The Alameda Native History Project is proud to announce their Cultural & Educational Program Offerings for 2024-2025.
2024 Acorn Granary Challenge
Beginning July 1, 2024; and, Ending on July 31, 2024.
Mix modern and traditional methods of acorn granary construction to create a semi-permanent structure which will hold the acorns from our First Annual Acorn Harvest.
The challenge is creating something that will withstand the elements over winter.
We will meet as a team to construct these Acorn Granaries. Together we will learn about the different kinds of Acorn Granaries; integrated pest management uses of California Native Plants; and how indigenous technology works to keep food safe for centuries.
This is a series of free events which happens 10am-2pm Every Sunday in July.
Take part in the First Annual Alameda Acorn Harvest.
Learn about the ancient Live Oak Forests of this place now called “Alameda”. Learn about the nutritional value and the cultural significance of acorns.
There are a number of different ways in which everyone can participate. Please check out the list of roles available on the Sign-Up Form, right after our Community Guidelines.
Snacks, Water, Coffee, and Lunch, will be provided.
A Never-Before-Seen Map of Alameda’s Indigenous History
Can you imagine elk running down Park Street?
Cotton Tail Rabbits hopping among giant Live Oak trees on Grand?
Gathering blackberries at Chochenyo Park? Oysters on Regent? Making tule boats at Alameda Point?
This map combines historic elements to tell the story of Alameda before.
Developed for elementary and middle-school students to learn about local indigenous history: this map shows Alameda–before it became an island–with selected plants and animals that lived and thrived here.
These plants and animals include: Wildcats, Ducks, Blackberries, Deer, Flamingoes, and more!
This map includes the historic wetlands of the Bay Area; and the Oyster Reef zones in Alameda, two never-before-seen layers of local history (until now.)
This map is a tool that can help people imagine the ecosystems organizations like the Wild Oyster Project, and Save The Bay are working towards saving and restoring.
Imagination is one of the strongest tools in the decolonization toolbox.
One of the ways the Alameda Native History Project “Decolonizes History” is by developing, producing, and distributing accurate, relevant, and interesting educational materials for Classrooms, Community Centers, and Institutions.
The Alameda Native History Project offers updated, often novel, and never-before-seen images, maps, and infographs about the Indigenous History of this place we call the “San Francisco Bay Area”.
Our continued impact will be measured by the number of classrooms we connect with the maps and information educators want and need to fill the gaps in existing curriculum regarding local indigenous history.
This will result in students who can finally receive the answer to the basic questions about Native American History. Questions, which–until now–have simply been glossed over or ignored in mainstream, sanitized, Social Science, History, and Arts & Humanities curriculums.
The proceeds of this fundraiser will go towards putting one of these maps in every core/history class and school library in Alameda.
If you make a minimum donation of $25, and include your mailing address in the comment on this donation form (your comment is private), you will receive a Historic Alameda Ecology Map.
5% of the cost of printing will go back to local Alameda schools.*
You can have a direct impact on Decolonizing History, too!
By providing tangible support for our mission, you can be the reason why people know this is Ohlone Land; why that makes it our responsibility to be good stewards to the land; and how important it is for us to respect Indigenous knowledge and lived experiences, and advocate for the return of sacred places, tribal objects, and ancestral remains.
Alameda Native History Project is fiscally sponsored by The Hack Foundation (d.b.a. Hack Club), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN: 81-2908499).
*5% of total cost goes back to school via printer’s giveback program on a per transaction basis. We choose the Alameda school recipient.
The Alameda Native History Project is the proud recipient of a Native Solidary Project grant for our work mapping the Indigenous Bay.
Our mapping project seeks to reverse the erasure, and inaccuracies promulgated by biased archeologists and flawed anthropological analysis.
We do this by centering the indigenous knowledge and lived experiences in historical narratives about indigenous people by presenting those narratives from Indigenous People themselves.
This grant will go towards printing educational materials, and putting them in classrooms, institutions, and community centers Alameda, and the Greater Bay Area.
You can have a meaningful and direct impact in decolonizing history by supporting the printing and distribution of accurate, interesting, and educational Indigenous History materials to schools and other institutions in Alameda and the Greater Bay Area.
Wondering which Native American organizations you should give to on Giving Tuesday?
Hopefully, when you read this, you already know that Shuumi Land Tax doesn’t really go to all Ohlone people. (But we don’t want to discourage your well-meaning intent and your need to help Indigenous people in anyway you can.)
