While the United States had begun morphing into an indoor culture as the “machine in the garden” and hyper-industrialization took over after 1950, the explosive growth of the Internet, screens and overwhelming teleculture have intensified the trend.
In 1900, when the Anthropocene Age began, just less than 40 percent of the total U.S. population lived on farms and 60 percent lived in rural areas. Today, the respective figures are only about 1 percent and 20 percent. We simply spend a fantastic amount of time inside or on the porch, our cities have exploded in size, and coronavirus/COVID-19 seems to have forced more of us indoors for much longer periods of time (at least until the end of April).
As a longtime educator, I have deep concerns about what this novel indoor lifestyle brings in its wake for all of us, especially the young, whatever the causes. I’ve spent considerable time lately outdoors, and while the numbers of hikers, walkers and parkgoers have certainly picked up during the past few harried and horrible weeks in Santa Barbara, humans living in our gigantic hives such as New York City and San Francisco shelter grimly in place awaiting a change in health conditions.
Is it possibly a mistake to close off our state beaches, our backcountry camps and most of our outdoor access venues? On March 24, I drove to beloved Refugio State Beach in search of outdoor relief, well knowing it was officially closed, but also knowing I could legally park up Refugio Canyon Road past all the “No Parking” signs. I met two hiking friends, who each drove separately, and we enjoyed another fantastic above-the-beach bluff hike along the old biking path while maintaining strict social distancing.
Along the bluffs, my horticultural homie Joel Jamison helped me identify two highly useful plants that the Stone Age Chumash coastal tribes would have used consistently. Aside from datura (Mother Momoy), discussed in the last column, he helped us identify the “Indian tobacco” plant rife along the bike path and occasionally intertwined with the potent datura foliage. In European-based scientific lingo, nicotiana clevelandii is a wild tobacco plant, technically termed a glandular and slightly hairy annual herb that produces a slender stem up to about 24 inches in maximum height.
The Chumash smoked the dried leaves occasionally, but mostly they formed it into 5-inch “balls” or cakes, which they could then carry around in a tube and ingest at their pleasure. Anthropologist Jan Timbrook describes how they prepared and ingested Indian tobacco, “the only recreational drug used by the Chumash.” The datura-based toloache was primarily for ritual and ceremonial uses (see Robinson reference, 4.1.1.).
After drying and grinding up the leaves, several mussel shells were burned in a fire, and after turning quite red and cooling, the shells were powdered and mixed with the dry tobacco and a little water. The resulting product, called pespibata, was shaped into lumps or cakes about the size of a small potato. The shell ash made the tobacco much stronger. The pespibata cakes lasted a long time and became an important trade item. In historical times, post-Contact, the pespibata was carried in hollowed-out cattle horns.
In these unsettled times, with COVID-19 in our faces much as the European “Contact” era Chumash faced horrendous (much worse) diseases, it’s certain that alcohol intake, vaping, and smoking marijuana (or dabbing, whatever) have risen significantly. A healthy alternative is to take your children and head outdoors — maintaining strict social distancing, of course. While the parking lot at Refugio State Beach is closed, you can park near the freeway off-ramp, hike along the road beneath the towering freeway bridge and go onto the bike path there.
We do have to keep ourselves away from crowds of others, but we don’t have to “shutter” our spirits and simply remain in place at home, morose, and even developing into clinical depression with the constant flood of bad news. New York, oh my. I’m lucky: no TV, no cell phone, just the newspapers.
We certainly must follow the guidelines 100 percent (see “Clarification” in 4.1.1.), and we really do need to try our hardest to avoid the kind of medical pandemonium we’ve seen in Italy. The social costs and individual suffering are especially high for the urban poor, disabled people, homeless people, health care workers, veterans and elderly people.
Sadly, we read about the spring break partiers in Florida who congregated closely on beaches and partied like there was no tomorrow and no coronavirus. How hard is this to take basic precautions? And why did the Florida governor only enact tighter restrictions on April 1?
Maybe we need some pespibata cakes after all in order to get through this quarantine. Of course, I’m not actually serious. Indian tobacco is, in fact, toxic and shouldn’t be smoked or ingested. The Chumashan men had a “fun” preparing ceremony called alutapish where they’d make the stuff, chew quids of it, and then pass it along to the next guy. Somehow I think of my long-gone UCSB college days and passing a marijuana pipe (not recommended today with the coronavirus around!).
According to Timbrook, chewing and masticating had an intoxicating effect that the Chumash considered pleasurable. It also could be turned into a strength contest where young men would stand and pass the rechewable pespibata around until someone would fall down. The last man standing was then king of the mountain, I guess. What people will do when a society is under extreme pressure!
Negative as well as positive habits do intensify. Repeat more of those three-bourbon sunsets. Chew and rechew tobacco quids (chaws) to get dizzy and forget what’s coming; vape madly while video-game binging to forget what My Sweet Corona(virus) may bring.
Anthropologist David Robinson suggests that the Chumash may have masticated “chews” of datura-laden quids while grinding acorns, as is seen in the Pinwheel Cave in the San Emigdiano Mountains (4.1.1.). Perhaps one group or gender may have been chewing cakes of pespibata, and another sucking on datura-quids, while all nervously awaiting the next attack by the European invaders.
We do not have to literally shelter-in-place all the time at home, but we can surge outside observing the 6-foot social distance on the trail and in the local parks. I’m grateful to somehow manage living in Santa Barbara with all the compelling opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. We owe it to our children to get them outside as much as possible!
4.1.1
» Drive Highway 101 north for 23 miles to the Refugio State Beach off-ramp. Turn right and park. Leo Marx, “The Machine in the Garden — Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America” (Oxford University Press, 1964); Jan Timbrook, “Chumash Ethnobotany” (2007), p.127 and pp. 126-132; M. Sutton, D. Robinson et al. “Cupules as Containers” in Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 45 (2011), pp. 91-97.
» Clarification about my “social distancing” comments in the last column: There have been some comments that I minimized the need for sheltering in place and maintaining social distancing, but I certainly did stress the importance of social distancing on the trail (end of article), and I gave a link to ForestWatch’s thoughtful and strict rules for visiting public lands. The backcountry trails remain open. While there were only about 10 campers actually at Nira Camp with tents, etc. (well spread out!), I noted that the “120” hikers’ cars parked at or near Nira indicated they were “roaming around the upper and lower Manzana Creek Trails” in a federal wilderness area of more than 200,000 acres! This is by definition immense social distancing, and a good thing. Other commenters mentioned that more hikers should have their dogs on leashes since they often bring individual hikers too close together, fending off the canine.
— Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity and has written extensively about the local backcountry. His latest book, Autobiography in the Anthropocene, is available at Lulu.com. He serves as an archaeological site steward for the U.S. Forest Service in the Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at cazmania3@gmail.com. Click here to read additional columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
