What does Malibu mean to you?

When you think of Malibu, what pops into your head? Movie stars? Gazillion dollar homes? Surfing? Blonde hair and a great tan? After reading the 10 Malibu-related words and phrases below, we hope that the next time you think about Malibu, you'll feel more like a native and less like a tourist.

Sidewinder at Zuma in January.

MALIBU

Here's a quiz: what language does the name for this 27-mile strip of prime real estate come from? If you guessed Spanish, you would be wrong. If you guessed "Chumash," you would be right, sort of (see #2 below).

"Malibu" is actually how early Spanish settlers (and later English speakers) heard the word humaliwo, which means "where you can hear the surf." It was the name of a village of seafaring people, not unlike the Polynesians, who went back and forth to the Channel Islands on big plank canoes. The village was located near the Malibu Lagoon.

Malibu is one of only a handful of places in Southern California that got to keep its name after the people who had lived there for the previous seven or eight centuries were "cleansed" from the landscape.

CHUMASH

Who were the Chumash? Good question. The standard answer is that they were an Indian tribe - or group of Native Americans - who lived in most of what is today Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo Counties.

But the real answer is more complicated than that.

Nobody on the Central Coast called themselves by that name. It was coined by anthropologists as a handy way to group these separate-but-linguistically-related peoples together.

The people who lived in what is now Santa Barbara called the people who lived on Santa Cruz Island, across the Channel, the "shell-money people," or "Chumash," in their tongue. Those same Santa Barbarans called Santa Cruz "Michumash," or "where the shell-money people live." The shell-money people called their own island "Limuw," or "the Island" (literally, "place in the sea").

Shell-money people? The coastal peoples were prosperous traders. They had one of the most sophisticated economic systems on the continent. Instead of using a "gold standard" to back the value of their money, they used the "shell standard." The money itself was made out of shells, which were strung together in strings of various sizes, indicating different denominations. The money was "minted" -- i.e., the shells were processed -- on Michumash.

According to Richard Applegate, Ph.D., "Today the descendants of the Chumash recognize themselves as a distinct community, although they preserve relatively few of their old ways. There are no longer any native speakers of any Chumash language." (From "Chumash Narrative Folklore and How People Spoke," Journal of California Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 2, Winter 1975).

ZUMA

Meaning "abundance" in the Malibu dialect. There was a settlement where Paradise Cove is now, but the name referred to all of the Point Dume area. Zuma is also the name of one of the most pristine beaches in Southern California.

POINT DUME

The long bluff that marks the northern end of Santa Monica Bay. It was named in 1793 by British explorer George Vancouver to honor his friend Padre Francisco Dumetz from Mission San Buenaventura. A typo on Vancouver's map (leaving off the "t" and the "z") was never corrected.

LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL

Powell was head librarian at UCLA for many years. The undergraduate library (with the beautiful tiles) was named for him. One of his essays, "Ocian in View" (the title comes from the Lewis and Clark journals), paints one of the most sublime portraits of natural Malibu that I have ever read. Powell began hanging out there in 1944, and finally moved, with his wife, in 1955 to "a cliff by the estuary of Encinal Creek." 

One short quote from this very short essay (which can be found in Writing Los Angeles, edited by David Ulin):

Characteristic of this coast is the offshore wind that blows after dark, very faintly, a mere breath of mountain air suspiring delicately toward the sea, bearing smells of sunwarmed brush and stream-bed with smoke from our chimney, ghosts of the beach-wood, drifting down over the dark sand and waste, residue of fire, liberated energy, sweeter far than incense of cathedral.

SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS
A coastal mountain range that rises in Hollywood and stretches 50 miles northwest to Point Mugu (Chumash for "beach village"), and therefore encompassing Malibu.


The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is the second largest urban park in the United States, and one of the places you can learn about the Chumash culture, at the Satwiwa Native American Culture Center. (Yes, satwiwa is Ventura Chumash for "bluffs.") 


TOPANGA
Topanga is also an indigenous word, but not Chumash. It is a Tongva word meaning "close to heaven." The Tongva lived in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys. Topanga Canyon meets the beach at the extreme southeastern end of Malibu.


DOLPHIN
On any given day at Zuma Beach, if you wait long enough, you will see families of dolphins cavorting in the ocean, just beyond the breaking waves. Three types of dolphins can be found in Malibu's waters: Bottlenose (Tursiops truncatus), short-beaked common (Delphinus delphis), and long-beaked common (Delphinus capensis). (Source: Ocean Conservation Society)


GETTY VILLA
Home of J. Paul Getty's collection of antiquities. Spectacular location, spectacular setting.


THE REEL INN, MALIBU SEAFOOD, NEPTUNE'S NET
From one end of Malibu to the other, three inexpensive places to grab a bite of seafood with an ocean view.