If you really want to help the Native American People in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve compiled a list of organizations where your generous donation and goodwill have a measurable impact.
This is the real Ohlone tribe you probably thought you were donating money to when you considered paying Shuumi “Land Tax”.
With over 10,000 years of continuous habitation of this place now known as the San Francisco Bay Area, your donation directly to this tribe of over 600 enrolled members will be felt immediately; and put to use as Muwekma reawaken their Chochenyo language, remember dances, and revitalize their culture.
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is a bonafide native American Tribe, which has been recognized over and over again by The Courts, but still struggles for recognition with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Muwekma is set to begin their Trail of Truth in their epic battle for justice; in the form of a Tribal Homeland, Education, Housing, Medical Services, and–last but not least: Sovereignty.
If you want to help Ohlone people in the San Francisco Bay Area (and beyond):
Go to Muwekma.org to educate yourself and your friends about the Indigenous People of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Established in 1955 as one of the first urban American Indian community centers in the nation.
It was founded by the American Friends Service Committee to serve the needs of American Indian people relocated from reservations to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Friendship House SF provides a girth of wellness services for Native American People in the SF urban rez.
One of the most important services the Friendship House SF provides is treatment and recovery services for Native Americans. Lots of tribes will send their members to the Friendship House SF for their treatment and recovery services.
The Friendship House SF also provides meeting space for other organizations to hold their events and retreats. Very thankful to the Friendship House SF for giving me and organizations I’ve been a part space for so many years.
Provides primary care, mental health, and dental services primarily. Also organizes and hold the Indigenous Red Market, contributes to Powwows, and other Native American Events and Programs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
Contributing to this organization will also support a wider range of programs and services in the Bay Area.
Since 1968, the purpose of the American Indian Center has been to create a community space based on Native American values, culture, programming, traditional foods, and community support.
Contributing to this organization will help sustain AICC’s mission to improve and promote the well-being of the American Indian community and to increase the visibility of American Indian cultures in an urban setting in order to cultivate awareness, understanding and respect.
The American Indian Child Resource Center is a non-profit social services and educational community-based organization serving American Indian community members from across the greater Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area and surrounding counties.
The American Indian Child Resource Center is a COA Accredited Organization.
Economic Development Corporation which invests in and creates innovative institutions and models that strengthen asset control (land stewardship is one example) and support economic development (through grants and programs) for American Indian people and their communities.
First Nations Development Institute is another solid choice because you know your money will be well invested, and you can read the reports on how it was used.
Which Native American Organizations Should You Donate To?
Hopefully, this helps you decide where to invest for Giving Tuesday in the year 2023!
By now there should be no doubt that most museums, which display or hold Native American artifacts, directly benefit from grave robbing, or the often racist, prejudiced language and ignorant beliefs regarding Native Americans first uttered by now dead anthropologists [like Alfred Kroeber], and perpetuated by the ailing volunteers and aging septuagenarians responsible for interpreting and curating these artifacts today.
Many of these museums do no care to get the information or facts straight, and continue to present California Native Americans as “extinct”, “disappeared”, and brush off or dismiss any mention of actual living Native people as someone trying to raise trouble.
Advocates for the truthful portrayal, accurate naming, and return of tribal objects and remains are often called “hostile”, dismissed as rabble rousers, and subjected to projection by the very people who should have read White Fragility.
Even more infuriating is the belief consulting with any Native American individual on any subject–whether or not it’s related to the stolen Tribal Grave Goods or Ceremonial Objects in these Museum’s possession–is used as cover for the Museum to continue to disregard the wishes of the very real, and still living Native American people who have a lawful claim, and a legal right to demand the return and repatriation of these Native American Tribal Resources and Cultural Objects.
In fact, many of the people museums choose to consult with regarding Native American artifacts are not Native Americans at all.
Truthfully, Native American people are consistently shut out of events, exhibitions and lectures about their own culture and identity.
A lot of apologists will say “it’s not like this anymore”; or dismiss the Standard Operating Procedures museums as a thing of the past…. But these conditions till persist.
Native American People continue to be discounted, ignored; and their history, culture and contributions continue to be minimized and ignored.
But the truth remains: The artifacts and objects on display in most museums have been stolen from Native American People, their graves, and do not belong to the museums who refuse to return them.
There are three main reasons why Museums refuse to return Tribal Cultural Objects.
The first is that there is no Federally Recognized Tribe which claims these objects to return them to. This is especially true for the Repatriation of Native American Remains.
