Alameda Native History Project

Tag: emeryville shellmound

  • Corrina Gould: The Myth Of Lisjan, and the Erosion of Tribal Sovereignty

    Author’s Note (Updated November 13, 2025)

    There are a number of things I want to say about this article:

    First, this is a culmination of 5+ years of research and investigation. And it was only because of the Official Statement by the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area [included in full at the end of this article] that I was finally able to put together some missing pieces about Corrina Gould’s relationship to Muwekma–specifically, her descent and her belonging to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. During the course of researching this matter, I interviewed Tribal Attorneys, as well as members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and representatives from several local organizations who freely volunteered their reasons for no longer working with Corrina Gould.

    Second, despite several comments by Deja Gould on public posts, neither Deja Gould, nor her mother, Corrina Gould have directly answered any of the questions presented during the course of our investigation. Sogorea Te Land Trust has only provided legally required documentation related with their tax filing and reporting duties and responsibilities as a charitable organization.

    Third, I used ChatGPT to help me write this article. Specifically because I needed help keeping track of the sections, its tone, and to make sure that I created something complete and ready for publication. That said, the facts presented in this article are not AI hallucinations. This article was carefully constructed and painstakingly reviewed, over and over again, to ensure the veracity and completeness of the information presented here. My sources are open and available for anyone who wants to verify them.

    Fourth, I was not paid to write this article. Doing the right thing, reporting the truth, and telling the historical background of Bay Area Native American history is the mission of this project. It’s what we do. And we do it without asking for compensation. This is an independent organization, and we are beholden to no one.

    Fifth, I will not respond to personal attacks. I will not waste my time proving to anyone who I am. I do not care what you think. If your argument does not lie within the context of the material presented here, it is irrelevant to the message of this article. And your desperation to escape the truth and ignore the facts–laid bare here–is your choice.

    Finally, this article was updated in November 2025 to bring it into closer alignment with the Official Statement of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area on Corrina Gould, the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, and Sogorea Te Land Trust. As of this update, neither Corrina Gould, nor Deja Gould, nor Sogorea Te Land Trust has provided any substantive response that corrects, clarifies, or refutes the documented facts presented here or in the Tribal statement.

    1. Introduction

    For years, Corrina Gould has positioned herself as a tribal leader, a rematriation visionary, and a voice for Ohlone land return. She has founded organizations, signed land agreements, created a land tax, received millions in funding, and claimed to speak on behalf of Ohlone people. But her story is built on fiction.

    Corrina Gould is not the Chairwoman of a tribe. She is the head of a nonprofit corporation. The so-called “Confederated Villages of Lisjan” did not exist prior to 2018. It has no documented history, no enrollment records, no government, and no collective identity beyond a name she gave it. The Sogorea Te Land Trust is not an Ohlone organization. It is a nonprofit corporation led by a single unenrolled individual–someone who only discovered her genealogy because the real Ohlone tribe shared it with her.

    That tribe is the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area: the only tribal government with documented continuity, legal standing, and ancestral responsibility for this land. Muwekma are the living successors of the historic, federally recognized Verona Band of Alameda County. They descend from the Indigenous people forced into Misión San José de Guadalupe, Santa Clara de Thámien, and San Francisco de Asís, and today, Muwekma has over 600 enrolled members. They have fought for their sovereignty, defended their sacred sites, and preserved their genealogy and governance through every wave of erasure: missions, courts, colonization, and nonprofits.

    And yet, Muwekma is being erased again; this time, not by settlers, but by activists claiming their identity, collecting land and donations under their name, and silencing them with the language of “solidarity.”

    This isn’t just confusion. This is colonization, rebranded and crowd-funded. It is settler violence in a progressive disguise. It is a lie that has been funded by foundations, platformed by institutions, and repeated by people too afraid–or too lazy–to ask basic questions: Who governs this tribe? Who are its members? Where is the money going? Who was consulted? What elections have been held?

    This is a pattern of identity fraud, land misappropriation, and community displacement, and it has gone on for too long. The time for “raising questions” is over. The answers are here. And this is the record.

    2. The Myth of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan

    The “Confederated Villages of Lisjan” (CVL) did not exist prior to 2018. It has no historical precedent, no documentation in early ethnographic records, no mention in tribal enrollment rosters, no record in legal proceedings, and no lineage-based governance structure. It is not a tribe. It is a name invented by Corrina Gould–retroactively applied to give the appearance of a tribal coalition that never existed.

    The word “Lisjan” itself is poorly understood and inconsistently used. Gould cites a 1920s interview with her ancestor, José Guzmán, who described himself as “Lisjanes”–but this was simply a reference to the place he was from: the Nisenan name for the Pleasanton area. He did not say he was from a “Lisjan Tribe.” He did not describe a confederation of villages. He was a Muwekma ancestor who spoke Spanish—maybe as a third language, after Nisenan and Chochenyo–he did not speak English, and was likely describing location, not identity. And yet, Gould has used this single, mistranslated phrase to build an entire tribal identity.

    Gould publicly presents herself not just as a tribal member, but as a Tribal Chairwoman–a title that holds formal and legal weight in actual tribal governments. But her organization has no tribal enrollment. No constitutional structure. No elections. No council. No ratifying documents. There is no list of what “villages” make up the supposed confederacy. There are no lineages publicly claimed. No other representatives from these villages ever appear at events or claim descent. It is a title without a people. A nonprofit corporation posing as a nation.

