They had developed an extensive trade network through te'aats (plank-built boats). Īlong with the neighboring Chumash, the Tongva were the most influential people at the time of European encounter. Some people who identify as direct lineal descendants of the people advocate the use of their ancestral name Kizh as an endonym. Tongva is the most widely circulated endonym among the people, used by Narcisa Higuera in 1905 to refer to inhabitants in the vicinity of Mission San Gabriel. During colonization, the Spanish referred to these people as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño, names derived from the Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España. In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name. The Tongva ( / ˈ t ɒ ŋ v ə/ TONG-və) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately 4,000 square miles (10,000 km 2).

Hart Merriam, she was cited as the source of the widely used endonym Tongva. Narcisa Higuera, photographed in 1905, was one of the last fluent Tongva speakers.

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