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Ethnography

Ethnography is the process of describing the richness and complexity of human life as it is lived in different ways and in different places. Ethnology, or cultural anthropology, is the comparative and analytical study of cultures – the customs, behavior and beliefs of living peoples. This study includes material culture – the variety of objects that people make and use in all aspects of life.

Chumash Baskets

Jan Timbrook, Curator of Ethnography, has been studying Chumash Indian culture and ethnobiology on the Museum’s Anthropology staff since 1974. She has collaborated on four published books and authored over a dozen scientific papers on topics ranging from herbal medicine to environmental management by the Chumash. With training in art as well as anthropology, Timbrook has prepared many exhibits of Native American cultural artifacts and uses knowledge derived from her research to paint scenes of Chumash life.

Jan Timbrook, M.A.
Curator of Ethnography
(805) 682-4711 ext. 140
jtimbrook@sbnature2.org

The centerpiece of the ethnographic collections is Chumash basketry. At the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, our studies and our collections focus mostly on the Chumash Indian culture of south central coastal California. The Museum holds 44 Chumash baskets (in addition to several more archaeological examples), the largest such collection in the world. These are all currently on public display.

Chumash Deer Whistles

The complete collections extend far beyond the local Santa Barbara region. Materials from indigenous cultures of California, the Great Basin, Southwest, Northwest Coast, Plateau, Great Plains and Arctic are housed in the Anthropology Department. Particular strengths include about a thousand baskets made by native peoples throughout western North America, many Northwest Coast wood carvings, Plains Indian regalia, and textiles of the Southwest, Mexico and Central America.

Above. Most of the ethnographic collections are housed in a climate-controlled archival facility. They are brought out for special exhibitions and are also available for study by appointment.

Research in Anthropology/Ethnobiology
The Anthropology staff conducts ongoing research in ethnobiology with an emphasis on Chumash ethnobotany – plants in the life of Native peoples of the Santa Barbara region, past and present.

What’s Ethnobiology? It combines anthropology and biology to study the relationships of plants and animals with human cultures. Ethnobiology includes not just how people use plants and animals, but also how they think about them, weave stories about them, affect the environments in which they grow, and have life shaped by them.

Many plants important in Chumash culture can be seen growing in Sukinanik’oy Garden on the Museum grounds. This ethnobotanical garden introduces visitors to plants used for food and medicine, to make basketry, clothing and tools, in ceremony, legend, and more. Sukinanik’oy, in the Barbareño Chumash language, means “bringing back to life.”

Student A and studen B install signs

Above. Steven Ontiveros and Julie Le install interpretive signs in the Sukinanik’oy Garden of Chumash plants.