Ohlone Elders & Youth Speak
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OHLONE ELDERS & YOUTH SPEAK: RESTORING A CALIFORNIA LEGACY Ann Marie Sayers, Project Director Ruth Morgan, Photographs Janet Clinger, Oral Histories Special thanks to Christensen Fund for their generous support of the project 2014 Table of Contents 1. Preface . 3 2. Introduction . 5 3. Interviews/Photos . 7 Ann Marie Sayers . 8 Tony Cerda . 37 Gregg Castro . 63 Rosa Parra . 111 Patrick Orozco . 119 Corrina Gould . 133 Kanyon Sayers-Roods . 180 Vincent Medina . 201 Charlene Sul-Vasquez . 224 Linda Yamane . 261 Catherine Herrera . 280 Quirina Luna Geary . 308 Vera Bocanegra Powers . 329 Steven Rodriguez . 347 Jakki Kehl . 358 Olga Tinker Gomez . 360 x Desiree Munoz . 368 Marcus Rodriguez . 378 Anthony Sul . 385 Beverly Ortiz . 402 4. Appendix . 422 Ohlone Timeline . 423 Language Area Map . 427 © 2014 Community Works West, pending 2 PREFACE “There was never a better time to be a California Indian. We need to celebrate that!” Ann Marie Sayers, Chairperson of Indian Canyon Nation The Ohlone are not one people, although they are loosely connected by language roots, and some similar cultural expressions. Ohlone tribal groups extended from the Carquinez Straits southward along the coast to Big Sur. Currently there are eight Ohlone surviving languages with which many Ohlone people identify. [See the language area map in the appendix.] Previous generations of Ohlone were forced to suppress cultural expression for fear of reprisal by the dominant white society. Fortunately the languages and other cultural forms did not die out, but remained underground until the time was right. When the civil rights explosion occurred in the mid-1960s, the doors began to open. The takeover of Alcatraz Island in 1969 galvanized Native people throughout the country, including the Ohlone. The true history of the ‘founding’ of California, involving the enslavement and murder of thousands of indigenous people as well as the destruction of their living habitats, first by the Spanish invaders and finally by the gold and land-seeking Americans, has yet to be fully told. The Ohlone people who allowed us to photograph and interview them for this project are part of a much larger cultural renaissance taking place throughout California and the United States, and represent many others who are engaged in this restoration process. They stand as living proof, that despite of the great efforts by the dominant society to wipe out thousands of years of indigenous cultures, the Ohlone people are currently thriving while living in two worlds, which in some cases creates a precarious emotional bind. The people whose stories you are about to read give voice to that struggle and to the tenets of cultural identity which often are in opposition to those of the dominant society. For example, the ancestors taught that Ohlone people do not merely live in this beautiful landscape, but are an integral part of it, the homeland being a sacred entity 3 which they are bound to protect. As one of the contributors, Corrina Gould, so succinctly tells us, “It is important for Ohlone to have a land base as a way of reconciling the past. It is a way that we can again be in connection with the earth and our ancestors, of bringing back the songs and ceremonies, and a way for us to bring our ancestors home so that they can be re-interred where they belong.” The photographs and excerpts of the interviews appeared in an exhibition, Ohlone Elders and Youth Speak: Restoring a California Legacy from September 27, 2014 through January 4, 2015 at the San Francisco Main Public Library. In future the exhibit will be shown in various venues throughout the traditional Ohlone homelands. When the venues and dates are confirmed, we will post them on this website. We hope you acquire a new understanding about the Ohlone peoples and their efforts to keep their cultural expressions thriving for many generations to come. It was an honor to work with them on this project. We are grateful to The Christensen Fund for their financial support and to the San Francisco Public Library for hosting the opening of the exhibit. Janet Clinger December 2014 4 INTRODUCTION OHLONE ELDERS & YOUTH SPEAK: RESTORING A CALIFORNIA LEGACY Ohlone peoples are emerging from a great darkness, in spite of ~ THE INVASION, culminating in the ‘Missionization’ of coastal peoples, which included forced labor, rampant disease, and cultural suppression by the Spanish invaders within the walls of the missions. THE GENOCIDE following the discovery of gold and the subsequent American stampede to California, which included open season on Native peoples, a bounty on all heads, young and old. NOT BROKEN TREATIES BUT NEVER SIGNED