EXPLORATION OF THE BURTON MOUND AT 
SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA 
By Joun P. Harrineron 
INTRODUCTION 
The present paper is a preliminary report on the collection taken 
from the Burton Mound at Santa Barbara, Calif. (pls. 1, 2), by the 
Thea Heye expedition in the summer of 1923. It presents our his- 
torical discoveries which led to the investigation of the site and 
describes the artifacts. The writer has in preparation a complete 
monographic account which will be published at a future date. 
The principal rancheria or village of the ancient Santa Barbara 
Valley was not at the Mission, where the Indians were gathered 
in later times, but at the beach. It was situated a little to the west 
of the mouth of Mission Creek, where a landing cove for canoes and 
two low mounds, one by the beach and a larger one 650 feet inland and 
now known as the Burton Mound, afforded unusual attraction as a 
dwelling place for Indians. At a number of places in the locality 
were cold sulphur springs; also some springs of drinking water. 
The name of the village was Syujttin,' meaning “ where the two trails 
run.” There a thriving population lived on the wild food products 
of the neighboring beach and sea and of the Santa Barbara Valley, 
rich in acorn-bearing oaks and game animals. 
Although the Relation of the Voyage of Cabrillo, 1542, records 
the name Syujttin and the early land expeditions passed by the 
village, little has been written on its history. After the establishment 
of the Santa Barbara Mission, the deserted locality of Syujttin be- 
came known as “el rancho de la playa.” 
In the early thirties this beach ranch of the Padres appears to 
have passed in rapid succession into possession of the Mexican Goy- 
ernment, James Burke, and then Joseph Chapman, a young English- 
man, who had been captured at the time of the Bouchard invasion and 
who erected a small adobe house on the mound. A few years later, tra- 
1Indian names in this paper are in Spanish orthography; but ¢ is pronounced as Eng- 
lish sh; K is near k;’ is the glottal clusive;H’, k’, t’, p’ are of the “ glottalized ” variety ; 
h is not silent as in Spanish but.is pronounced as in English; a, e, i, 0, u as in Spanish 
murcielago, “ bat.” 
31 
