Native Americans

Native American Culture

CLASS READINGS Writings & Materials from Cheri Degenhardt • Dateline of California History • North Coast Indian Tribes • Seasonal Resource Calendar • Seasonal Round/Acorn Harvest • Native American Use of Plants of Bouverie Preserve • Tules • Teaching Respect for Native People • Native American Way - Conclusion • Native American Classes & Exhibits • Native American Stories & Games Acorn Preparation, photos of Essie Parrish (Kashaya Pomo, Sonoma County), 1960, Phoebe A Hearst Museum of Anthropology.

Graton Rancheria Timeline (Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria) Sacred Places (Sarris, Bay Nature Magazine, 2003) Charms of Tolay Lake (Sarris, Bay Nature Magazine, 2017) CALNAT: Cal Naturalist Handbook - Chap 1, pp. 9-13, Chap 4, pp. 109-114

Key Concepts

By the end of this class, we hope you will be able to Name the Native American cultures indigenous to the local area and tap into children's curiosity to engage discussion, Name the historic staple food for Native Americans in this area, understand its preparation, and maybe even have an idea of what it tastes like! Describe 2 or 3 additional Native plant foods and how they are prepared, Describe a few medicinal uses of native plants, Identify 2 to 3 animals used for food by local Native American people,

Recount at least one story that can be used to engage students on the trail (e.g. Douglas fir cone story, bay nut story, acorn maidens), More Key Concepts: By the end of this class, we hope you have a better understanding of Seasonal resource use by local tribes The intricacies of basketry and the wide variety of ways in which tules were used The extent to which modern medicines are based upon indigenous uses of plants The current status of local Native American culture The environmental values associated with the lifestyle of these cultures Resources (classes, museums, etc.) available in the local area where you can learn more How information about Native American cultures fits into the California 3rd and 4th grade curriculum standards

Recommended Readings

 Interviews with Tom Smith and Maria Copa: Isabel Kelly’s Ethnographic Notes on the Coast Miwok Indians of Marin and Southern Sonoma Counties. (1996). Published by the Miwok Archeological Preserve Of Marin.  The Natural World of the California Indians. By Robert Heizer & Albert Elsasser. (1980). Published by U.C. Press, Berkeley.  The Way We Lived (1981) and The Ohlone Way (1978). By Malcolm Margolin. Heydey Books, Berkeley, CA.  Whispers of the First Californians. By Gail Faber. (1984). Magpie Publications, 4th edition.  Native American Ethnobotany. By Daniel E. Moerman. (1998). Timber Press, Portland, OR. An encyclopedic catalogue of information on Native American uses of plants.  Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources. By Kat Anderson. (2005). University of California Press, Berkeley.  The Coast Miwok Indians of the Point Reyes Area. By Sylvia Thalman. (1993). Published by the Point Reyes National Seashore Association.  Kashaya Pomo Plants by Goodrich, Lawson and Lawson. 1980. Published by the American Indian Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles.  A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area. By Randall Milliken. (1995). Reprinted by Malki-Ballena Press, 2009.  California Indians and their Environment by Kent Lightfoot and Otis Parrish. 2009. Published by U.C. Press, Berkeley.  Chief Marin: Leader, Rebel, and Legend. By Betty Goerke. (2007). Heyday Books, Berkeley. Online

The California Native American Heritage Association considers the current interests of native Californians with links to info about history, resource use, tribal distribution, and more. It also includes an excellent brief history of California Indians by Edward Castillo, the Sonoma State University Professor of Native American Studies for many years. Trail Tip www.nahc.ca.gov and http://www.nahc.ca.gov/califindian.html Many children learn best by touching and feeling objects. Many A good source of introductory information on Native Californians’ land Bouverie docents bring their own management practices involving fire. Native American –style artifacts on www.californiachaparral.com/dnativeamericans.html the trail to engage the kids. At the Solstice Party, you will have an Contact information about current tribal organizations within California opportunity to make your own www.ceres.ca.gov/planning/tribal/tribes.html “Indian Gambling Dice” or Madrone berry necklace. Some docents bring a piece of fur or an obsidian Links to books on myths and stories of many Native Californian tribal projectile point to pass around to groups http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/ca/index.htm their hiking group. Others give students the opportunity to feel the Native Languages of the Americas: Pomo Indian Legends toughness of an acorn and the give http://www.native-languages.org/pomo-legends.htm them the opportunity to pound it with a rock. There are ample opportunities to touch and feel such The Point Reyes National Seashore website provides information on the artifacts at the Bark House itself! Coast Miwok. http://www.nps.gov/pore/historyculture/people_coastmiwok.htm While learning about Native American uses of plants is fun and For additional information about the replica Coast Miwok village at Point fascinating, remember that we Reyes National Seashore and related activities never allow children to taste or eat any plant materials at Bouverie. www.kuleloklo.com Even if you think it is safe, we can never predict what a child’s Access Genealogy’s Miwok place names with links to other California reaction might be. Indian Resources http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/california/miwokindianhist.htm

