Native people struggle to save shellmounds
By Stephanie Hedgecoke
Indigenous people of the California Bay Area recently held
three events focused on the struggle to preserve their ancient
burial grounds, the shellmounds, from real estate development.
The events, called by Indian People Organizing for Change
(IPOC) and the Vallejo Inter-Tribal Coun cil's Indigenous
Sacred Sites Preservation Committee, were held over a two-day
period.
The events followed the Unthanks giving Sunrise Ceremony at
Alcatraz in the San Francisco Bay. The Sunrise Cere mony, held
by the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), is a
long-running annual event commemorating the historic takeover
of Alcatraz by the American Indian Movement (AIM) and
traditionally brings together hundreds of Native people and
their supporters.
On Friday, Nov. 26, IPOC called an all-day demonstration at
the site of the Bay Street Mall, recently built atop the
Emeryville Shellmound over the objections of Muwekma Ohlone
people and their supporters. That shellmound was once 60 feet
high and up to 600+ feet in diameter; it is older than the
pyramids in Egypt and formerly held at least four historical
levels of burial sites.
Some 100 demonstrators gathered and leafleted cars to ask
people not to shop at the "Dead Mall." Muwekma Ohlone activist
and organizer Corrina Gould says: "We do this the day after
Unthanksgiving even though the Shellmound, the land, has been
desecrated by this strip mall. We give out educational material
because it's a cemetery and ask people not to shop at the
mall."
The history of the shellmound struggle encompasses the
survival of Pacific Coastal peoples who have been twice
colonized. Spain's conquistador army and priests built the
mission system by forcibly rounding up and enslaving tens of
thousands. Later, during the Gold Rush, the U.S. moved in to
enforce its proclamation of Manifest Destiny, that it had a
right to take the continent, from the Atlantic Ocean to the
Pacific.
The shellmounds in the San Francisco Bay Area represent
cemeteries and ancient monuments of First Nations, including
the Ohlones, Coast Miwok, Bay Miwok, Plains Miwok, Yokuts,
Wappo, Patwin and several others.
Emeryville Shellmound's topmost layer of burial sites was
razed to build a dance pavilion by European settlers in the
1800s. Its second layer was destroyed in 1924; the 900- to
1,300-year-old remains of some 700 people were taken by
University of California Berkeley's Anthropology
Department.
From 1924 to 1984 toxic wastes were dumped on the third
layer. This layer was hauled away in hundreds of truckloads a
day for 10 weeks in 2001 and incinerated at a toxic waste dump.
The remain ing oldest layer contains uncounted human remains as
much as 2,500 years old.
During the pile-driving stage of the mall's construction,
hundreds of burials were exposed all over the 19-acre site and
confirmed by archaeologists, but that did not stop the
profit-hungry developers and their backers in local government
from proceeding with construction.
After the demonstration in Emeryville, an open forum
regarding the Glen Cove burial site was held at Calvary Com mu
nity Church in Benicia by leaders of the Vallejo Inter-Tribal
Council (VITC) and Native elders.
On Saturday morning, VITC called on the Indigenous
community, peace and justice groups, and progressive religious
organizations to attend a Citizen's Assem bly to preserve the
Glen Cove Shellmound, which faces potential destruction from
real estate development. Sacred Sites Protection & Rights
of Indigenous Tribes led the gathering on a 5-1/2 mile
procession from the site of the Glen Cove Shell mound to the
Vallejo Waterfront Park.
The procession included representatives of many of the
area's Indigenous Nations. The Tule River Reservation, just
south of Sequoia National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains,
sent an entire bus full of Yokuts, who explained that the Glen
Cove site was a transitional area historically for at least
seven Native Nations and that their own kin were among "this
living shellmound." AIM representative Carole Standing Elk
helped lead the procession with a joint IPOC/IITC banner
reading: "Save the Shellmounds, Respect All Sacred Sites" and
"You Can't Respect the Living Until You Respect the Dead."
For updates on future events write to IPOC, POB 796,
Alameda, CA 94501; call the VITC at (707) 558-8776; or email
the Shellmounder News at sfbayshellmounds@yahoo.com.
Information was gathered for this report by
activists with the Shellmounder News and supporters of
the Muwekma Ohlone Nation.
Reprinted from the Dec. 23, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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