Buffy The Vampire Slayer

One oveview of the episode explains: "The Europeans inflicted such brutish atrosities on the peaceful tribe that they swore vengeance on Anglos in general.."

After twenty years of working with Chumash people, I find this characterization offensive and unfair. In fact if Latino or Asian-Americans had been characterized as demons and beasts, I would expect that this episode would have caused an uproar in California. The Chumash Indians do not deserve this treatment. Again and again, I am impressed with the efforts of surviving Chumash families to find reconciliation, forgiveness, and peaceful co-existence with the non-Indians occupying their lands.

This does not mean that they are passive or have given up hope of regaining title to parts of their ancestral lands. And viewers should realize that this type of demonizing of the Chumash makes traditional families cringe, especially when it continues to occur in obvious violation of good taste and basic fairness to a minority that is struggling to rebuild its shattered economic and cultral base.

The Buffy Episodes are directed by David Grossmen and are presented by the WB televison network. They deal with the occult, and Buffy is the featured heroine in this popular series. "In every generation, there is a chosen one", the promo announces, "she alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness, she is the slayer." Buffy slays the Chumash demon with a ritual knife constructed by the evil Chumash. The Chumash people are not a force of darkness, and it seems to me that an apology is in order and some positive television coverage of contemporary Chumash life is in order.