California Indian Food and Culture from U.C. Berkeley’s Hearst Museum – Teaching curriculum appropriate for children in 3rd and 4th grade (and beyond!). Includes color photographs and beautiful illustrations. http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/education/teaching-kits/california- indian-food-and-culture READINGS - NATIVE AMERICANS Compiled and/or written by Cheri Degenhardt Page

1 DATELINE OF CALIFORNIA HISTORY

2 NORTH COAST INDIAN TRIBES

3 SEASONAL RESOURCE CALENDAR

4-5 SEASONAL ROUND/ACORN HARVEST

6-10 NATIVE AMERICAN USES OF PLANTS OF BOUVERIE PRESERVE

11 TULES

12-13 TEACHING RESPECT FOR NATIVE PEOPLE

15 NATIVE AMERICAN WAY: CONCLUSIONS AND TECHNIQUES

16 NATIVE AMERICAN CLASSES AND EXHIBITS

PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Acorn Preparation Tools

soaproot brushes

mortar looped stirrers

Pomo boiling stones, boiling basket, tongs, mush paddle PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Acorn Preparation

From centuries of experence, California Indian women learned how to gather the very best acorns Essie Parrish (Kashaya Pomo) from oak cracking and shelling acorns, Sonoma Co.; 1960 trees.

Newly picked acorns are too soft to cook with. After being collected in baskets, the acorns had to be dried. Fresh acorns were usually stored for one year before they were used.

Once the acorns dried, their shells were cracked open in order to reach the nutmeat. Acorn shells could be opened with small hammer stones and stone anvils. The shells were then removed by hand. PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Winnowing Once all the acorns were cracked open it was time for winnowing. Like peanuts, acorns have a thin skin around them that needs to be removed. The acorns were put into a scoop shaped basket and rubbed by hand until the skins loosened. Then they were tossed into the air and their lightweight skins blew away in the breeze. The heavy acorns dropped back into the basket.

winnowing basket and pine nuts PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Essie Parrish (Kashaya Pomo) pounding acorn with a milling stone, Sonoma Co.; 1960

Acorn Pounding California Indian women used two types of tools to pound acorns. These tools are called mortars and pestles and milling stones. Acorn pounding was hard work. Women often spent an entire day pounding acorns into meal. Women sang songs and made time for talking, teasing, and laughing while pounding acorns to make the chore fun. PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Essie Parrish (Kashaya Pomo) sifting acorn, Sonoma Co.; 1960

Acorn Sifting After the acorn meal was pounded, it was then carefully sifted into a fine flour. A few handfuls of meal were put in the sifting basket and the basket was shaken carefully. The fine meal stuck to the basket and the heavier pieces rose to the surface. The larger pieces were put into another basket and the fine flour was swept into a third basket with a soaproot brush. The larger pieces were then pounded again with the next batch of acorns. PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Essie Parish (Kashaya Pomo) leaching acorn meal, shore of Gualala River, Mendocino Co.; 1961

Leaching Acorns contain a poison called tannic acid. Once all the acorns were pounded into meal, the poison was removed in order to make them safe to eat. First, women scooped out a large basin in the ground. Next, they spread the acorn meal out in the basin and placed branches over it. Then, they poured water through the branches into the basin. Once the acorn meal no longer tasted bitter, the soaking could stop. After the acorn meal drained, it was scooped out of the hole by hand. This is called leaching. Now the meal was ready to be cooked. PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Essie Parish (Kashaya Pomo) boiling acorn meal, shore of Gualala River, Mendocino Co.; 1960

