Abstract: California Indians, Artisans of Oil

HODGSON, SUSAN, California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources, Sacramento, CA

"I will say that at a distance of two leagues from this mission [San Luis Obispo] there are as many as eight springs of a bitumen or thick black resin that the Indians call chapopote, which is mainly used to caulk their small water craft and to pitch the vases and pitchers that the women make for holding water. This black liquid springs from the ground and runs amid the water of the streams without commingling with it or giving it a bad flavor".-- From "A Historical, Political and Natural Description of California", by Pedro Fages, 1775, prepared in Mexico for the Spanish Viceroy of the Indies.

Natural oil seeps have been active in California for thousands of years. Most of the seeps along the Pacific coastline (onshore and offshore), in the coastal mountain ranges, and in the central and western valleys.

Fages and other early explorers--from the 1500s on--recorded how the California Indians used asphaltum and heavy oils taken from the seeps. Documentation has continued through the years, and today with many references available, it is clear that California Indians--including the Yokuts, Achomavi, Maidu, and Chumash--all used the asphaltum and heavy oils for symbolic, decorative, and practical purposes. As elsewhere in the world, many of the utilitarian objects evolved into folk art, articles that not only satisfied the daily practical needs of those who produced and used them but embodied the artistic sensitivities of the creators, the artisans of oil.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90911©2000 AAPG Pacific Section and Western Region Society of Petroleum Engineers, Long Beach, California