Genga, alternative spelling Gengaa and Kengaa, was a

Tongva The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people prefer Kizh as an endonym that, they argue, is more historically ...

and

Acjachemen The Acjachemen (, alternate spelling: Acagchemem) are an Indigenous people of California. They historically lived south of what is known as Aliso Creek and north of the Las Pulgas Canyon in what are now the southern areas of Orange County and t ...

village located on Newport Mesa overlooking the

Santa Ana River The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, before cutting through ...

in the

Newport Beach Newport Beach is a coastal city in South Orange County, California. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries however today, it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island, Newport ...

and

Costa Mesa, California Costa Mesa (; Spanish for "Table Coast") is a city in Orange County, California. Since its incorporation in 1953, the city has grown from a semi-rural farming community of 16,840 to an urban area including part of the South Coast Plaza–John Wa ...

area which included an open site now referred to as Banning Ranch. Archaeological evidence dates the village at over 9,000 years old. Villagers were recorded as Gebit in Spanish Mission records. The village may have been occupied as late as 1829 or 1830. There was a failed attempt to preserve a 9,000-year-old nearby village site in 2001 as well as a burial site of Genga in the 2010s, where commercial development was valued over preservation. This has initiated concerns over preservation in the area. A large part of the contemporary site of Genga situated in Banning Ranch may be transformed into a public open space as of 2022. The Tongva and Acjachemen support having a voice in the process.

History

Indigenous

Genga was in close proximity and had influence over Newport Bay, as reflected in the bay's original name given by the Spanish ''Bolsa de Gengar''. The village's influence may have extended up to the northern San Jaoquin Hills. One estimate placed the village population at around 100-150 at the time of contact. The village was

multiethnic A multinational state or a multinational union is a sovereign entity that comprises two or more nations or states. This contrasts with a nation state, where a single nation accounts for the bulk of the population. Depending on the definition of " ...

and

multilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...

, being shared by the

and

. Archaeological evidence dates the village to be at least 9,000 years old. As a coastal village, the usage of '' te'aats'' may have been important to the village's people. It is also likely that, similar to the nearby village of

Lupukngna Lupukngna was a coastal Tongva village that was at least 3,000 years old located on the bluffs along the Santa Ana River in Huntington Beach near the Newland House Museum. Other nearby coastal villages included Genga, located in West Newport Be ...

, that villagers primarily subsisted on acorns, seeds, berries, small game, fish and shellfish. Shell mounds were a part of village life. Cog stones have been found in the village area as well.

Spanish mission period

After the arrival of the Spanish colonizers, villagers were baptized at San Gabriel and

San Juan Capistrano San Juan Capistrano (Spanish for "St. John of Capistrano") is a city in Orange County, California, located along the Orange Coast. The population was 34,593 at the 2010 census. San Juan Capistrano was founded by the Spanish in 1776, when St. ...

missions and had marriage ties with villagers from

Hutuknga Hutuknga (alternative spellings: Hotuuknga or Hutuukuga) was a large Tongva village located in the foothills along the present channel of the Santa Ana River in what is now Yorba Linda, California. People from the village were recorded in mission ...

Puvunga Puvunga (alternate spellings: Puvungna or Povuu'nga) is an ancient village and sacred site of the Tongva nation, the Indigenous people of the Los Angeles Basin, and the Acjachemen, the Indigenous people of Orange County now located at California S ...

, and settlements around San Juan Capistrano. The

Diego Sepúlveda Adobe The Diego Sepúlveda Adobe (sometimes known as the Costa Mesa Estancia or the Santa Ana Estancia) is an adobe structure in Costa Mesa, California, Costa Mesa, Orange County, California. History The adobe was built between 1817 and 1823 to house ...

was built overlooking

and Genga from between 1817-1823 as an outpost "to watch over cattle and Indians." In 1827, missionaries considered whether to move their entire operation to the location. Like many surrounding

and

villages, the village declined with the growth of the missions, where Indigenous labor was exploited to construct mission facilities and tend to the mission's grounds. By the early nineteenth century, the village was being depleted and may have been occupied until 1829 or 1830. Yet, the place name carried forward in the nineteenth century, with the bay being labeled the ''bolsa de gengara'', an alternative spelling of the village, on an 1853 map.

Preservation attempts

Human remains from the village were uncovered in the 2010s. Although

and

people campaigned to stop the development over a site where six hundred ancestor's remains were found, it was failed to be preserved. The original burial site now sits underneath a parking lot next to a bank. The remains were moved to a dirt lot about a half-mile down the road. Because the Tongva and Acjachemen have been excluded from

federal recognition This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

, this has prevented them from having control over their ancestral remains and artifacts. In 2013, the city of

Costa Mesa Costa may refer to: Biology * Rib (Latin: ''costa''), in vertebrate anatomy * Costa (botany), the central strand of a plant leaf or thallus * Costa (coral), a stony rib, part of the skeleton of a coral * Costa (entomology), the leading edge of t ...

may have approved plans to construct over a site near the village location in nearby Fairview Park, despite archaeologists and Indigenous people speaking against further development in the area given the significance of the site, as well as its listing on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

since 1972. There were further concerns that the archaeological survey was being conducted by the Scientific Resource Surveys, Inc. (SRS), which has a poor track record in the area for preserving

village sites, being fined $600,000 for digging trenches into a 9,000 year old village site in Bolsa Chica in 2001. Banning Ranch, part of the site of Genga, which had been a large coastal oil field since 1943, may be transformed into a public open space as of 2022 after many years of organizing to preserve the site both as green space for the city as well as for historic preservation. City leaders of the project have said that "tribal descendants of the area’s earliest residents will also have a voice" in how the park is developed.

References

{{Indigenous peoples of California

External links