Point Conception ( Chumash: ''Humqaq'') is a

headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, Joh ...

along the

Gaviota Coast The Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County, California is a rural coastline along the Santa Barbara Channel roughly bounded by the city of Goleta on the south and the north boundary of the county on the north. This last undeveloped stretch of ...

in southwestern

Santa Barbara County, California Santa Barbara County, California, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria. Santa Barba ...

. It is the point where the

Santa Barbara Channel The Santa Barbara Channel is a portion of the Southern California Bight and separates the mainland of California from the northern Channel Islands. It is generally south of the city of Santa Barbara, and west of the Oxnard Plain in Ventura Coun ...

meets the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

, and as the corner between the mostly north-south trending portion of coast to the north and the east-west trending part of the coast near Santa Barbara, it makes a natural division between Southern and

Central California Central California is generally thought of as the middle third of the state, north of Southern California, which includes Los Angeles, and south of Northern California, which includes San Francisco. It includes the northern portion of the San Jo ...

, and is commonly used as such in regional weather forecasts. The Point Conception Lighthouse is at its tip.

Toponymy

Point Conception was named ''Cabo de Galera'' by Spanish maritime explorer

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of '' John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, ...

in 1542. In 1602, Sebastian Vizcaíno sailed past again, renaming the protruding headland ''Punta de la Limpia Concepción'' ("Point of the Immaculate Conception"). Vizcaíno's name stuck, and was later anglicized to today's version.

Chumash beliefs

The

Chumash people The Chumash are a Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, extending from Morro Bay in the north to Malib ...

of the region have traditionally known Point Conception as the "Western Gate", through which the souls of the dead could pass between the mortal world and the heavenly paradise of ''Similaqsa''. It is called Humqaq ("The Raven Comes") in the

Chumashan languages Chumashan was a family of languages that were spoken on the southern California coast by Native American Chumash people, from the Coastal plains and valleys of San Luis Obispo to Malibu, neighboring inland and Transverse Ranges valleys and ...

. In 1978, the Point Conception area was occupied "by Chumash and other Native Americans trying to save it from development by a

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the v ...

company."

Toponymy

Chumash beliefs

References

Further reading