Otsungna 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 ...

village located in what is now the El Sereno neighborhood of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and

California State University, Los Angeles California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) is a public university in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system. Cal State LA offers 142 bachelor's degrees, 122 master's degrees, ...

. It was referenced as the "Otsungna Prehistoric Village Site" in the construction of State Route 710. The village has alternatively been referred to as Ochuunga, derived from the

Tongva language The Tongva language (also known as Gabrielino or Gabrieleño) is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language formerly spoken by the Tongva, a Native American people who live in and around Los Angeles, California. It has not been a language of everyday conve ...

word for "wild rose" and possibly translating to "Place of Roses."

History

The village was located north and west of the large village of

Yaanga Yaanga was a large Tongva (or Kizh) village originally located near what is now downtown Los Angeles, just west of the Los Angeles River and beneath U.S. Route 101. People from the village were recorded as ''Yabit'' in missionary records althou ...

connected via a trail with the other village of Shevaanga. Spanish priest José Zalvidea noted that the village was located "on the road from San Gabriel to Los Angeles." This was a

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

trail that was used extensively prior to the arrival of the Spanish colonizers. Although evidence of the village has been largely destroyed, it has been proposed that El Sereno was established adjacent to Otsungna as an early Spanish colonial settlement in the Los Angeles area since Tongva laborers were essential to the construction of the city and early settlements were often constructed near preexisting Tongva villages.

References

{{Tongva villages Tongva populated places Former Native American populated places in California