It’s a shame that these institutions are unwilling to do the research and work necessary to properly identify Tribal Cultural Objects and Native American Remains to repatriate the same way they did the research to identify and prepare the same goods and burials for exhibition.
It’s despicable the way Museums claim such helplessness and ignorance when it comes time to give stolen objects back, even though the exact same objects are the she subjects of fundraising events and lectures proudly given by white anthropologists, and non-native experts, even today.
Charlene Nijmeh, the Chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area, talks about how the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe was removed from the rolls of Native American Tribes simply for the purpose of denying Ohlone people in the San Francisco Bay Area their right to a tribal land base; because land in the Bay Area is so valuable.
In this same way, institutions like the University of California Berkeley (which holds the remains of thousands of Native Americans) are incentivized to claim an inability to identify which tribes the bodies in their crypt belong to.
So, too, are Museums incentivized to weaponize their incompetence in order to keep their pilfered goods.
This is a completely reprehensible argument that bears no merit, as far as I’m concerned. Simply because these same people would not agree that their family members are more valuable being dug up, defiled in the name of science, and put on display without so much of a whisper of their name or life’s story.
It’s worth saying, “If you’re not okay with your grandma being dug up and put on display, why are you doing it to mine?”
The blatant disrespect of Native American Graves as things which can be dug up, broken, moved to a landfill, reburied, and used as overspread is something which has been enabled by the statements of people like Alfred Kroeber, who explicitly declared entire tribes of Native Americans (like Ohlone people) “extinct”.
It s because these remains are considered “ancient”, or attributed to a time before our modern history where no living descendants exist–“pre-historic” for all intents and purposes–that oil companies, city, state and federal governments have dug up the bodies of our ancestors with impunity. And why money is still being given to universities to study our ancestors’ remains, even today.
But this is a fallacy, because Native American people are not extinct; they have not disappeared. We are still here, today. And we do not want anyone digging up our relatives to build pipelines, parking lots… or “for science”. Period!
(How come laws against the abuse of a corpse apply to every body except for Native American bodies?)
The third, and final, reason why institutions refuse to even consider returning stolen Native American artifacts to tribes is an extension of the preceding “more valuable for science” reasoning.
However, the very basis of some museums’ refusal to return tribal objects is clearly rooted in the scarcity mindset.
Museum Fallacy #3:
“If we give away all of our artifacts, we won’t have any left!”
“If we give away all of our artifacts, we won’t have any left!” This was actually said to me by a volunteer at the Alameda Museum.
This is dissonant because many museum’s holdings are made of stolen property. Repatriation is the only correct course of action; anything less is a travesty.
This standing also presumes the only thing of value the museum has to offer is the exhibition of original artifacts, no matter how broken or uninteresting those artifacts are; and, in spite of the fact that curators and museum staff and volunteers have no […] clue how those objects are used, where they actually came, or what the history of their use and development is.
In all of this, there is not even a hint of concern about whether or not the museum has a duty to investigate/research, find, and try to contact the tribe associated with the Native American objects and artifacts in their possession.
Consideration of actual Native American People is so far removed from the discussion, it’s a little ridiculous.
Representation of average museum volunteer docents. (AI-generated.)
The idea that there aren’t enough artifacts is a fallacy based upon a false sense of ownership and authority magically imbued by the mere possession of these stolen grave goods.
The implied scarcity mindsight that the only thing which gives museums like the Alameda Museum any value is a handful of broken pieces of bones and tools–which no one knows the use for (or even the names of)–is laughable in its appeal to ignorance.
The fact that Alameda Museum is not, and has never been, the place to see Native American artifacts belies this mindset as a straw man argument for the lack of interest or determination of the museum to change or do any better. But, in the end, it’s the museum which must do the work.
So let’s get down to brass tax here:
Museums need to get real about the fact that no one cares whether or not they exhibit real artifacts if their exhibits are trash and don’t actually provide any education value; especially if Museum Staff & Volunteers don’t know anything about them. [There’s no value here.]
Returning Native American Grave Goods is the right thing to do. (It’s probably illegal for museums to possess them.) And Museums owe money, and other restitution, to Tribes for their illegal conversion of Tribal Property.
Contacting Tribes to begin the repatriation process is necessary.
Museums need to seriously consider purchasing replicas made by Native American artisans in exchanging for the return of Grave Good and Ceremonial Objects.
Museums are required to pay Indigenous People for their time and consultation at a rate commensurate with like professionals in the same or similar industries–regardless of whether or not those Indigenous Consultants have any academic credentials.