Boiling Water and acorn meal were mixed together and boiled into a thin soup or thicker mush. There were two ways that California Indian women boiled food. One way was to boil the mush in a clay or stone pot over a fire. The other way to boil food was by stone boiling. Boiling baskets were often coated with a thin layer of acorn gruel. The gruel was like a glue that coated the basket so that no water would leak from it. Hot rocks the size of tennis balls were heated by fire. Then, they were put into baskets filled with water and acorn meal. PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY

The stones were stirred in the baskets gently and slowly with a wooden paddle or looped stirrer. When the mixture began to boil it was cooked. The stones were then removed from the basket with wooden tongs. The mush that dried onto the rocks was a special treat that children liked to peel off and eat. These pieces were called "acorn chips."

| Citizens Timeline The Graton Rancheria community is a federation of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo groups recognized as a tribe by the U.S. Congress. The Miwok of west Marin County have, through the years, been referred to as Marshall Indians, Marin Miwok, Tomales, Tomales Bay, and Hookooeko. The Bodega Miwok (aka, Olamentko) traditionally lived in the area of Bodega Bay. The neighboring Southern Pomo Sebastopol group lived just north and east of the Miwok. The town of Sebastopol is located about one mile midway between the north boundary of Miwok territory and the southern edge of Southern Pomo territory. 1579 The earliest recorded account of the Coast Miwok people made by the Europeans was found in a diary kept by Chaplain Fletcher aboard Sir Francis Drake's ship, which landed in Marin County that year. 1595 - 1812 The Spanish and Russian voyagers provided additional information about encounters with the Coast Miwok and their occupancy of the area, proving these Indian peoples continued to live in this area over the ensuing centuries. Russian outposts were established at Bodega Bay and Fort Ross in 1809 and 1812, respectively. 1769 - 1834 The Mission Period. The Spanish missions and the Mexican occupancy impacted this area of California. Mission San Francisco de Asisi (Mission Dolores), Mission San Rafael Archangel and Mission San Francisco Solano used Indians, including the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo people, as their labor source. Records from these Missions are still used to substantiate the Native culture and genealogical research. 1834 - 1850 After the Mission period ended in the 1830s, Indian people were kept in servitude by Mexican land grant owners all across the confiscated tribal territories. During Mexican occupation, a Coast Miwok, Camilo Ynitia, obtained a land grant for Olompali, the site of a large Coast Miwok village existing from prehistoric times which is still an important historic site today. After the Mexican government secularized the Church, the San Rafael Christian Indians were granted 20 leagues (80,000 acres) of mission lands at Nicasio in 1835. Approximately 500 Indians settled there. By 1850, confiscation of land by non-Indians had quickly reduced these Indian lands to a single league (4,000 acres). 1861 The United States Congress enacts legislation which effectively extinguishes Indian title to almost all land in California, leaving most tribes, including Graton Rancheria's ancestors, entirely landless. 1880 The 36 Indian people remaining at Nicasio were persuaded to leave when funds were cut to all Indians (except those at Marshall) who were not living at the Poor Farm, a place for "indigent" peoples. Mid 1880s By this time, as a result of the loss of homelands, European disease, mistreatment, and enslavement, the Indian population in California, which at European contact was estimated at 30,000 - 40,000, had declined dramatically. In the late 1800s, Indian people of this area were employed as farm workers. Although the work was seasonal and itinerant, Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo preferred to work in Marin and Sonoma counties. Bodega Miwok William Smith and his relatives founded the commercial fishing industry in the Bodega area. One family continued as commercial fisherman into the 1970s, while another family maintained an oyster harvesting business. 