Shalawa Meadow
seaside ancient burial site used by the Chumash people
Shalawa Meadow (also called Hammond's Meadow) is a 3-acre (0.012 km2) seaside meadow in the community of Montecito, California. Used in ancient times as a burial site by the Chumash people and adjoining a formerly large Chumash community, it is about 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Santa Barbara.
History
The South Coast area of Santa Barbara County has a history as one of the most important archaeological regions in California, having been densely occupied by the Chumash for over 13,000 years. They ranged from the Santa Barbara Channel Islands north to the Carrizo Plain in most of what is now Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura Counties. Many traces of their settlements, art, crafts and tools have been found in this region and many are on display in local museums. Ancient rock art may also be viewed in locations such as Painted Cave in the hills a few miles from Shalawa. This coastal region is also said to be extremely significant in Native American culture due to the spiritual "Western Gate" in the nearby Point Conception area.
Development
A mansion named Bonnymede was built in 1906 on a large estate that included what is now the small remaining Shalawa Meadow. Esther Fiske Hammond, who died in 1955, bought the estate in the early 1900s and through 1950 her family built other structures there. Her son George built an airstrip and ran a business flying supplies to a family on nearby San Miguel Island.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Shalawa Meadow” as seaside ancient burial site used by the Chumash people. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7487146. Authority coordinates are 34.417, -119.636. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1955 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shalawa Meadow” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.