FERNANDENO HISTORY SPANS 3,000 YEARS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

SAN FERNANDO - The Fernandeno-Tataviam tribe's origins stretch back to about 1,000 B.C., long before Spanish missionaries put tribal members to work at the Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana in the late 1700s, according to historians.

The tribe, which had a village at what would later become the San Fernando Mission, lived in the Antelope Valley, the Sawmill Mountains and the upper reaches of the Santa Clara River, according to the book, ``Handbook of North American Indians,'' by Robert Heizer.

During the first four years of the mission's existence, the missionaries concentrated on converting the Gabrielinos in the San Fernando Valley and later focused their attention on the Tataviam and Chumash, wrote John Johnson in his book, ``Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana: 1797-1997.''

The tribe's Takic-influenced language began to differentiate from other Southern California tribe languages about 1,000 B.C., Heizer wrote, adding they lived in villages that varied in size from 10 to 15 people to 200.

The Rev. Fermin Francisco de Lasuen founded Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana in 1797. Some tribes joined the mission as a way to survive because livestock grazing at the nearby Mission San Gabriel Arcangel had taken away lands the tribes used for hunting and gathering.

``Indians continued to come to the mission as a way to get food,'' wrote Diane MacMillan in her book, ``Missions of the Los Angeles Area.'' ``In addition, European diseases had caused illness among the (tribes).''

By 1810, virtually all of the Tataviam had been baptized at the mission, and by 1834, many had married members of other tribes, Heizer wrote. At the height of mission activity, more than 1,000 American Indians worked there.

The mission American Indians eventually wandered away to nearby towns, finding work and ``simply disappeared,'' wrote Lawrence Jorgensen in his book, ``The San Fernando Valley: Past and Present.''

``The mission Indians were not prepared . . . to be unceremoniously thrown off their traditional lands,'' Jorgensen wrote. ``Yet they had not fared too well under the tutelage of the Franciscans in any case. Deaths at the missions, particularly at the San Fernando Mission, regularly outnumbered births.''

Despite the small size of the cemetery at the mission, more than 2,000 American Indians were buried there between 1798 and 1852, according to a mission pamphlet.

``The lack of headstones or markers in the early years helps to explain how so many bodies could be buried in so small an area,'' according to the mission pamphlet.

When the Spanish began to expand their authority into California in the 1700s, an estimated 300,000 American Indians lived in the state. By the census of 1900, about 15,000 American Indians remained, Jorgensen wrote.

Historians attribute the population decline to the relocation of American Indians to reservations, poverty, disease and starvation. The Valley had a population of about 3,500 to 5,000 American Indians in the 1700s.