1905 - 1936 Reports by scholars and by the Bureau of Indian Affairs demonstrate that Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo continued to live in Marin and Sonoma even though deprived of a land base by non-Indians. In 1920, the Bureau of Indian Affairs purchased a 15.45 acre tract of land in Graton, CA for the "village home" of the Marshall, Bodega, Tomales, and Sebastopol Indians. Through the purchase of this land, which was put into federal trust, the federal government consolidated these neighboring, traditionally interactive groups into one recognized entity, Graton Rancheria; thus establishing them as a federally recognized tribe of American Indians. 1924 Congress grants all Native Americans born in the United States full citizenship. 1958 Congress passes the California Rancheria Act of 1958 calling for the termination of 41 California Rancherias, including the Graton Rancheria. Under the Act, Graton Rancheria was removed from federal trust and the land was distributed to three residents (now deceased) as private property. This action terminated federal recognition of a tribe of American Indians. The termination was done in the absence of, and without the consent of the tribal members. 1960 - Early 1990s Despite the federal government's termination of federal recognition of the Graton Tribe, Tribal members continued to protect the cultural identity of their people by preserving tribal and other archeologically important sites throughout their aboriginal territory. 1990 - 1992 In a continuing effort to protect their aboriginal territory and their cultural and political identity, tribal members, led by Chairman Greg Sarris, raised money to travel to Washington to fight for restoration of their federal status. The Tribe at this time (numbering 152) was established and operating as the Federated Coast Miwok, later renamed the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (FIGR). 1997 A Congressionally mandated study recommended the immediate restoration of three California tribes, including the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. 2000 On December 27, 2000, President Clinton signed into law legislation restoring federal recognition to the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. The legislation also provided for the restoration of land to this now landless tribe. Since the land of the original Graton Rancheria was transferred to three distributees, now deceased, the only land still belonging to the tribe was a one-acre parcel held in private ownership by one Coast Miwok family. 2002 The Bureau of Indian Affairs ratifies the tribe's base roll and tribal constitution. The tribe then begins to establish a land base for its people. 2003 - 2004 In October 2003, the Tribe enters into an enforceable and binding agreement with the City of Rohnert Park to mitigate the potentia impacts of the operation of its proposed Gaming Facility on the City and to establish mechanisms for sustained charitable giving designed to benefit the City and the Tribe. In November 2004, the Tribe enters into a similar enforceable and binding agreement with the County. 2004 The Tribe forms a Language Group of Tribal Citizens who are dedicated to learning the Coast Miwok Language. And as part of their efforts, the Tribe applied for and received their first ANA Language Grant and publish a Coast Miwok Dictionary for the Tribe, based on recordings from Sarah Smith-Ballard, one of the last fluent Coast Miwok speakers. The Language Group continues to meet monthly. 2005 The Tribe purchases approximately 254 acres of land for its reservation just outside of Rohnert Park, of which a portion of the land is to be used for a proposed gaming facility. The Tribe also agrees to wait until the environmental review of the proposed gaming facility is complete before exercising its right under the Graton Rancheria Restoration Act to put the land into trust. 2008 In 2008, after six years of applying, the Tribe receives grant funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Administration of Children and Families to launch its own Tribal TANF program for low-income Native American families in Sonoma and Marin counties, including programs and services to strengthen families such as employment assistance, job training, and child care assistance. 2009 The Notice of Availability of a Final Environmental Impact Statement is published in the Federal Register on February 19, 2009. 2010 In October 2010, the NIGC issues its Record of Decision for the Tribe’s project, concluding that the land is eligible for gaming under IGRA. Also in October 2010, the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior accepts the 254 Acre Parcel into trust on behalf of the Tribe. 2012 On July 12, 2012 the Tribe holds a Special Election to amend the Tribe’s Constitution to prohibit disenrollment, which was later ratified by the Secretary of the Interior on January 14, 2013.

