, California, where many died from disease, demoralization, poor food, and overwork.

Language


The Esselen language
Esselen language

Esselen is a language isolate that was spoken by the Esselen Native Americans on the Central Coast of California, south of Monterey, California....
 is a language isolate
Language isolate

A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other living languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common to any other language....
. It is hypothetically part of the Hokan family
Hokan languages

The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families spoken in California and Mexico. In nearly a century since Edward Sapir first proposed the "Hokan" hypothesis, little additional evidence has been found that these families were Comparative method to each other....
.

See also

  • Kuksu (religion)
    Kuksu (religion)

    Kuksu, also called the Kuksu Cult, was a shamanistic religion in Northern California practiced in different degrees by many Native Americans in the United States people before and during contact with the arriving European settlers....


Further reading

  • Breschini, Gary S. and Trudy Haversat. 2004. The Esselen Indians of the Big Sur Country: The Land and the People. Salinas, CA: Coyote Press, 2004. ISBN 1-4044-0003-6


External links