WAYS TO SUPPORT

yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini

(YTT) Northern Chumash Tribe of the San Luis Obispo County and Region

We are the documented descendant Indigenous Tribe of San Luis Obispo. Our membership is comprised of families whose ancestry dates back to this one region for well over 10,000 years. We represent an unbroken chain of lineage, kinship and culture.

The yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini (ytt) Northern Chumash were the earliest residents of the central coast of California whose homeland can be in general described as the San Luis Obispo County region. Our people and culture declined with the arrival of the Europeans, including the Spanish mission system, Mexican conquest and American colonization. Yet, despite tremendous death and often time forced assimilation of tribal peoples, the Chumash culture has survived and is in the midst of an unprecedented revival.

Many of our families have never lived anywhere else. It doesn’t matter where our members live, however, because the love of our homeland never ends. Our ongoing work towards Tribal preservation is to protect and promote our unique culture, elegant language, remarkable resources, and timeless traditional ways.