Point Conception (

Chumash Chumash may refer to: *Chumash (Judaism), a Hebrew word for the Pentateuch, used in Judaism *Chumash people, a Native American people of southern California *Chumashan languages, Indigenous languages of California See also

* Pentateuch (dis ...

: ''Humqaq'') is a

headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, Jo ...

along the Gaviota Coast in southwestern

Santa Barbara County, California Santa Barbara County, officially the County of Santa Barbara (), is a County (United States), county located in Southern California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, California ...

, United States. It is the point where the

Santa Barbara Channel The Santa Barbara Channel is a portion of the Southern California Bight and separates the mainland of California from the northern Channel Islands. It is generally south of the city of Santa Barbara, and west of the Oxnard Plain in Ventura Co ...

meets the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

, and as the corner between the mostly north-south trending portion of coast to the north and the east-west trending part of the coast near Santa Barbara, it makes a natural division between Southern and

Central California Central California is generally thought of as the middle third of the U.S. state of California, north of Southern California (which includes Los Angeles and San Diego) and south of Northern California (which includes San Francisco and San Jose, ...

, and is commonly used as such in regional weather forecasts. Point Conception Light is at its tip and the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve covers some of the surrounding land.

Name

Point Conception was named ''Cabo de Galera'' ("

Galley A galley is a type of ship optimised for propulsion by oars. Galleys were historically used for naval warfare, warfare, Maritime transport, trade, and piracy mostly in the seas surrounding Europe. It developed in the Mediterranean world during ...

Cape") by Spanish maritime explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542. In 1602, Sebastian Vizcaíno sailed past again, renaming the protruding headland ''Punta de la Limpia Concepción'' ("Point of the Immaculate Conception"). Vizcaíno's name stuck, and was later anglicized to today's version.

Chumash beliefs

The

Chumash people The Chumash are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the central and southern coastal regions of California, in portions of what is now Kern County, California, Kern, San Luis Obispo County, California, San Luis O ...

of the region have traditionally known Point Conception as the "Western Gate", through which the souls of the dead could pass between the mortal world and the heavenly paradise of ''Similaqsa''. It is called Humqaq ("The Raven Comes") in the

Chumashan languages Chumashan is an extinct and revitalizing family of languages that were spoken on the southern California West Coast of the United States, coast by Native Americans in the United States, Native American Chumash people, from the Coastal plains an ...

. In 1978, the Point Conception area was occupied "by Chumash and other Native Americans trying to save it from development by a

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

company."

Name

Chumash beliefs

References

Further reading