Yak Tityu Tityu, Northern Chumash, and the Chumash:
A General Overview
by Karl Kempton
Edited by Carol Georgi
In 1997 Norm Hammond and our friend Lee Thurston had backpacked into a remote cave during the equinox that had a rough pictograph of a sunset. They both enjoyed sitting there watching the sun as it set directly on the top of a peak. Norm thought that event might well have served as a Chumash equinox 'marker' for the equinox. He also knew there was another Chumash rock art site with Summer Solstice events hidden behind that same peak.
Norm had been aware of my concept of Chumash grid alignments since 1986 from the publication of my Chumash focused poems, Alignment (out of print). The thought immediately came to him that not only could the cave they were sitting in be a marked location for the Chumash to observe the equinox, but it could also serve as a possible example of one of the ways my theory of Chumash rock art site grid alignments might actually function. Norm later shared his photos and ideas with me after the trip (see Norm's equinox sunset panel lower on this page).
It appears to me the Chumash cosmological land and sea scape contains specific ceremonial points where light and shadow have been channeled to form not only their singular dance at one point, but to dance at many points as the sun rises and sets on special days across Chumash cosmological space, including across the ocean to the islands. In this dance, it must be understood that each site event is unique and at the same time part of a larger known and grand cosmological whole.
Some sites also suggest or contain three events over a specified time span at rise and set perhaps reflecting the three-world cosmology of the Chumash Way. The concept of three is reflected in the events of sunrise, midday and sunset.
Consider light at first sun appearance illuminating the top most portion of a sacred mountain or rock feature then moving down the faces and sides of these features all across the cosmological space until light strikes the ground. Near day's end during last light, shadow then reverses the process climbing up these features until covering the top. These features themselves cast distinct shadow forms that would be part of the ceremonial rituals and more than likely associated with the Chumash sun sticks.
I have located such possibilities elsewhere. In the Southwest at Chaco Canyon there are solstice events beginning on a high butte and ending inside an underground kiva. Perhaps the most telling of such events is on the Mayan Temple of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza. During the equinoxes a serpent of light slowly descends the stairs to mark this special day. The Chumash sites are older than these.
I suggest this grand solstice earth matrix is both a basket of woven light carrying shadow and a basket of shadow carrying light. These lines run north-south, east-west and along the "x" axis the solstices form.
The following photographs do not reveal the locations of their respective events. I cannot in good conscience do so given what occurred in the early 1920's at Painted Rock on the Carrizo Plain. The rock panel at Painted Rock is North America's largest painted panel. Oil workers used it as target practice. Vandalism continues to this day throughout the Chumash area. The photo below is an example; this petroglyph, part of a Summer Solstice sunrise - Winter Solstice sunset alignment was removed, stolen in the 1990's. Only a hole remains where once radiated a sacred symbol.
Existence of Chumash Solstice sites at first came as a surprise. This is no longer the case; a large number have been recovered since the mid to late 1970's. But, archaeo-astronomers and archaeologists remain fixated on events that are a point of light. That sites are aligned remains foreign to most. Archaeo-astronomers and archaeologists have not moved from point to line nor from line to grid. How wide some of these lines are has yet to be recovered.
There is strong evidence that, like Stonehenge's wide procession avenue recently found, the Chumash also formed events with lines of width associated with sites along the corridor of solstice alignments. For the third dimension, there are the vertical features from top to bottom, bottom to top. All of this occurs within the fourth dimension, time. Since it is known the Chumash continued solstice ceremonies into the night associated with the moon, planets and stars, much remains to be recovered. Lastly, some of these sites are associated with dates greater than twice the age of Stonehenge.
  
Consider the previous multi thousand-year counts of solstices, equinoxes and the scared calendar days we do not know. Consider also during this time span that at each solstice and/or equinox and/or stellar site, either associated with populous village areas or removed where initiates and their spiritual masters presided, ceremonies all over the Chumash area created a highly spiritual vibration as the sacred features presented their unique event from first light to last light and into the deep hours of no light other than moon (maybe), planets and stars.
Currently, on each solstice, ceremonies occur on Morro Rock and Figueroa Mountain. Occasional ceremonies have taken place at Painted Rock and Diablo Canyon. Undoubtedly, other solstice ceremonies occur by invitation only.
It is our hope and wish that the marine sanctuary program educates the general public about the importance of the Yak Tityu Tityu and the larger Chumash culture and its heritage. European descendants have lived on this land less than one per cent of the span of the Yak Tityu Tityu and Chumash generation count.
Reference Materials
Grant, Campbell, THE ROCK PAINTINGS OF THE CHUMASH. University of California, Berkley, 1975, 163pp. caution -- many of Grants reproductions are sloppy
Hammond, Norm. ARCHAEOASTRONOMY, The Journal of Astronomy in Culture, Volume XVII 2002-2003. Article, "Solstice Markers at 'House of Two Suns' by Norm Hammond."
Hudson, Travis and Underhay, Ernesy; CRYSTALS IN THE SKY, AN INTELLECTUAL ODYSSEY INVOLVING CHUMASH ASTRONOMY. COSMOLOGY AND ROCK ART. Ballena Press, 1978. caution -- oral tradition in places is overridden with authors' own assumptions
Saint-Onge, Rex W, Johnson, John R., Talaugon, Joseph R.; "ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF A NORTHERN CHUMASH s of California and Great Basin Anthropology Vol 29.1, Ballena Press, Ca., 2010.
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