2013 In November 2013, the Tribe opens the Graton Resort and Casino, and in doing so, is able to provide programs and services to Tribal Citizens to realize their dreams of self-sufficiency. Bay Nature magazineOn Sacred Apr-Jun 2003 Issue Places by Greg Sarris on April 01, 2003

Grampa Tom Smith.

Courtesy Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California.

Tom Smith. A simple name. Not so the man. My great-great-grand-father. Father and grandfather and great- grandfather to many Coast Miwok and Pomo people. I’ve told stories about him, stories I have heard, stories others tell: how he performed miracles healing the sick and built the last traditional Coast Miwok roundhouse on the point at Jenner, above the mouth of the Russian River, and orchestrated time immemorial Coast Miwok ceremonies there; how he charmed women with songs gathered like abalone from special rocks under the waters of Bodega Bay; how in a contest of power with the powerful Kashaya Pomo doctor Big Jose, he caused the 1906 earthquake, winning—as if that’s what we could call winning—the contest once and for all. Trickster. And, yes, holy man.

Two stories exist regarding the whereabouts of his grave. Some people say he was buried on the eastern side of Highway One, just below a slight slope facing Bodega Bay. That place, which has been pointed out to me, puts him under the parking lot of a gas station. An elder in our tribe says he is quite certain that he attended Grandpa Tom’s funeral in 1934 and that Grandpa Tom wasn’t buried at said aforementioned place, but in the small “Indian” cemetery on the west side of the highway. If this is accurate, then Grandpa Tom, like many of our people buried there, lies in an unmarked grave. Wherever he is buried, the place is sacred. Most everyone would agree.

But the uncertainty regarding the exact place of Tom Smith’s grave raises a question beyond itself, about the very notion of what we call a sacred place and how we think about it. First off, let me ask the question: If indeed we could determine for certain that Grandpa Tom is buried in the old Indian cemetery, and we could ascertain the exact location of the grave, would we then render the place under the gas station not sacred? One might argue that only the place where the holy man’s bones lie is sacred; therefore, the earth below the gas station is not sacred, or at least not as sacred, not requiring the same kind of noted regard. We could then set out to mark several places associated with Tom Smith—and the Coast Miwok people—as sacred. Certainly the knoll overlooking the mouth of the Russian River where our last traditional roundhouse stood would be one such place. And we can’t forget the two hills above the bay where Grandpa Tom prayed and received several songs and visions. And, if we’re concerned with marking his grave, then we must go to Coleman Valley and determine the place of his birth there and mark it, too. And his questionable acts, if deemed noteworthy, must be remembered also: where, under the bay’s waters, he collected his love songs; the spot near the town of Bodega where he demonstrated his authority to Big Jose. Before long, we could have a map of sacred places, or holy spots, not unlike the ones you can buy in Jerusalem for the Holy Land. But, really, where do we stop? What is the last place in the territory that we mark? What about the trail above Tomales Bay where Grandpa Tom first sang his songs to Emily Stewart, my great-great-grandmother? Or the Haupt Ranch north of Fort Ross where he sang to Rosie Jarvis, the Kashaya matriarch? Or the canyons along the Russian River where he gathered herbs? Or the beach below Stewart’s Point where he spoke to his son Robert about becoming a leader among his mother’s (Rosie’s) people? Or the field just east of Healdsburg where he raised a dying man to his feet? Or the rancheria in Middletown where one hot summer night he carried the fog with him from the coast? What about the herbs and the trees and the birds with their songs, songs Grandpa Tom knew? Bodega Bay with its power and secrets and tides?

Eventually a line on a map noting all these places—indeed, the life of Tom Smith—would touch upon that place under the Bodega gas station, whether Tom Smith is buried there or not. There would be so many places and connecting lines, in fact, that the map would finally look like a tightly woven, intricately designed Miwok basket. The patterns would circle around, endless, beautiful, so that the map would, in the end, designate the territory in its entirety as sacred. Each place, each person, you and me, the earth, water, and sky, inseparable, fully connected. We would begin to see what the old-timers called the everlasting: our unwavering connection to all things, and, hence, to God. We’d also be able to see where there are breaks in the pattern, illnesses; or, at least, the potential for illness and disease.

Of course, most of us don’t see much anymore, not in the old-timer’s sense of connectedness, anyway. We mark a sacred spot here, a sacred spot there. But let’s remember why we mark a place as sacred to begin with. Isn’t it because we want to remember something profound, something signi-ficant with regard to an understanding of our world? Imagine the waters of Bodega Bay concealing a place of powerful love medicine. Imagine a route from the bay over the steep hills to Lake County as the “road” for a person carrying fog on his or her shoulders. For the Coast Miwok people, all features of the landscape—rocks, bays, a gully—served as mnemonic pegs on which hung stories teaching and reminding us how to live with respect for the earth and waters.

Much of our landscape and seascape has now been demolished. Our Bible, if you will, has been destroyed, only a page remaining here, a page remaining there. If, as it turns out, Tom Smith is buried under the parking lot of a gas station, what can we do? The damage has been done. Yet, we can still remember that place, and we can begin to mark other places not yet destroyed. These places can still teach us, remind us that as we live in the Bay Area each one of us has an opportunity to learn about and remember the places, and the power to affect their well-being. (The less we drive—and hopefully we drive small cars—the fewer gas stations, for instance.)

