How long did Chumash Indians live?
Their lives were not as long as ours. The average life expectancy may have only been about 35, or even less, although mission records document that some elders survived into their 70s and 80s. After California became a Spanish colony, diseases were introduced that had a devastating effect on the Chumash, especially on very young children. Not too many people survived childhood, so the Chumash population declined rapidly. The worst epidemic of the Mission Period was a measles epidemic in the winter of 1806. It took many lives all up and down California. The Chumash had never experienced measles before the coming of the Europeans, so it was a deadly disease to them.