Indigenous Peoples’ lived experiences and actual subject matter expertise are more valuable than any degree.
Indigenous science is valid.
Indigenous science is a distinct, time-tested, and methodological knowledge system that can enhance and complement western science. Indigenous science is about the knowledge of the environment and knowledge of the ecosystem that Indigenous Peoples have. It is the knowledge of survival since time immemorial and includes multiple systems of knowledge(s) such as the knowledge of plants, the weather, animal behavior and patterns, birds, and water among others.
Indigenous people are experts.
Museums will do well to remember these facts when treating Indigenous People with the reverence and respect they deserve.
We’ve found a pattern of reckless and careless treatment of 100% of those stolen artifacts.
The Alameda Museum has roughly 186 Native American Artifacts. All of those artifacts were found in connection with Native American Graves, except for 2.
So, we can’t say ALL of the artifacts are grave goods. But we can say:
99.93% of Alameda Museum’s Indigenous Artifacts are Stolen Burial Goods from Native American Graves all over the place we now call “Alameda.”
Shellmounds are cemeteries, ancient structures, sacred sites, historical resources, and ancient structures built by the first inhabitants of this area, Ohlone people.
Shellmounds are made rows of burials stacked vertically and alternately; covered with the shell-laden soil found along the San Francisco Bay Region’s shorelines.
There were several excavations of the shellmounds of Alameda.
Artifacts saved from excavations attended by professional and amateur anthropologists/archeologists were donated to both the Alameda Library, and the U.C. Berkeley Museum. [Some artifacts were notably kept by a City Engineer by the name of I.N. Chapman.]
Alameda Free Library existed long before the historical Alameda Historical Society, or the Alameda Museum were ever founded.
The Two Alameda Historical Societies
To be clear about the two Alameda Historical Societies: one of these societies existed in the early 1900’s, and is mentioned in newspaper articles, as being interested in the early Alameda Free Library’s “Museum” in the Carnegie Library.
The second iteration of the Alameda Historical Society started in the 1940’s, and was instrumental in moving the Museum from the basement of the Alameda Free Library, into the old Alameda High School Auto Shop in the 1980’s. And then, into the storefront of the Masonic Building, on Alameda Avenue–where it remains [“lies in state”?] today.
Transfer of Artifacts & Records from Alameda Free Library to Alameda Museum
All of these artifacts taken from the mounds were transferred from the Alameda Library to the Alameda Museum when the Museum moved into the old Alameda High School Auto Shop.
Those artifacts weren’t the only things transferred to the Alameda Museum.
At it’s inception, the Alameda Museum was designated as the Official City Repository for City Records, and the Records of the City of Alameda’s Departments, including (but not limited to,) Alameda’s Fire and Police Departments.
I know this isn’t incredibly relevant, but it’s important to know this background information, especially when the Alameda Museum claims they don’t have stolen artifacts, or that the artifacts the museum displays aren’t Native American Grave Goods. You’ll know that 99.93% of artifacts in the Alameda Museum’s possession are Grave Goods because they were taken from the Alameda “mounds”, which are Native American Graves.
Out of the approximately 186 Ohlone Artifacts in the possession of Alameda Museum, only two of them are unrelated to Native American Graves.
The other 184 artifacts are directly attributed to the shellmounds of Alameda.
What’s more: the Alameda Museum’s pattern of wanton “inattention”, and reckless disregard for these burial goods are clearly stated in the museum’s own records:
History:
Stone mortar and pestle found in one of Alameda’s mounds. The information on the pestle can be connected to a donation documented in the museum records: Subject: One Indian Mortar and Pestle. Date received: April 1954. Unfortunately, as a result of earlier inattention there is no further description, and as a result of later inattention during moves and minor catastrophes, it is not certain the mortar and pestles are together anymore, and the connection has been lost. Part of a collection of objects found in the largest Shellmound, also known as Sather’s Mound in Alameda, or smaller mounds. The excavations at Sather’s Mound were carried out in 1908 by Captain Clark, an amateur anthropologist. The items were donated to the Alameda Free Library, and passed on to the museum when the museum moved to a separate location. Date: April 1954 Mortar Acquired from: unknown Date: before 1991
Condition:
Notes: 6/30/2020 MvL: The label has suffered water damage when a pipe in the museum burst. Any accession numbering of the mortars and pestles was lost and has been redone.
The above excerpt of an artifact’s description establishes the Alameda Museum’s pattern of careless disregard, and reckless neglect of Native American artifacts.
Grave goods belong in graves; not museums.