But, at the same time, we must not forget the larger power of these places and what they can afford us. If we want to identify and mark a place as sacred, say if we really could determine the exact location of Grandpa Tom Smith’s grave, we must also see that place as only the beginning, the knot a basket weaver ties to start her basket, from which a sacred world rolls out and coils around us in every direction. It is the place we start our journey, looking around and listening to stories associated with that place, stories that might help us understand how we have been separated from the sacred and how we might once again be connected. It’s a place that can remind us of what the Coast Miwok people always believed: The sacred is everywhere, in everything, and in us. In the old roundhouse above the Russian River, Grandpa Tom often spoke of this all-encompassing notion of sacredness and place. Gesturing with his hand to the earth and heavens, he admonished us: Remember.

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Most recent in Human History Bay Nature magazineThe Charms of Tolay Lake July-September 2017 Regional Park by Greg Sarris on June 28, 2017

Seasonal Tolay Lake brimmed with water this spring, spanning some 200 acres thanks to plentiful rains earlier in the year. (Photo by Christopher Coughlin)

A relative told me that when she saw Tom Smith’s charmstone, she was temporarily blinded and felt instantly faint—its power was that overwhelming. The charmstone, an oblong, smoothly carved rock figure, about an inch and a half in length, was loosed from Tom Smith’s “doctoring kit,” which had been stored in a drawer at UC Berkeley’s Lowie Museum for decades following his death in 1934. Grandpa Tom, as he is known in the family—he was my great-great grandfather—reputedly caused the 1906 earthquake in a contest of power with another medicine man. Like other medicine men and women from Central California and beyond, Grandpa Tom, a Coast Miwok, used charmstones when doctoring the sick, for luck in fishing and hunting, and who knows what else—perhaps even causing an earthquake.

Mabel McKay, the late renowned Pomo basket-maker and medicine woman, witnessed a Lake County Indian doctor pulling a tiny rabbit from a sick woman’s chest using a thumb-size quartz amulet; Mabel herself gave a troubled young man a charmstone to keep an evil spirit at bay. Maria Copa, a Coast Miwok born at Nicasio, told ethnographer Isabel Kelly that a charmstone had followed a woman home and that the woman had “to hit it three times” with a stick to kill it. When American rancher William Bihler dynamited the southern end of Tolay Lake in the early 1870s, draining the rather large but shallow lake of water, what the muddy bottom revealed was thousands upon thousands of charmstones—far more than found in any one locale in North America.

Roughly seven miles east of Petaluma, Tolay is the southernmost and largest in a chain of lakes tucked within the Sonoma Mountain range. You might imagine it the pendant at the end of the chain. Standing on the ridges above the lake, you can see the emerald expanse of San Pablo Bay spreading before you, and like a sculpture rising from the water, San Francisco’s Financial District, and then four of the Bay’s major mountains: Mount Saint Helena, Mount Tamalpais, Mount Diablo, and Mount Burdell. All of the lakes in the chain were shallow, even more shallow than Tolay, hardly 20 feet in its deepest spot, but, like Tolay, all of the lakes contained water year round, until after European contact, when the water table in the region dropped 20 to 30 feet in a relatively short period of time.

My ancestors occupied the region. Today we are known as the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, descendants of natives identified by early ethnographers as Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok. These are names based on language families: Southern Pomo, a member of the Hokan family; Coast Miwok belonging to the Penutian family. Southern Pomo, with its own various dialects, was spoken from the Santa Rosa plain north, and Coast Miwok southward to and including present-day Sausalito. But until recently, and for purposes of our relationship with the federal government, we never referred to ourselves as Pomo or Coast Miwok. We belonged to one of over a dozen separate nation-states, each composed of 500 to 2,000 individuals, with one or more central villages and clearly defined national boundaries. Most people, regardless of their national affiliation, spoke several languages, some of these languages perhaps quite different from one another—Pomo is as different from Coast Miwok as English is from Urdu.

