A new documentary called Chumash Powered tells the story of Alan Salazar, an indigenous man based in Ventura who’s trying to save the traditional Chumash craft of building tomols, or canoes.
Tomols are flat bottom wooden boats that indigenous tribes once used to fish and travel from the central and southern coasts of California to the Channel Islands to trade.
According to the National Park Service, the practice of building tomols had disappeared by the mid-1800s, around when the Chumash had been all but decimated by European diseases.
Salazar’s fascination with tomols began about 20 years ago when he was invited to help build and then ride in one of the first working tomols in modern times.
“When I got on the ocean and got out in the middle of the ocean even at 4 AM — where its pitch black, dark. It felt natural. It felt like this is something I should have been doing my whole life,” Salazar said.
According to the documentary, that boat ride was the first time since 1834 that indigenous people had come together to paddle a tomol across the Santa Barbara Channel.
Salazar says tomols have since become his way of reconnecting with his Chumash culture and he hopes the documentary connects his people with other coastal tribes.
“That's my dream — that some Maori people, some Australian Aboriginal people, some Hawaiian people, some of my Northwest fellow tribal members will see this and go, ‘Oh we need to get down there and paddle with those dudes.’”
Meanwhile the director of the film, Ben-Alex Dupris, says, as an indigenous man himself, he chose to focus on tomols because of their cultural significance for coastal indigenous communities.
“These are the lifebloods, these are the the heart of our cultures. People are buried with their canoes, that's how deeply it goes,” Dupris said.
Chumash Powered premieres at Patagonia headquarters at 6:30 on Thursday evening.
Tickets are free.
