Roman - Chronicles of Old Los Angeles: Exploring the Devilish History of the City of the Angels

2015 James Roman

2015 Museyon

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ISBN 978-1-938450-76-1 (e-Pub)

ISBN 978-1-938450-77-8 (e-PDF)

ISBN 978-1-938450-78-5 (Mobi)

ISBN 978-1-940842-00-4

1451117

Printed in China

L As vibrant culture comes from the diversity of its people, and the challenge of merging their diverse ideas.

From the hard lives of the early settlers, a new thinking emerged, where creativity and spontaneity prevailed, where individuals joined forces to overcome risk. That sensibility continues to define the City of the Angels today. As the epicenter of the entertainment industry, but also in its architecture and industry, its foods, fashions, and even its surfboards, Los Angeles is notoriously unique.

These Chronicles bring those previous generations and the uniqueness of their bright ideas to vivid life, explaining to a new generation how Los Angeles became the world capital we know today.

Hon. John J. Duran

Mayor, City of West Hollywood

CHRONICLES OF OLD LOS ANGELES

For the Arlens,

who gave my Los Angeles chronicle its start

James Roman

CHRONICLES OF OLD LOS ANGELES

Sites that appear in the chapters

Los Angeles

For 227 years, nobody told the Native Americans they were living in the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

First, the Spanish won Alta California when they conquered the Aztecs in Mexico. Then, their explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo headed north, the first European to set eyes on the land that is todays Los Angeles. He staked a claim for the Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1542. What did Cabrillo see? Smoke. A fragrant cloud, stoked by two-dozen Native American campfires, permeated the area. Cabrillo named this indentation in the coastline Bahia de los Fumos, Bay of Smokes. (Yes, LAs discovery was also its first smog joke.)

The natives called their home Yang-na, but their story is no joke. When the Spanish first arrived, the Yang-na people were scattered in little clusters between the ocean and the Los Angeles River; their center stood where City Hall stands today. They spoke a language similar to the Shoshones (on the other side of the Sierra Nevada); they lived on fish, small game and the flour they milled from acorns; they wore almost no clothing. The Yang-na believed in an afterlife, they practiced cremation and they savored hallucinogens during coming-of-age rituals. Temescals, ceremonial sweat lodges, were used for cleansing and for communion with their god Chinigchinich, but most rituals revolved around cycles of life. They had no demons.

The first recorded baptisms in Alta California were performed in The Canyon of the Little Christians.

Compared to their colorful relatives the Aztecs and the Great Plains Indians, the Yang-na were lackluster natives. They didnt farm the land, didnt make war, didnt build, didnt weave blankets or make terra cotta pottery. Yet, unlike the Aztecs and Mayans, these simple natives held onto their land and their lifestyle for hundreds of years beyond those sophisticated civilizations. California was one of the last habitable places on earth that wasnt being planned for the white mans empires. However, in 1781, more than two centuries after Cabrillo first smelled smoke, the Viceroy needed a plan.