News From Native California - Spring 2016 Volume 29 Issue 3 | Page 18

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’ee, miššix mak ‘aa neeya. muur mur, ka ‘oksey ukxakay rukkatiki ‘ečilta ‘is tuknutk. ‘arru
‘immey ‘utti rukkatiki xuyya, tannay mur ‘eeweki šiina mišyon. kuwee mur miššix. mur
keččeš ša mišyon. tannay mur ‘eeweki šakay mirkanakay, ‘is ‘utti ‘aa pannan. ‘inn ‘exxe
mur ‘utyey xekčošt ‘aa, ka ‘oksey ukxakay. ka ‘unnixin čiyya. ‘arra mak katyun makkey
katta iṣmen, ‘ee. ‘inn paču mak pusyep makkey katta iṣmen ‘attap. miššix mak ‘aa neeya.
‘arra mak čulleki. ‘ee, miššix mak ‘aa neeya.
In the past, my ancestors lived in Echilat and Tucutnut. Back then they all lived there,
then came the mission. It was not good. The mission was bad. Then came the Americans,
and they were even worse. But they were very strong, my ancestors. They allow me to be

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here. Like the moon, we waned, yes. But also like the moon, we have revived. We are well
now. We have returned.

“In Indian times there
was no such thing as
bad years.”
(Harrington Reel 80, page 372)
Beginning in 1770, the Carmel Mission drew in 1,062 Rumsen
people while in operation. By 1778, the Rumsen villages of the
lower Carmel Valley were completely absorbed into the mission. The first of my own ancestors to appear in the records
of the Carmel Mission was baptized in 1775. He was brought
from the village called Echilat, truly ‘ičilta,—the place of the
climb. He was given the name Simeon Francisco by Junípero
Serra, who also baptized his wife, son, and six daughters. In
1795, the population at Carmel Mission peaked at 876 Indians;
this included all of the Rumsen people and a portion of the
Esselen people. At the time of secularization in 1834, there were
just 140 Rumsen people remaining.
The irreparable harm done to the Rumsen people by the
mission system is not uncommon among California Indian
communities that fell into its grasp. Those proselytizers,
germ-carrying colonizers, and their military compatriots,
established a new social order—one in which their ways and

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▼ N E WS F ROM N AT IVE C AL IFO RNIA

beliefs were posed as superior to ours. The dystopia they
founded led to the loss of so much for Rumsen people, specifics
about spiritual practices, dances, facial tattoos, clothing, and
adornments. Some of these will forever remain questions in
the minds of modern Rumsen people; something will always
be missing, because of Serra and his institution.
Yet the narrative of Rumsen history is far from being
solely about loss, for much was saved thanks to those Rumsen
people who carried the old ways in their memories, and who
continued to live them after the mission had been secularized.
One such woman was Neomesia Teyoc, always referred to
as Omesia or simply la vieja. Omesia was born in 1791 in the
mission, to two parents brought from the village Kallendaruc,
literally “at the sea village.” She appears in the baptismal
registry as baptism number 1,551. Her life overlaps the time
of the village (some seventeen years before Mission San Carlos
considered their “conquista” completed), the mission, and
secularization and dispossession; in other words, she witnessed
and endured the blunt force of her people’s colonization by
the Spanish, the Mexicans, and the Americans. Omesia was
among those 140 Rumsen people remaining at the end of the
mission period, along with my ancestors. She is the archetypal mission survivor: she would never be the same as when
she was a young girl in a Rumsen village, but she did hold on
to her identity and her language with tenacity.