Subject: wot chief
Culture: Chumash
Setting: Spanish colonial period, southern California late 18thc
Object: costume
Hair
* Paterek 1994 p249
"Men wore their long hair loose; sometimes part of the hair was coiled into a topknot and a bone pin thrust through it to anchor it securely. Occasionally men plucked the beard with a clamshell tweezer."
Robe
* Paterek 1994 p249
"The rabbit-skin robe was replaced in this area with a feather robe (much more common throughout southern California); narrow strips of birdskin were bound with a cord and woven in the same manner as the robes of rabbit skin. These were waist length, except that men of higher status wore ankle-length robes. Some robes or cloaks were of fur, such as bearskin or sea-otter fur; deerskin was also made up into mantles. Shell or bone pines were used as fasteners."
Ornaments
* Paterek 1994 p250
"In their ornaments the Chumash made much use of steatite (soapstone), which was obtained from a mine on Santa Catalina Island. Earrings, nose plugs, and necklaces were created using the steatite as well as various shells and bones. Asphaltum, found on the beaches, was used to make ornaments of pieces of abalone shell inlaid in the pitch. Keyhole limpet shells made delicate hair ornaments, and olivella shells were fashioned into beads. The shells of the giant Pismo clam were ground into disks and drilled so they could be strung into necklaces; these white clamshell disks were used as a form of money throughout much of California, but they were much more desired as an ostentatious display of acquired wealth. The Chumash seem to have been the principal manufacturers of these clamshell disks, trading them widely. Some men wore a slender tube of clamshell in the perforated nasal septum. Dark wooden rods were worn in the pierced earlobes."
Kilt
* Paterek 1994 p249
"Men wore a wraparound buckskin kilt, when they wore anything. Around the waist was a sash of netting, into which necessary items could be thrust, or to which ornaments could be attached."
