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"For thousands of years the Kumeyaay have interacted with the unique vegetation in the lands now known as Baja and Alta California. In the convergence of landscapes between the Pacific Coast, the great Colorado River desert and the Baja California peninsula, these hunting, gathering, and fishing peoples forged a way of life based on a profound knowledge of the area's rich and varied environments. Over the centuries, they continuously refined this botanical knowledge and transmitted it to subsequent generations. Spanish explorers and missionaries provided the first written descriptions of the Kumeyaay and their environments through vivid accounts of mobile bands seasonally utilizing locally available plant foods and producing ceramics, baskets, bows and arrows, and fiber nets. Only two and a half centuries ago, Spain began to occupy their land, and by 1848, Kumeyaay territory had been divided into two distinct nation states -- Mexico and the United States -- imposing on the region an international boundary as well as separate political and economic structures, cultures, and languages."--Provided by publisher.