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Vast
and beautiful, the aboriginal homeland of the Esselen Nation is the southern Monterey Bay
area including the lush northern Salinas
Valley, the Monterey
Peninsula, the rugged Big Sur
coastline, and the mountainous interior from the Carmel
highlands to the area around Soledad.
For over ten thousand years before colonization by the Spanish Empire, Native
Californians developed complex social and religious systems within defensible
tribal territorial boundaries. Our ancestral tribal territories usually
included a diversity of ecological zones (mountain, riverine,
foothill, and grassland) and micro-habitats, wherein we practiced a complex
system of plant and animal range management. These territorial units, or
districts, were composed of at least one central, permanent village (called rancherías by the Spanish), and other secondary,
sometimes seasonal, village sites. Other resource sites were distributed
throughout the rest of the tribal territory.
Our lineal direct
ancestors came from the villages of at least nine major districts in the
southern Monterey
Bay region. Some of
these villages have come to be known by several different names due to the
variability in pronunciation, names recorded, and location by the Spanish
missionaries. These villages and village areas are:
1. Wacharon
(Guachirron)/Calendaruc:
present-day Moss Landing, Castroville, Watsonville
area
2. Ensen: interior area of Fort Ord
and Salinas
3. Achasta: Monterey area
4. Tucutnut/Capanay:
middle reaches of the Carmel
River drainage
5. Soccoronda/Jummis/Sepponet:
upper Carmel River drainage
6. Echilat/Ixchenta/Tebityilat:
upper San Jose
and Las Garzas Creek drainages
7. Esselen/Excelen/Excelemac: Santa Lucia Mountains and Ventana
Wilderness
8. Sargentaruc/Jojopan/Pixchi:
Carmel River south to El Sur
9. Eslanajan: Soledad and Arroyo Seco
Map after Taylor 1856; Levy 1973;
Hester 1978; Milliken 1990; Leventhal & Escobar
1995
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