Point Conception
Coastal headland in Santa Barbara County, California
Point Conception (Chumash: Humqaq; Spanish: Punta Concepción) is a headland along the Gaviota Coast in southwestern Santa Barbara County, California, United States. It is the point where the Santa Barbara Channel meets the Pacific Ocean, 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, 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.
01Name
Point Conception was named Cabo de Galera ("Galley 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.
02Chumash beliefs
The Chumash people 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.
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 company."
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Point Conception”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Point Conception and Gaviota Coast.jpg by Doc Searls from Santa Barbara, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Point Conception Lighthouse on bluff.PNG by Robert Schwemmer/NOAA, Public domain
- Aerial-PtConceptionLight.jpg by John Wiley User:Jw4nvc - Santa Barbara, California, CC BY 3.0
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