Mismanagement of Ohlone Artifacts by Alameda Museum:
Misidentified the tribe associated with these stolen Ohlone artifacts;
Mixed up mortars and pestles, (among other things) so they no longer match;
Lost records and identifying information about the stolen burial goods;
Carelessly and recklessly stored, handled, and moved Ohlone grave goods.
This mismanagement, and noncompliance with their Service Provider Agreement with the City of Alameda; with the standards and practice of commensurate professionals and institutions engaged in the conservation and preservation of historical records and artifacts; and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA); has resulted in damage to these priceless, irreplacable artifacts, which the Alameda Museum possesses without permission, or right of ownership.
This evidence of unreported and unclaimed, loss/damage to Ohlone grave goods; and the established pattern of careless and reckless neglect of Ohlone artifacts…
Should be reason enough for the Alameda Museum to concede it cannot adequately care for any of the 186 Ohlone artifacts it possesses; and return them to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area in the most expeditious way possible.
May 1, 2023, Elizabeth Hoover issues a statement admitting that she used her non-existent Mohawk and Mi’kmaq ancestry to get to where she is today… But it was her “experience and expertise” which helped her become a professor–not the fact that she gained said experience an expertise from impersonating an indigenous person.
The statement wasn’t an apology. It was an announcement. Hoover ended it with: “I will accept with humility and understanding the decisions of people who do not think I belong in certain spaces.”
But she never actually stepped down, or stopped selling her books.
Hoover stood by her initial claims she was misled by a blind belief in family lore. She admitted to changing the subject, or accusing her interrogators of being envious, jealous, or interfering with her assumed identity as a Mohawk and Mi’kmaq woman, whenever anyone tried to ask her the hard questions about her family history, tribal enrollment status, or her ancestry.
In spite of all this: Elizabeth Hoover is currently a professor at U.C. Berkeley; a position she admitted using fraud to attain:
Identifying as a Native person gave me access to spaces and resources that I would not have otherwise, resources that were intended for students of color. Before taking part in programs or funding opportunitiesthat were identity-related or geared towards under-represented people I should have ensured that I was claimed in return by the communities I was claiming. By avoiding this inquiry, I have received academic fellowships, opportunities, and material benefits that I may not have received had I not been perceived as a Native scholar.
Elizabeth Hoover Admission of Fraud, May 1, 2023
Elizabeth Hoover denies that her untrue statements and absolute impersonation of an indigenous person did not help her attain her current position. But she doesn’t seem to understand that she totally admitted to benefitting from her own fraud. And she continues to benefit from the apathy of U.C. Berkeley.
Her flimsy reasoning is that she wasn’t hired during U.C. Berkeley’s First Peoples hiring blitz…. So, her employment must be because of all of the experience and expertise she gained… while impersonating an indigenous person.
This is all despite the fact Hoover outlined how she benefitted from identifying as a person with Mohawk and Mi’kmaq ancestry:
Access to spaces and resources
Participating in Programs
Funding
Academic fellowships
Material benefits
Elizabeth Hoover admitted to abusing identity-based resources intended for people of color, and under-represented people–and, securing those resources with a false identity.
Elizabeth Hoover knew how claiming Indigenous ancestry worked. She’s worked with many tribes before. She had that special access as an indigenous person.
What’s really surprising was her access to the benefits and resources which usually require more specific information–like an enrollment number–which Elizabeth Hoover did not actually have.
Elizabeth Hoover actively evaded these question, and, managed to escape uncomfortable conversations at all costs.
This episode totally exposes the flaws in academia, and in the movement; and shows you yet another example of a non-indigenous person gaming the system. These deficiencies are commonly overlooked because “not every tribe is federally recognized”, and unrecognized tribes exist. [They actually do, like Kutzadika’a.]
Members of legitimate unrecognized tribes can still establish their Indian Ancestry.
These things: the opportunities, monetary rewards and other material benefits. Are the product of a long series of fraudulent transactions; which lead to the accrual of the Experience and Expertise Elizabeth Hoover attributes to her hiring as a professor.
It’s amazing how much cognitive dissonance Elizabeth Hoover has regarding the fact that she used a false identity to get to where she is.
Elizabeth Hoover can admit to doing all these things. But she somehow does not make the connection between (a) the fact that she should not be in the position she is today, and (b) the fact she’s in a place she doesn’t belong.
That’s why she needs to resign: because she’s not supposed to be there.
