Alameda Native History Project

Category: Featured Stories

  • Building the Acorn Leaching Machine

    An update from the ACORNS! Project Arc

    Thank you for all of your support. For coming to our events, playing with the maps on our website, volunteering for the Acorn Harvest, and for checking out our printed maps and other merch.

    I am writing to you now because I want you to know that your support is appreciated, and that it has had an impact on our mission, to educate the community about local Native history through maps, advocacy, and experiential learning opportunities. Your support is helping to reopen Indigenous foodways, a tangible benefit made possible by your participation and generosity.

    The journey over the past year has been exciting, humbling, and rewarding. We have made so much progress! And one of the most exciting places we’ve made progress is in the way we leach acorns at scale.

    Meeting the Challenge

    We faced the existential challenges presented by pollution, climate change, loss of native wildlands and animals, and a lack of fresh, free flowing water. If the traditional way of leaching acorns is using a basket in a river or stream: how can we do that when all of our water has been polluted, and diverted into culverts? The answer was to build our own river.

    Proof of Concept

    The first Acorn Leaching Machine was cobbled together with plastic never-used trash cans fitted with PVC piping. It connected a DIY water filtration system with hand packed filter cartridges, an elaborate acorn tray setup, and a well pump. I hand-sewed the muslin acorn sacks. The first machine ran too hot, and wasn’t terribly food safe. But it was a proof of concept; a successful first generation.

    From Prototype to Food-Safe Design

    The second machine, the most current design, features some very significant upgrades.

    • Stainless steel, weld-less design
    • Food grade, with as little plastic as possible
    • Completely new cooling system
    • Upgraded to full-scale, food-safe, whole-house filtration system (multi-stage)
    • Housed on a mobile platform for presentations at schools and libraries

    A Tangible Tribal Benefit

    When complete, the flour produced by this system will go on offer to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area (and to the wider Indigenous community) as a tangible tribal benefit to the first people of this place. For free. It will feed ceremonies, meals, and gatherings, and it will travel to classrooms, libraries, and community spaces as a mobile teaching tool. Together, we are restoring a foodway that has not existed in over three centuries, and showing that food is medicine; traditional food is medicine.

    Now, we are poised to leach acorns at scale. To produce consistent, safe, traditional food. Without compromise. Your impact will be more tangible than you could ever imagine.

    The Final Push

    Every contribution, every hour volunteered, and every conversation shared has led to this moment. Reopening Indigenous foodways isn’t symbolic–it’s real work with tangible results. The Acorn Leaching Machine is more than equipment; it is a living example of innovation and restoration working together. It shows what can happen when we adapt ancestral knowledge to meet the challenges created by colonization and environmental change.

    We’ve already come this far with community effort, a partial grant from the Alameda Public Art Commission, and your continued support. Now, we’re preparing to complete the machine, to upgrade the last of its fittings and mount it securely to the moving platform that will carry it into classrooms, libraries, and public spaces across the region.

    This is the final push. Every donation, no matter the size, brings us closer to completion.

    Make Your Impact Visible

    For gifts of $75 or more, your name will be etched directly onto the stainless steel Acorn Leaching Machine, a visible acknowledgment of the community who helped make this restoration possible. Each name will stand for someone who chose to take action and help reopen Indigenous foodways in a tangible way.

    Your continued support is helping to decolonize our diet, rebuild the relationship between people and the land, and remind our communities that food is medicine, and traditional food is medicine. This is what it means to turn gratitude into action.

    With gratitude,

    Gabriel Duncan
    Founder, Alameda Native History Project

    Donate Now

  • Acorn Harvest Training : Reciprocity and the Honorable Harvest

    On Sundays, August 17 and August 31, the Alameda Native History Project will host Acorn Harvest Training, a hands-on, field-based workshop rooted in Indigenous tradition and ecological stewardship.

    Participants will learn to identify local oaks, distinguish between red and white oak by leaf shape, bark, and acorn characteristics, and understand the significance of mast years in acorn production. We will explore how acorns nourish entire ecosystems, not just people, and why respectful harvesting ensures that “all flourishing is mutual.”

    This training is grounded in the Honorable Harvest, a principle passed through generations:

    • Take only what is freely given.
    • Never take more than you need.
    • Give thanks, and give back.

    Our harvesting protocol reflects these values. We use low-impact wooden acorn tenders, tapping branches lightly. No climbing, pruning, or mechanical shakers. Only acorns released by gentle taps or natural fall are gathered, and our collective harvest is capped at less than 15 percent of the seasonal crop, well below ecologically safe limits. Viable acorns we do not keep are buried nearby, replenishing the seed bank and echoing the work of squirrels that help oak forests regenerate.

