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appear to be no inherited economic specialties but there was one named occupation of
“carpenter” (‘ahiihirom) which may indicate that wood carving, perhaps canoe building,
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was or became an occupational specialty.
In the early ethnographic record, the Gabrielino social organization was described as
comprised of two or more patriclans which were not socially ranked. These patriclans are
said to have had “animal-persons” as totem ancestors. The Gabrielino reportedly are
related to totemic ancestors known as Wildcat (tukuu-t) and Coyote (‘iitar) (McCawley

1996:89). The neighboring Serrano further distinguished other totems such as Mountain
Lion (tukuchu) as wildcat’s elder brother clan, and the totem Crow (kachawa) as a related
clan. Coyote’s elder brother clan among Serranos is Wolf (S. wanats, G. ‘iisawt) and an
associated kin is the Buzzard (widukut) clan group. Ethnographic analogy suggests that
there were such totemic ancestral figures among indigenous Gabrielino clans (Gifford
1922, Hage 2003).

The related Takic groups in the region have a form of family organization known as
“Kariera-type system,” and Gabrielino communities partially conformed to this family
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system (Hage 2003). However, by the time ethnographers such as J. Harrington had
started recording kinship terms, Gabrielino kinship systems displayed a combination in
which female relatives were named acording to a Hawaiian kinship system and male
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relatives according to the Kariera system.. Families formed “double helix” marriage
alliances in which clans reciprocated marriage of their children. For example, a young
man of Clan A, “Kovaache,” will marry women from the Wildcat Clan, or another “Clan
B.” Ideally, marriages consist of Kovaache together with his brothers (and paternal
uncle’s sons) also marrying girls from Clan B, who would be a set of Clan B sisters or
parallel cousins. This creates a political alliance of two families. In the next generation,
Kovaache’s children will reverse their marriage obligations. Kovaache’s Clan A
daughters will seek out the Clan B boys. In the multigenerational family, Kovaache will
refer to both his grandparents and his grandchildren by the same names (males are
kaaka', females are shuuk). This means that they have similar social roles in the family.
Both are part of the family’s blood relations, much loved, and as oldest and youngest
family members, kaaka and shuuk are vulnerable and must be carefully nurtured.
Since all kinship terms indicate a valorization of reciprocal clan obligations, Gabrielino
family systems indicate an egalitarian rather than a ranked society. Even though marriage
alliances were bilateral over the generations, there probably were other means of creating
incipient social hierarchies. Gabrielino reportedly practiced gifting of valuables to the
bride’s family, a practice known as bridewealth (or brideprice) (Kroeber 1976). The gift
grants the groom the right to marry the bride and the social right to her children. Many

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There are other specialized works, such as stone working or shell bead carving, but there are no named
occupational specialties for these activities. There thus is no linguistic evidence for occupational
specialization.
6 Kariera kinship is based on bilateral cross-cousin marriage with patrilineal descent and alternate
generation moieties. In addition, parental siblings of the same sex are considered “Mother” or “Father.”
However, parental siblings of differing sex are labelled as "Aunt" or "Uncle" as the situation necessitates.
Hawaiian kinship is marked by Ego’s reference to all females of his parent's generation as "Mother" and all
of the males as "Father". In the generation of children, all brothers and male cousins are referred to as
"Brother," all sisters and female cousins as "Sister."
7 Thanks are due to vocabularies provided by Pamela Munro and the Tongva steering committee.

Caltrans D7 Region/Los Angeles County Ethnographic Consultation 19