What we’ve always known is that Tolay Lake was a great place of healing and renewal, that Indian doctors came from near and far to confer with one another and to heal the sick. Tolay Lake is in the heartland of the Alaguali Nation, whose principal village, Cholequibit, sat southeast of the lake, bordering San Pablo Bay. The Alaguali knew their homeland intimately; typical of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo Nations, they practiced controlled burning, maintaining grasslands for elk and pronghorn. They cleared waterways for fishing and hunting waterfowl and cultivated sedge beds, growing long, straight roots for basket-making. From the San Pablo marshes, they fished sturgeon and bat rays. Each nation, it seemed, had something unique that was needed by others. A Southern Pomo Nation near Santa Rosa mined obsidian prized for arrow- making. Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok along the Laguna de Santa Rosa grew the finest sedge. The lagoon was full of perch and bass year round. The Petaluma Nation’s vast plains contained the largest herds of elk and deer. The Alaguali had the lake.

It wasn’t only local indigenous nations who cherished the lake. Charmstones discovered in the lake bed came from a multitude of places throughout California, and from as far away as Mexico. Many are over 4,000 years old. Certainly California Indians had extensive trade routes. More, the so-called discovery of these charmstones becomes evidence for the stories that continue to be passed down in our families. What we’ve always known is that Tolay Lake was a great place of healing and renewal, that Indian doctors came from near and far to confer with one another and to heal the sick. Members of a village at the southern end of the lake, not far from Cholequibit, hosted the visitors in several special houses made for fasting and ceremony.

Charmstones vary in length, but most are about 2 to 3 inches long, and most are oblong. Some are simply rounded; the specific shapes of others might suggest a phallic design, prompting some ethnographers and casual observers to think these charmstones were used in fertility rites. Sinkholes bored through some suggest they might’ve been used for fishing, specifically for anchoring nets. Whatever else charmstones may have been used for, they were used by medicine people to extract illness. The charmstone, in a sense, inherited the sickness, and it had to be destroyed. Drowning was the usual method, whether in Tolay Lake or another body of water. Maria Copa’s story reminds us the charmstones were considered living beings—they possessed living spirits like all of the material world. A person could use a charmstone—and the sickness it took from an ill person—to harm another person.

Some of what we know about the Alaguali Nation and area comes from historic records. Father Abella, a Franciscan from Mission Dolores, baptized two elders from the village of Cholequibit in 1811. Randall T. Milliken’s meticulous study of mission records indicates that between 1811 and 1818, 151 Alagualic people were baptized—91 at Mission Dolores and 37 at Mission San Jose. Father Jose Altimira, traveling in 1823 from the Presidio in San Francisco to establish Mission San Francisco Solano in present-day Sonoma, stopped near the lake and noted in his journal that the surrounding hills would provide plenty of grass for cattle grazing and that the lake was named after “the chief of the Indians,” called Tola.

The landscape, already altered, continued to change, in many places beyond recognition for a person living a generation before. The great herds of elk and pronghorn continued to disappear. Flocks of waterfowl, once rising from the waterways so thick as to block the sun, thinned. Native bunchgrasses, like purple needlegrass, were overrun by European oat grass, spread from seeds in the dung of Spanish and Mexican livestock. After the missions were secularized in 1834, the natives worked for General Vallejo on his Rancho Petaluma, which included Tolay Lake, mostly in some form of indentured servitude, tending his cattle and planting crops.

It was no coincidence, although it was sadly ironic, that General Vallejo, defeated by Americans in the Bear Flag Revolt, helped California lawmakers draft, during their first legislative session in 1850, An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians that legalized Indian slavery—and was not repealed in its entirety until 1937. Indians were separated from families but their aboriginal villages persevered, even as our numbers dropped precipitously. We continued to eat many of our native foods, most notably acorn mush, and continued older religious practices. We made herculean efforts to maintain families, even as the aforementioned 1850 act provided loopholes for Americans to steal our children. J. B. Lewis, an American rancher, who in the 1850s owned land north of Tolay Lake, noticed that Indians—he thought from a local tribe—“stayed a day or two [at the lake] and had some kind of powwow.” It was only after William Bihler dynamited the southern end of the lake 20 years later that there were no reports of Indians returning.