    These sessions are not about extraction. They are about building a respectful, living relationship with the land. The work is grounded in Traditional Ecological Knowledge and supported by the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, which recognizes the importance of restoring Indigenous foodways as a living practice of cultural sovereignty and environmental stewardship.

    People who signed up for the Indigenous Land Lab and the Acorn Harvest using our volunteer form received text messages with exclusive offers for free tickets. If you would like to join us on the harvest, and receive exclusive offers and special invitations such as private willow harvests and other events at the Indigenous Land Lab, sign up at https://nativehistoryproject.org/volunteer.

    Space is limited for each session to ensure a meaningful and safe learning environment.

    August 17 Acorn Harvest Training
    August 31 Acorn Harvest Training

  • Willow Harvest Begins

    The Acorn Granary Challenge begins in July. So we need to begin gathering the willow necessary to build our granaries now. If there’s enough, we could even be looking at some willow splitting sessions, which would result in fancier granaries.

    Learn about willow trees as a key species, and how to gather responsibly. Help gather materials we will actually use. Learn more about California Native food storage, and foodways.

    All through hands-on experience.

    All ages are welcome with parent/guardian supervision. These are pretty family friendly events. Everyone is welcome, but our events are clean and sober. You don’t have to be Native to kick it, as long as you respect the Indigenous Space you are being invited into.

    If you would like to join us, sign up for the “Indigenous Land Lab” using our Volunteer Signup Form.

    Signup

  • Alameda Needs to Get Planting

    So, I know the whole “plant thing” might not make sense to people who want to build bigger levees, and sea walls.

    I’m trying to say we can’t manage with walls alone.  Walls cost tons of money.  We don’t know how tall to build them, or how fast.  The earth is continuing to warm at a runaway pace.  And we need to plan accordingly.

    Currently, much of our shores are covered with riprap and sand that has been trucked into, and poured upon the surface of the shore.  Sometimes the riprap is covered with a steel mesh, and cabled and bolted into place.  But it doesn’t matter.  Every time we get big waves, increasingly bigger pieces are being taken away from the shore.

    Does it matter that this seems to happen faster in areas that were seeded by landfill?  Do we need to worry about the marsh crust resurfacing?  How far will saltwater “intrude” if left unchecked?

    It would be more beneficial for us to focus on ensuring that our land is properly protected from erosion using natural methods of reinforcement.  There are many concurrent benefits aside from erosion control that we will experience.  We’ve already seen the perils of trying to fight against the encroachment with levees and walls when Tulare Lake reawakened.  The dangers of levee failure or breach are more devastating than coastal flooding.

    Consider the fact that surfaces covered with concrete do not absorb water, storm drains have a capacity, as do the pumps underneath our city used to keep the streets clear of what is actually an urban flash flood.  That, at some point, we won’t be able to pump out this floodwater if the discharge point is already underwater itself.

    Consider the fact that the pre-1900 [“alameda”] peninsula was encapsulated by lush, verdant, thriving wetlands; and that the south shores and bay farm coast were rich in oyster and clam beds.

    Just like the rest of the earth, the Bay Area is a living, breathing, place.  Our environmental systems sustain life in and around the bay.  And floodwaters are supposed to be a regenerative force in the lifecycle of our ancient coastal blue carbon ecosystem.

    Consider the fact that the San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, Suisun and Grizzly Bays, have lost about 85% to 91.7% of their Historic Wetlands.  The San Joaquin/Sacramento Delta has lost 96.8% of its Historic Wetlands.

    https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/new-mapping-reveals-lost-west-coast-estuary-habitat
    https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218558
    https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218558

    Our bays are inextricably linked to our rivers, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.  The delicate balance of our riparian habitats, tule, eelgrass, salt marshes, and tidal pools are crucial to our ecosystem’s capacity and resilience.  These natural systems are responsible for filtering our water to support marine and estuarine wildlife, maintaining a healthy equilibrium in the brackish zone, producing land mass, stabilizing shorelines, and carbon sequestration.

    The roots of fast growing estuarine and aquatic plants (like eelgrass, tule, etc.) stabilize shorelines by trapping sediment in their root systems and creating a buffer zone that absorbs floodwaters. The rising tide and sediment bury plants and form nutrient-rich (low-oxygen) soil which builds up the land mass, and gives rise to new fast-growing growing plants.  The interring of carbon captured by the plants, which are buried in a low-oxygen environment, is the main mechanism behind what is now being referred to as coastal blue carbon habitats.