TREATIES as a consequence of the ongoing land grab that followed in the wake of the Gold Rush, resulting in the continuing landless state of Ohlone peoples as well as many other Native California peoples. The fact that they were characterized by federal government officials as ‘CULTURALLY UNIDENTIFIABLE’ and therefore had no legal status. The fact that they were not allowed to VOTE until 1924. The fact that many of their children forcibly were removed from their homes and placed in BOARDING SCHOOLS where they were not allowed to speak their native language or practice their native traditions, and often were physically and/or sexually abused. The fact that their SACRED SITES in their traditional homelands have been and continue to be desecrated, and the bones of their ANCESTORS are held in museums and universities. IN SPITE OF ALL OF THESE HORRORS AND MORE ~ OHLONE PEOPLES SURVIVED AND NOW, THANKS TO THE HELP AND GUIDANCE OF THEIR ANCESTORS, THEY ARE RESTORING: THEIR LANGUAGES THEIR CEREMONIES THEIR SOVEREIGNTIES THEIR REGALIA 5 THEIR STORIES AND SONGS AND DANCES THEIR BASKETRY AND OTHER ESSENTIAL ARTS & CRAFTS THEY ARE CONNECTING TO: THEIR COMMUNITIES THEIR SACRED SITES THEIR PURPOSE ~ to protect their homelands and all the life forms within it THEY HAVE LIVED IN THEIR HOMELANDS FOREVER AND IT WILL ALWAYS BE SO For fourteen thousand years the ancestors of contemporary Ohlone peoples served as caretakers of this beautiful region, extending from the San Francisco Bay to Pt. Sur. The Ohlone elders and youth featured in this exhibit represent a small portion of the Ohlone peoples who currently are active in various aspects of cultural revitalization throughout the traditional homelands. We celebrate their resiliency and honor their on-going struggle. Produced by ~ Costanoan Indian Research, Inc. & Community Works West Ann Marie Sayers, Project Director Ruth Morgan, Photographer Janet Clinger, Oral Historian 6 INTERVIEWS 7 ANN MARIE SAYERS 8 ANN MARIE SAYERS Mutsun Ohlone Tribal Chairperson, Indian Canyon Nation Founder of Costanoan Indian Research, Inc. CULTURAL IDENTITY When I was growing up I thought we were the only Native family in San Benito County, but there were 179 who received the California Land Claims Settlement in 1972. There are also a lot of California Native people who did not even sign up in 1928 under the special California Indian census to get a roll number, because they were afraid that they were going to send them to a reservation. There was ceremony taking place up here at the waterfall at Indian Canyon, but the majority of people came from Monterey or the Bay area. Now that I am more conscious, some of my mother’s best friends who we would visit were Native, but I never thought of them as Native, primarily because they were not the ones who participated in ceremony. They would come up for a picnic once or twice a year, or we would go down town and visit them. Now that I look at it there were just so many things that we did naturally. I can remember Mother saying, “Ann Marie, go down the creek and get me some oregano. Just do it the right way.” We would offer tobacco. My dad smoked a pipe. I would just grab some tobacco and give it to the plant and thank the plant before I picked it, and explain what it was going to be used for. To be thankful for all the life that surrounds you is ceremony. My daughter, Kanyon, does that. I don’t remember any bear dance ceremonies, but I do remember my mother talking about bear dance ceremonies. She was raised in the Holy Cross Convent in Santa Cruz. Her actions were just natural, what some people today would consider ceremony. She was an amazing cook. She expressed thankfulness in how she prepared things. She was a very powerful woman with a strong voice. I 9 didn’t realize that was ceremony. I just thought it was something that everyone did. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I realized that every day was a ceremony. Culture is not something that is learned. It is in your DNA. For example, Howard Harris, a family friend of ours for five generations, and I were clearing an area for a road. He said, “Ann Marie, you are a tree hugger. One of these trees is going to have to come down.” He put the cable around the tree and when that cable went into the bark of the tree and liquid squirted out, I felt the pain of the tree. You become one with it. My mother would share a story and I would think that I understood it at the time. Then a decade would go by, and I would say, “Oh, this is what she meant!” And then another decade or two would go by – “Now I get it!” There are so many layers. One comment that has really, really helped me considerably was “The truth in history of Native people is not known to many people.