Surviving on the Island: Chapter 22

Artist’s impression of how it may have looked as the Lone Woman collected water at Old Garden Spring on San Nicolas Island. Illustration by Michael Ward.

Karana and the Aleut girl, Tutok, become friends. Tutok visits the cave often while the hunters are on the island.

Karana and Tutok do not speak the same language, but they teach each other their names for different objects and they exchange gifts. Karana accepts the black stone necklace that Tutok leaves for her. Karana makes an abalone disk circlet for Tutok’s hair.

She misses Tutok when the Aleut girl leaves the island with the hunting group.

Fact Check: Language

Are the words Karana teaches Tutok actually Nicoleño words? Is it likely that Karana and Tutok’s word for “pretty” would sound alike? 

What do we know?
The words that Scott O’Dell has Karana share with Tutok are not Nicoleño words. The author invented them. Very little is known about the Nicoleño language because there are no written vocabularies and no living speakers of the language. However, there is a recording of a Chumash man singing a song he learned from another Chumash man who reportedly heard the Lone Woman sing in her native language, and those who knew the Lone Woman in Santa Barbara recorded in writing four words she spoke in Nicoleño. It appears that the Nicoleño language is linguistically unrelated to any Native Alaskan language. This means it is unlikely that the word for “pretty” would sound similar in Karana and Tutok’s languages.

What is the evidence?
Primary source: Listen to the Toki Toki song recorded on a wax cylinder (an early form of a record) by the anthropologist John Peabody Harrington in 1913 and sung by Fernando Librado. 

Secondary source: Linguist Dr. Pamela Munro analyzes the four words reportedly spoken by the Lone Woman in Voices from the Field.

Fact Check: Language

How did the Alaska Natives and Nicoleños interact? Did they ever become friends and companions, like Karana and Tutok?

What do we know?
Two Alaska Native men lived on San Nicolas Island for over a year with the Nicoleños. 

What is the evidence?
Primary source: In a deposition (testimony) Ivan Kyglaia, an Alaska Native, described how he and his friend Philip Atash’sha, another Alaska Native man, exchanged information with the Nicoleños while the two lived on the island from about 1817–1819.

Voices from the Field

Dr. Pamela Munro, professor of linguistics (emerita), University of California, Los Angeles, discusses the language she believes the indigenous people on San Nicolas Island spoke. 

Photos & Multimedia, Maps

Historic drawing: Sketch of limpet necklace that may have belonged to the Lone Woman, who was also known as Juana María. By J.P. Harrington.
Photo: Shell ornaments found in redwood box caches on San Nicolas Island in 2011. Courtesy of Department of Anthropology, California State University, Los Angeles.
Map: American Indian languages of coastal Southern California. Courtesy of Susan Morris, Steve Schwartz, and John Johnson.

Teacher Resources

Writing Prompts and Lesson Plans