    So, while walls might make sense, they aren’t practical.  Levees and sea walls take years to build, and they’re a greater danger to the community than coastal flooding–because any breach would result in the immediate and violent expulsion of water directly into a borough or neighborhood, destroying the neighborhood, and injuring and possibly killing its residents.  We can’t accept a greater long-term risk for the temporary reprieve from a disaster of our own making.

    Restoring our ecosystems is the best chance we have to survive as a species.  We need to learn how to terraform our own planet before we attempt to colonize another.

  • I Found Bones In My Backyard, What Do I do?

    You are on Native Land.

    Alameda is hallowed ground.

    The site of no less than four “Ancient Indian Burial Mounds.” (We call them Shellmounds now.) The resting place of Ohlone ancestors.

    It sounds so distant when people use the word “ancestors”. Because it’s so safe; and sterilized by a false sense of temporal distance.

    Even though those shellmounds contained the Great-Great-Grandparents of Muwekma (the word for “Ohlone People“, in their language, Chochenyo) who are alive and well today.

    But the bodies didn’t stay buried.

    Bones from shellmounds were used to fertilize the fields, gardens, and flower beds which became iconic as soon as Mark Twain called Alameda the “Garden of California”.

    The remains of hundreds of Native Americans were used to pave Bay Farm Road. Twice.

    The bodies of thousands of Ohlone people were crushed, and pulverized, to make concrete for sidewalks, and foundations for houses. Their graves pushed over to fill marshland, and level out the numerous railways running through the island we now call “Alameda”.

    So it’s no wonder you found someone in your backyard.

    Native American Graves are being Still Being Uncovered in Alameda Today

    The story goes: a contractor working on a new deck, or a foundation crew digging around the cribs will find some bones. Human bones.

    You’re supposed to stop work, supposed to call the Police Department and report the discover of a burial. Because it could a crime scene. Or it could be a Native American Grave.

    If the bones look old enough, some contractors will turn a blind eye, and toss them back into the ground for some other guy to dig up.

    But that’s not how you should do it.

    Here are the 5 Steps to Honoring Native American Graves on the Stolen Land You Now Occupy

    Step 1:

    Don’t call the Museum!

    If you find bones in Alameda while digging, do not call the Alameda Museum.

    The Alameda Museum has no one on staff, or on call, who is qualified to identify or store Native American artifacts.

    Since 1948 the Alameda Museum had mis-identified Ohlone people as “Miwok”, instead of “Costanoan” which is what Ohlone people in the Bay Area were known as until about the 1970’s. This mis-identification ended abruptly when the Alameda Native History Project interceded in the miss-identification of the First Alamedans (Muwekma) and mis-attribution of their stolen property.

    So don’t call them. They don’t know what they’re doing.

    Step 2:

    Let the ancestors rest!

    Stop work.

    Don’t touch a damn thing.

    🤬 around and catch a curse. Or a case.

    [CA HSC §7050.5(a) : Every person who knowingly mutilates or disinters, wantonly disturbs, or willfully removes any human remains in or from any location other than a dedicated cemetery without authority of law is guilty of a misdemeanor….]

    I know it sucks: but pay the crew for the rest of the day and send them home.

    You’re done for the day.

    Step 3:

    Report the discovery to the police!

    Who honestly knows if this is an ancient burial? Your contractor isn’t an expert either. It doesn’t matter what they say.

    Stop work and call the police immediately.

    The sooner you call, the sooner this gets settled.

    [Also, this is not a real skeleton. All of these images were made with AI because using real skeletons would be disrespectful.]

    Step 4:

    Wait for the Coroner

    While you’re waiting, check out California Health and Safety Code Section 7050.5

    The Coroner is the only person who has the authority to identify whether or not the remains are Native American.

    “[I]f the coroner recognizes the human remains to be those of a Native American, or has reason to believe that they are those of a Native American” he or she will contact the Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC) within 24 hours.

    NAHC will send for a Tribal Consultant from the Tribal Groups affiliated with the area where the discovery was made, and whomever NAHC also determines is the Most Likely Descendant.

    Step 5:

    Step back. Tribal Consultants will handle the rest.

    Consultation is private. Anyone who isn’t directly involved, won’t be.

    At the end of consultation, you will generally be presented with two options:

    1. Re-Inter (or Re-Bury) the ancestor(s) in a place on the property where they will not be disturbed again.
    2. Tribal Consultants will remove their ancestor(s) and repatriate them at their Tribal Cemetery.

    That’s it!

    You just helped protect Native American Graves, and reunited someone’s ancestor with their family!

    Encourage your neighbors to do the same.

    Encourage the Alameda Museum to do the right thing, and give their collection of stolen artifacts back to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Email the Alameda Museum here.