Names Hold Power: How Chumash Advocacy Transformed a City Street

Generations of Chumash people have walked, driven—even lived—along the street in Santa Barbara named “Indio Muerto,” cringing under the shadow of it. The street was originally named in 1851 after a surveyor found the remains of a deceased Chumash man while laying out the city's urban grid. The name translates to "Dead Indian" in Spanish, and it has served as a daily, yearly, generational reminder of how we are viewed as less than human—without respect or dignity. Over the years, many attempts were made by Coastal Band to petition for a name change, without success. But public opinion—and more importantly, the views of city leadership—had begun to shift. We honor the incredible leadership and and lobbying from the Barbareño Chumash Tribal Council who successfully spearheaded the 2020 name change; the Santa Barbara City Council voted unanimously to rename it Hutash Street, which is a Chumash term for "Earth Mother," a name change that took effect in December 2020.

This followed the 2007 renaming of Highway 154 by Vincent Armenta, chairman of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, to the name “Chumash Highway.” A powerful act of recognition along a road that connects our coastal Chumash community to their inland Chumash community.

These efforts—changing "Indio Muerto" to Hutash Street in 2020 and renaming Highway 154 in 2007—are more than symbolic. They are part of a growing movement to reclaim the erasure of our place names, to restore our visibility on the land we've always belonged to, and to demand the respect and dignity our ancestors were too often denied.