At the time of European contact, the combined population of Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok Nations was about 20,000. Some estimates go much higher. Central California, the Bay Area in particular, was home to the densest population of indigenous peoples in North America outside of Mexico City, site of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán. Ethnographers have often wondered how so many people living so close together speaking so many different languages got along with virtually little physical warfare for 10,000 years—yes, we’ve been here that long. From atop the ridges surrounding lake Tolay, we watched the Bay grow as it filled with water from the melting glacial ice caps. Believing that everything in nature was alive—and had power—you had to be careful not to mistreat or insult even the smallest pebble on your path. Likewise, people had power, often secret power. Secret songs, spirit guides, and objects such as charmstones protected a person and could be used against one’s enemies. If you had to physically assault another person, you revealed that you had no secret power. Physical warfare thus was seen as the lowest form of war since it would suggest that you possessed no spiritual power and could be attacked without worry of retribution.

Ethnographers saw the culture as predicated on black magic and fear. Rather, the culture was predicated on profound respect: You had to be mindful of all life, reminded always that you were not the center of the universe but a part of it. Sickness, whether caused by another human being or from a bird or a simple rock, dislocated one from the world, resulting in, if not continuing, imbalance. Medicine men and women drowned the charmstones to put away the sicknesses that were taken from patients. The sickness was put away and the patient—and the natural world of which the patient was a part—was renewed. Knowing the lake was drained of water and the charmstones exposed, did the Indians fear returning?

For the past several years, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria have held their summer picnic at Tolay Lake. We gather to enjoy food and reconnect with family. Booths offer information on language and basketry classes. At one booth, we can trace our ancestry to one or more of 14 survivors from whom we all descend. Children can visit goats and chickens inside the restored barns. Hayrides take us across the dry lake bed and up onto the mountain ridges. Yet even as I give my welcoming speech as Tribal Chairman extolling the virtue of our gathering again in a sacred place, I’ve often wondered if it is such a good idea for us to be here. The Cardozas gathered charmstones as they planted pumpkins, leaving the lake bed bare—and for a long time displayed the stones in buckets during the Fall Festival. But might not disease and sickness remain in the soil, in the humid air that rises from the lake?

On hayrides, I watch as relatives and friends point from the ridgetops and name ancient villages. “There,” a young woman says, looking south below the lake. “Cholequibit. The priest baptized a man and his wife there and named them Isidro and Isidra. They are my ancestors.” Another young woman looks west and points. “Olompali. My ancestors are from there. [The priest] baptized them Otilio and Otilia.” So many of our people have been lost as a consequence of an ugly history. Too many have lived—often difficult lives—and died with little sense of the homeland, much less of the sacred lake. Seeing these young women and others, some of whom are taking in the views for the first time, I understand something about renewal—about what must have occurred as Indian doctors and their patients left the lake. Didn’t the ridgetop views confirm healing, that one was located in place again? Even if Grandpa Tom didn’t return to the lake after it was drained, might not he have climbed a ridge to remember Petaluma, the birthplace of his mother?

During a lull in this past winter’s endless rain, I went to Tolay. The lake collects water during the winter months, and with the abundant rain, I thought I might see the lake as it once was—or maybe close to what it once was. Archaeologists have noted that the lake’s southern membrane was thin, suggesting that people of Alaguali maintained a dam, no doubt regulating waterflow from the lake. I found the water was high, extending from just below the farms’ barns to the opposite end of the valley below the hills. A lone osprey flew overhead. Mud hens and mallards bobbed on the muddy water. Under a cloudy sky, I stood and tossed a small piece of angelica root into the water to appease the spirits. I figured if the lake’s ridges helped locate my people, then the story of the lake and its charmstones can remind us again of the power within all life. Yes, I thought, imbue reverence.

Then, as I was walking back to my car parked behind the gate above the lake, I began to wonder about my people who might not believe the story. And what of non- Indians who haven’t yet heard it? Might not fooling around the lake be dangerous? Thinking has its clever way of taking me out of the moment, and here I was thinking again, lost. Until I reached my car. The sky opened and silvery sunlight covered the land around me. The four mountains in the distance remained covered in the shadow; they seemed to grow out of the land like huge fingers. The lake was below me, flat and broad. All at once I understood something else, or rather I felt it. In that brief moment before the clouds shielded the sun again, I felt what it was like to be held. I was standing in the earth’s enormous hand.

Greg Sarris, Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, is the author of several books including Grand Avenue, and holds the Graton Endowed Chair at Sonoma State University. His new book How a Mountain Was Made will be published by Heyday Press this fall.