Episode 45: Nunasis

Episode 45  is an original imaginative weaving that stays respectful of the recorded cosmology and the living continuity of Chumash knowledge. Let's dive in.

The canyon held its breath after the last light bled from the ridges. In the country that stretches from the Channel Islands to the inland mountains, land of the Chumash people for thousands of years, the middle world thinned at night. The elders had always said so. Below the world of people lay another place, cʔoyinašup and from that lower realm the Nunasis rose once the sun was gone.

Sources

https://oldfolklore.com/nunasis-spirit-demons-of-the-chumash-world/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumash_traditional_narratives

https://dokumen.pub/decembers-child-a-book-of-chumash-oral-narratives-reprint-2019nbsped-9780520342651.html

https://escholarship.org/content/qt5sb5h172/qt5sb5h172.pdf

https://www.nps.gov/places/000/chumash-religion.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_art_of_the_chumash_people

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chumash

https://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1880

These draw primarily from ethnographic records (especially J.P. Harrington’s notes as published and analyzed by Thomas Blackburn in December’s Child) and contemporary summaries that remain grounded in those oral narratives.