It’s bad enough @UC Berkeley won’t give back the stolen ancestors, or the huge swath of stolen land they received through land grants. But letting a professor continue to teach after she’s been wearing brown face for her entire life is also not cool.
A lot of people are going to say it’s not her fault that she believed her family rumors/fantasies of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq ancestry. But it is.
If you claim Indigenous/First Nations/Native American/American Indian ancestry, you should be able to prove it by knowing who your nearest full-blooded relative is.
If your family lore is true, this should be relatively easy to do. This is what the “Indian Rolls” are for, the Indian Censuses, and other documentation the Federal Government maintains to track our downfall. [Good luck with that, Uncle Sam.]
Claiming indigenous ancestry when you have none is akin to stolen valor. Our ancestors literally fought and died so we could be here. We are the survivors of countless atrocities, attempted genocide, family massacres, sterilization campaigns, boarding schools, and more.
Claiming indigenous ancestry when you have none is not only offending, but it’s illegal when you sell books, give speeches, interviews, paid appearances, and gain other benefits by claiming a heritage that you have no right to.
Where’s the line? UC Berkeley needs to show some integrity.
You can tell them, too. Here’s a list of people you can contact:
ESPM Dept. Chair Michael Mascarenhas: (510) 643-3788 Chancellor Carol Christ: (510) 642-7464 Exec. Vice Chancellor Ben Hermalin: (510) 642-1961 Equity & Inclusion Dania Matos: (510) 642-7294 Office of the Chancellor Khira Griscavage: (510) 643-8880
A mix of hand-collected Native California Plants chosen for the semi-arid climate of Alameda, and places like it, below 1,000 feet.
All of them are full sun; except for the Tomcat Clover, which is happiest with a little soil moisture.
Tomcat Clover Trifolium willdenovii
Credit: Jennifer McNew, BLM
Most of the plants in the Landback Wildflower Seed mix were selected because they are easy to grow, and help to provide food and pollen for a variety of life-forms, the most popular of which would be butterflies, and native honey bee and bumble bees. But these plants also sustain Birds, and Moths.
Gilia Capitata is beautiful, blue, self-sewing and easy to grow. Blooms throughout spring, well into summer.
Blue Thimble Flower (aka “Globe Gilia”) Gilia capitata
Many of these plants should look familiar, if you’ve ever been hiking around the East Bay. We live in a place where there are many places where you can observe wildflowers as they exist in nature.
Goldfields are numerous, and can be found all over the shoreline of the Bay Area, for instance: on Doolittle Drive, along the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline.
Goldfields Lasthenia glabrata
Credit: Cliff Hutson
The California Coastal Poppy is a native cultivar developed for its drought tolerance, deer resistance, and self-sowing attributes. The orange dot in the center make the perfect landing pad for all kinds of pollinators.
Coastal Poppy Eschscholzia californica var. maritima
Credit: Paul Hermans
Each seed pack has a unique ratio of seeds.
Chinese Houses set themselves apart with their long stalks, which reach up to 2 feet high, and their distinctive purple petals. These wildflowers are especially attractive to pollinators, including the Variable Checkerspot, Edith’s Checkspot Butterflies; and the Bilobed Looper Moth (among others.)
Chinese Houses (aka “Innocence”) Collinsia heterophylla
Smells like pineapple. Drought & Deer tolerant. Reliably self-sows. Late-season bloom from Mid-Summer to Fall.
Serpentine Sunflower Helianthus bolanderi
Credit: Richard Spellenberg
Grows up to 5′ tall. Doesn’t care what soil you plant it in. Goes crazy in compost-enhanced soil. Great cut flower. Self-Sows.
About the Seed Packets
The Landback Wildflower Mix has been specifically chosen to be easy to grow and drought-tolerant; requiring only a couple of waterings a month once they are established.
These seeds require no pretreatment and can be sown directly into the ground where they will be grown. Coastal Poppy roots are fragile, and should not be transplanted or moved from their original plot, once established.
Planting Instructions:
Prepare seedbed by removing existing weeds. Mix seeds with compost, broadcast where it is to grow, rake in lightly, and tamp. If fall rains don’t begin, irrigate 1-2 times weekly until seedling have made good growth.
Watering:
Water 1-2 times weekly until the plants are established. Once these plants are established, they can be water 1-2 a month. [With the exception of the Tomcat Clover, which enjoys a little moisture in its soil.]
Planting Time:
Fall and winter are optimal for annual flowers. The sweet spot is mid-fall.
Sowing Rate:
The Landback Wildflower Mix seed packet can seed approximately 5 square feet.
