Chumash

When Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo charted the Pacific coast in 1542 he was trying to find the much vaunted Northwest Passage. Instead, he found California and was the first European to meet the inhabitants -- in this case, the Chumash people of what is now the Santa Barbara County coast. A highly developed culture, the Chumash built seagoing boats and were the purveyors of prized trade goods among many of the other tribes of California. They also accepted homosexuality and cross-dressing among men, customs the Spanish chronicler Pedro Fages mentions with distaste in his 1775 manuscript, A Historical, Political and Natural Description of California.

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