María del Pilar

María del Pilar, a Ventureño Chumash woman, visited the Lone Woman in Santa Barbara in 1853. J.P. Harrington informant Luisa Ygnacio said that Pilar went with Martina, a Cruzeño Chumash woman, from Ventura to Santa Barbara and collected clams to give to the Lone Woman. Because she had some familiarity with Fernandeño, the dialect of Gabrielino spoken in the San Fernando Valley, Pilar tried to speak to the Lone Woman, but with limited success.

DATE OF BIRTH: 1807
PLACE OF BIRTH: Ta’apu (Rancho Tapo, Simi Valley), Alta California, New Spain
DATE OF DEATH: 1860
PLACE OF BURIAL: Mission Santa Barbara, California, USA

References
1852 California State census, Santa Barbara County, California, population schedule, Santa Barbara, p. 37 penned, line 33, Maria Pilar, digital image. Ancestry.com. (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed January 23, 2016), citing California State Library repository collection C144, roll 5.

Hudson, Travis. “Recently Discovered Accounts Concerning the ‘Lone Woman’ of San Nicolas Island.” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 3 (1981): 193–194.

Johnson, John, “Chumash Indians in Simi Valley,” in Simi Valley, a Journey Through Time, Patricia Havens, ed., pp. 15–17. Simi Valley Historical Society and Museum, 1997.

Schwartz, Steven J., Susan L. Morris, John R. Johnson. The Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island: Her Story from Native American Sources. Presentation at the May 2018 meeting of the Santa Barbara County Archaeological Society, Santa Barbara, California.

Last updated: November 16, 2018