The Hahamog'na, commonly anglicized to Hahamongna () and spelled Xaxaamonga in their native language, are a tribe of the

Tongva people The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by ...

of California. Their

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

belongs to the

Uto-Aztecan The Uto-Aztecan languages are a family of native American languages, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The name of the language family reflects the common ...

family.

History

The Hahamogna inhabited the

Verdugo Mountains The Verdugo Mountains, also known as the Verdugo Hills or simply The Verdugos, are a small, rugged mountain range of the Transverse Ranges system in Los Angeles County, California. Located just south of the western San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdu ...

foothills and

San Rafael Hills The San Rafael Hills are a mountain range in Los Angeles County, California. They are one of the lower Transverse Ranges, and are parallel to and below the San Gabriel Mountains, adjacent to the San Gabriel Valley overlooking the Los Angeles Ba ...

; the Arroyo Seco in the westernmost

San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley (), sometimes referred to by its initials as SGV, is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, with the city of Los Angeles directly bordering it to the west and occupying the vast majority of the southeastern ...

area around present day

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial d ...

and Altadena; and the easternmost

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

area north of the

Los Angeles River The Los Angeles River (), historically known as by the Tongva and the by the Spanish, is a major river in Los Angeles County, California. Its headwaters are in the Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains, and it flows nearly from Canoga Park ...

around present day Glendale; all in

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

. Two settlements named Hahamongna, California have been located. The Hahamogna band have also been called Pascual and Pascualite Indians, after which the 1843 Mexican land grant Rancho San Pascual, that included their part of the Arroyo Seco, was named. Most correctly Hahamog'na is the name of this tribe's chief, and the tribe's name and the place in which they live also take this name. Other derivatives have been shown in an adjectival style thus referring to them as the "Hahamovic Indians." Hahamog'na was met by

Gaspar de Portolà Gaspar is a given and/or surname of French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish origin, cognate to Casper (given name) or Casper (surname). It is a name of christian origin, per Saint Gaspar, one of the three wise men mentioned in the Armenian ...

of the overland Mexican Expedition in 1770. The Spanish began a proselytizing campaign of religious conversion and servitude, the Indian Reductions. Upon his conversion, Hahamog-na was given the Christian name "Pascual" and his tribe became known as the Pascualite Indians, in the Indian Reductions of

Mission Indians Mission Indians was a term used to refer to the Indigenous peoples of California who lived or grew up in the Spanish mission system in California. Today the term is used to refer to their descendants and to specific, contemporary tribal nations ...

. This name preceded the naming of Rancho San Pascual, part of present-day Pasadena,

San Marino San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino, is a landlocked country in Southern Europe, completely surrounded by Italy. Located on the northeastern slopes of the Apennine Mountains, it is the larger of two European microstates, microsta ...

, and South Pasadena. The name Hahamongna is now applied to Hahamongna Watershed Park, an archeological site of one of the Hahamongna, California settlements, a recreational area, and an open space nature preserve-park in the upper Arroyo Seco in Pasadena.

Other Tongva tribes

Other family groups of the Tongva could be found elsewhere in the San Gabriel Valley and San Fernando Valley. With the founding of

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel Mission San Gabriel Arcángel () is a Californian mission and historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. It was founded by the Spanish Empire on the Nativity of Mary September 8, 1771, as the fourth of what would become twenty-one Spanish mi ...

in 1771 and

Mission San Fernando Rey de España Mission San Fernando Rey de España is a Spanish missions in California, Spanish mission in the Mission Hills, Los Angeles, Mission Hills community of Los Angeles, California. The mission was founded on September 8, 1797 at the site of Achooyko ...

in 1797, these Tongva groups gathered at the missions and were taught European skills of farming, raising cattle and producing leather, tallow, and soap. Once converted to Christianity, the neophytes were generally not permitted to return to village life. Collectively these groups were referred to as Gabrieleños and Fernandeños by the Spanish. Other Tongva names that are recognizable about the Southland: Cahueg-na (Cahuenga), Topag-na (Topanga), and Azuksag-na (Azusa). * Tongva populated places

References

Sources

*Dr. Hiram Reid, ''Pasadena'' 1895, out of print (google books). *

Southwest Museum The Southwest Museum of the American Indian was a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States, above the north-western bank of the Arroyo Seco canyon and stream. The museum ...

, Braun Research Library, ''Los Angeles''

Notes

External links

official Hahamongna Watershed Park website Hahamongna locator MapSave Hahamongna.org website
- ''ongoing open space and historic sites protection, and

riparian zone restoration Riparian-zone restoration is the ecological restoration of riparian-zone habitats of streams, rivers, springs, lakes, floodplains, and other hydrologic ecologies. A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or str ...