Source of the Seeds in the Landback Wildflower Mix:
These seeds were purchased, mixed, and repackaged by Alameda Native History Project from Larner Seeds, and Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seeds, for give-away purposes only.
What about the East Bay Ohlone of Oakland, Emeryville, Alameda? [The] Muwekma are not the only Lisjan in the area.
B. Richman
I publicly responded:
[B.] Richman this article seeks to educate people like you about Ohlone people in the east bay. So you stop calling them “chochenyo ohlone”, “Lisjan Ohlone”, and other misnomers.
Alameda Native History Project
But, I wanted to address the confusion and misinformation about Indigenous People, being perpetuated by non-indigenous people.
So I sent this message directly to that person, which I wanted to elaborate on, and share with you. What follows is based on that message, illustrated with pictures and relevant links.
“What about the East Bay Ohlone of Oakland, Emeryville, Alameda? [The] Muwekma are not the only Lisjan in the area.”
Questions like this are problematic because they show how much the person asking really doesn’t know about the indigenous history of their area.
[Everyone is aware of the hype behind the Sogorea Te Land Trust, a corporation fronted by Corrina Gould, an indigenous woman who claims to be a chairwoman of an Ohlone Tribe–a corporation called the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation, Incorporated. A corporation formed by Corrina Gould, and her daughters; which is less than two years old.]
Take a look at Corrina Gould and ask yourself why the pictures of her and her “tribe” only ever show about five people.
Oakland, CAAlameda, CAAlbany, CA
Seriously… ask yourself why the members of the other Confederated Villages never appear in the pictures.
If you take a step back, you’ll realize that Corrina Gould’s support is not from Ohlone people.
It’s from non-indigenous people, and native people who aren’t even Ohlone.
Coyote Hills Regional ParkMuwekma Group Picture 001Muwekma Group Picture 003Why Federal Recognition is ImportantMuwekma Tabling at Event
Muwekma are actually the people who called themselves “Lisjanes” (Lisjanikma), who were called the Verona Band of Alameda County. The Muwekma Tribe is actually composed of the descendants of those who survived the missions, attempted genocide and cultural erasure.
More pictures of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area can be found on their website: Muwekma.org
The present-day Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is comprised of all of the known surviving American Indian lineages aboriginal to the San Francisco Bay region who trace their ancestry through the Missions Dolores, Santa Clara, and San Jose; and who were also members of the historic Federally Recognized Verona Band of Alameda County.
It’s a distraction created by someone who’s done this kind of stuff before.
Take a second to stand back and see that Corrina Gould’s narrative is a washed down version of the real history of Muwekma.
Corrina Gould is a recognized descendant of the Muwekma Tribe; and she betrayed her own tribe by weaponizing their own language and history against them.
I thought her story was compelling too, until I did the research, and followed the facts.
Once I learned to truth, I had to publicly withdraw my support. It was kind of embarrassing, and a mistake to support a group without doing my research first.
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area is trying regain their Federal Recognition, and restore their homeland. Find out how you can help Ohlone people (for real) by going to Muwekma.org
You can also learn more Ohlone History, and see more pictures of the Muwekma Tribe, as well as read a selection of academic articles, interviews, and watch Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh at TEDXBerkeley.
In the Indigenous Bay Area, water and life have always gone hand-in-hand. It was impossible to tell where the sea truly ended on this coast. Even inland, the San Francisco Regions’s natural aquatic resources are used with reverence, and traded throughout the region (and beyond.) Salmon connect the sea to the rivers, streams, and lakes of California, and they are a living link shared by many Indigenous People in California.
Did the First People of the Bay Area Benefit from the Waterbodies and Waterways through Sustenance Fishing?
It is without any doubt that the First People of the place we now call the San Francisco Bay Area have used, worn, consumed, or cultivated almost all of the things in the pre-contact environment. This includes the natural aquatic resources of the San Francisco Bay Region.
You already know about salmon; edible plants, like kelp, eelgrass; but, think even smaller, like byssal thread–the stuff that holds mussels together in their beds–which was mainly used as an adhesive. These are the Traditional & Cultural Tribal Beneficial uses.
It’s established that Indigenous people engaged in Sustenance Fishing, individually.
As a group, Tribes engaged in Tribal Sustenance Fishing by working together to catch or gather larger numbers of natural aquatic resources like fish, shellfish, and vegetation, to be able to feed their group (or Tribe).
