serrano

serrano or serrano chili

n.

pl. serranos

[MexSp] a kind of long, slender, very hot chili usually cooked while still green, used esp. in Mexican cooking: also serrano chili (or pepper)

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ser·ra·no (sə-räʹnō) n. pl. ser·ra·nos

A cultivar of the tropical pepper Capsicum annuum having small, blunt, highly pungent red or green fruit used in cooking.

  [American Spanish, from Spanish, from the mountains, from sierra, mountain range. See sierra.]

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▪ people

      North American Indian group speaking a Uto-Aztecan language (Uto-Aztecan languages) and originally inhabiting a mountainous region of what is now southern California. Serrano means “mountain dweller” in Spanish. One band, the Kitanemuk, lived in the Kern and San Joaquin river basins; another band, the Vanyume, resided along the Mojave River; and a third, the Serrano proper, held the San Bernardino Mountains, adjacent valleys, and a portion of the Mojave Desert.

      All three bands were hunting and gathering cultures (hunting and gathering culture) that knew how to subsist in a difficult environment; small game, acorns, piñon nuts, and berries were their dietary staples. Within villages the people were organized into patrilineal clans, with each clan having a hereditary chief and assistant chief. Dwellings were wickiups (wickiup) (wigwams), circular domed structures of willow branches covered with tule (rush) thatching. Most villages also had a ceremonial house where the chief lived, as well as a heated sweat lodge for bathing and ritual purification.

      Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 500 individuals of Serrano descent.

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