Convergence of Tears at Momonga: Spiritual, Social and Personal Interactions of the Multiethnic Mourning Ceremony

Summary

The village of Momonga (Ca-LAn-357) is located in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California, along the pre-Columbian boundaries of multiple ethnic groups. Rock art in the area indicates ritual activities involving people from various cultural traditions, including ancestral Chumash, Tongva, Yokuts, and Tataviam peoples. Excavations in a portion of the site have produced exchange and utilitarian items, such as shell beads, stone beads, amulets, stone bowls, hammer stones, pressure flakes, mortars, and pestles. Yet, there is little evidence for residential occupation. Instead, a significant number of buried offerings and human burials with intentionally broken utilitarian items placed over the bones, lead us to consider this area the locus of ritual activity. In particular, we suggest that the contents of these offerings as well as their placement in close proximity with important terrain features show similarities with modern day Mourning Ceremonies, involving dance, music, spiritual acknowledgment and worship, communication with the dead, physical manifestation of tears, wailing, and body convulsions. In this poster, we present the physical evidence that supports this interpretation and further postulate that the site may have served as a center of convergence between neighboring ethnic groups.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21069