The shellmounds’ very existence is proof that this is true because of the sustained consumption, gathering, and use of shellfish it would take to gather the amount of shells used for the burials, and cemermonies, that shellmounds physically represent, and immortalize [as tangible evidence of this use.]
Consider also, the sheer amount of tools, currency, jewelry, and clothing, which is made from shells proves a continuous Tribal Cultural Beneficial Use for the last 10,000 years.
Surely, the shellmounds are the emodiment of the Traditional, Cultural, and Sustenance, Tribal Beneficial Uses for the WaterBodies of the San Francisco Bay Region?
Yes, Indigenous People have engaged in Sustenance Fishing, and Tribal Sustenance Fishing in all of the waterbodies in the San Francisco Bay Region for at least 10,000 years. And, that Sustenance-based use directly influences the innumerable Traditional, Cultural, [and Ceremonial] uses in First People’s societies.
Natural Aquatic Resources and Indigenous Ceremony
The less opaque “Tribal Beneficial Use” of the waterways and waterbodies of the San Francisco Bay Region (or “Basin”) are their ceremonial uses and connections.
This is because ceremonies for things like funerals, and ancestor worship has not been performed at shellmounds regularly in the region since approximately the 1770’s [which is when the Bay Area began to be invaded, and occupied, by Spain, Mexico, and the United States (in that order.)
But not all was lost. The First People of the San Francisco Bay Area are alive and well.]
Shellmounds, today, exist on private property, and are inaccessible to the Indigenous people whose blood relations are buried there. While it is difficult to compel land owners to grant Easements For Tribal Beneficial Uses… Government Agencies and Departments should create policies granting such Cultural Easements For Tribal Beneficial Uses upon request.
It should be assumed that water, and the proximity to it, played a large role in the selection of the location shellmounds, because shellmounds are found almost exclusively near the shores and riverbanks of the San Francisco Bay Area.
We should also assume that funerary practices included natural aquatic resources (like shellfish, fish, vegetation) which were gathered and used as ceremonial objects, to make special clothing, for the ceremony, or things given to the decedent for use in the afterlife; or, to protect their body on earth; or, for other myriad reasons, including: it was their favorite [object here.]
It’s not surprising then, that the amount of direct influence shellmounds and the waterways and waterbodies of the San Francisco Bay Region have on each other leave almost no corner of the Bay Area untouched.
Composite map of San Francisco Bay Basin Plan Waterbodies shown in lines and polygons.
There are three sets of data here. Just like there are three colors.
The green features show the San Francisco Bay Basin Waterbodies.
Yellow features are part of the wider network of waterbodies to which shellmounds are connected.
Red features show where shellmounds and basin waterbodies are intrinsically linked.
Fix geometries. (It helps to make a spatial index.)
Reproject to NAD83 California State Plane Zone 3
Find features for layers which matched the location of shellmounds within my margin of error, and with consideration to the average size of shellmounds recorded.
You know, then do the cosmetic stuff, as you can see in the picture above.
Consider the Confidentiality of Tribal Cultural Resources
Is this a bad time to point out that N.C. Nelson’s Shellmound Map was hand-plotted, using a completely different geographic coordinate reference system? I think that matters….
Use This Information As Another Reason to Listen to Indigenous Voices
It is an ethical obligation for Indigenous People to be included, respected, and listened to in the planning process. Not just to check the boxes on the Environmental Impact Assessment, or after a burial has already been disturbed.
Tribal Cultural Resources, and Tribal Beneficial Uses must also be taken into account when facilities Water Treatment Plants, Oil Refineries, and Quarries, seek to renew their license to operate.
Especially when those facilities generate large quantities of hazardous waste, endanger nearby communities, and deprive indigenous people of their beneficial use of natural aquatic resources and Tribal Cultural Resources through:
The illegal occupation of unceded land. (No, for real, the treaties were never ratified. Indigenous people in the Bay Area never gave away anything, and never will.)
Destruction of Tribal Cultural Resources to create infrastructure, like levees, landfills, and larger things like water treatment plants, and municipal dumps (many are on the shores of the San Francisco Bay Basin).
Forced Extinction and Endangerment of Native Plants and Animals, especially whales, fish, shellfish and aquatic vegetation.
The spoiling of natural resources through pollution, dumping, and paving.
… Among other things.
The Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Basin are not only Tribal Cultural Resources, they are intrinsically connected with the Tribal Beneficial Uses of this region’s natural aquatic resources.
Extracted Basin Plan Lines and PolygonsExtracted Basin Plan Lines and Polygons (Dissolved by Waterbody Name)
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