    In reality, Gould descends from the very same lineages as enrolled members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area. On December 13, 2005, she requested her genealogy from then Muwekma Chairwoman Rosemary Cambra, and the Tribe’s ethnohistorian, Alan Leventhal, prepared a detailed report that traced her ancestry back to specific pre conquest Ohlone villages. It was only through Muwekma’s documentation and research that she learned she descends from Muwekma ancestors. Instead of enrolling or standing with the Tribe, she took that information and built her own identity-based platform, weaponizing documentation that was shared with her in good faith.

    Her family is not excluded from Muwekma. In fact, her relatives–including her aunt and uncle, and their extended families–have been enrolled Muwekma members since 1995. Gould made a choice not to enroll. And then, she made another choice: to leverage Muwekma’s genealogy, history, and sacred sites to build her own nonprofit brand.

    She presents herself as a Tribal Chairwoman–but she is the chair of a corporation. And she uses that corporation to appear as if she governs a sovereign tribal nation, when in fact, she governs nothing but a grant-seeking nonprofit made up of herself, her daughter, and a cohort of non-Native allies and unaffiliated supporters.

    In its Official Statement, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe identifies the so-called Confederated Villages of Lisjan as pure political fiction designed to enrich Gould, and describes the group as a collection of activists, many of them non Native and unrelated to one another, who share no common tribal enrollment or traditional governance.

    The result is a cheap knock-off of a tribal government, built on the illusion of collective identity and the erasure of the very people whose legacy she claims to protect. Her statements and symbolism are packaged for public consumption. But there is no tribal infrastructure behind it. No cultural authority. No community accountability. It is a performance built on selective ancestry, strategic branding, and the quiet theft of another tribe’s history.

    3. Funded Fabrication and Institutional Complicity

    Since its creation, the Confederated Villages of Lisjan and its sister organization, Sogorea Te Land Trust, have received millions of dollars in grants, donations, and land transfers–funding that was intended to support Indigenous land return, cultural revitalization, and tribal sovereignty.

    But that funding is not going to a tribe. It’s going to a nonprofit corporation with no elections, no enrollment, no federal or state recognition, and no documented governance. The public has been led to believe that Sogorea Te Land Trust is an Ohlone-led effort to rematriate ancestral lands. But in reality, the land is not being returned to a tribe… It’s being handed to an individual–who has no interest in helping her real tribe–and her nonprofit corporation.

    The most egregious example is the West Berkeley Shellmound. In 2023, the City of Berkeley announced that it would transfer the historic site to Sogorea Te Land Trust. In the meeting minutes, the city described the action as “returning the land to the Ohlone people.” But this was a lie. Sogorea Te Land Trust is not an Ohlone tribe or tribally governed entity. The land was not returned to Muwekma–the only federally documented tribe connected to that site. Instead, it was handed to a nonprofit that claims Indigenous identity without legal or cultural accountability.

    This supposed “return” was made possible by more than twenty million dollars in grant funding to Sogorea Te Land Trust from Regan Pritzker’s Kataly Foundation–which the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe explicitly identifies in its Official Statement as a taking of Muwekma land rather than a return of land to the rightful tribal government.

    This confusion is not accidental. Gould has intentionally blurred the line between nonprofit and tribe. She invokes language like “rematriation,” “sovereignty,” and “traditional territory,” while never disclosing that her organization has no formal recognition, no election process, no ratified tribal rolls, and no council oversight. Funders and institutions allow it because it’s easier than doing the work of real consultation.

    Organizations that have partnered with CVL or STLT include:

    These institutions have played a role in fabricating legitimacy. They’ve repeated claims without verification. They’ve entered into land agreements and awarded grants without consulting the federally documented tribal government whose sovereignty they’ve bypassed.

    This is not accidental. This is the institutional funding of a fiction.

    And every time a university, foundation, or nonprofit puts Sogorea Te Land Trust on a panel, signs an MOU, or writes a check, they’re not standing with Ohlone people. They’re standing with a narrative built on erasure–one that excludes the very tribe whose homeland they claim to “rematriate.”

    4. Weaponizing Rhetoric to Avoid Accountability

    Corrina Gould frequently accuses her critics–including enrolled Muwekma members–of “perpetuating colonial violence.” She uses the language of decolonization to shield herself from scrutiny and shut down legitimate questions about her identity, governance, and funding. But this is not decolonial work–it is the strategic misuse of anti-colonial rhetoric to avoid accountability.

    This tactic has proven effective, especially among non-Native supporters who are unfamiliar with the difference between actual tribal sovereignty and self-appointed identity. In Gould’s framing, any critique becomes “lateral violence,” and any push for clarity is “divisive.” As a result, even basic questions–Who are your enrolled members? When do you hold elections? What is your governance structure?–are dismissed as hostile.

    The irony is unavoidable: Gould accuses others of colonial harm while collaborating with the very institutions that enforced settler violence–churches, universities, real estate developers, and city governments. She denounces the legacy of the Catholic mission system while operating out of a church. She claims to speak for Ohlone people while silencing Muwekma, the tribe she descends from.

    The harm here is not theoretical. Every time Gould uses progressive language to shut down real tribal voices, she reinforces the structures of colonization. She replaces truth with optics, community with control, and shared identity with personal branding.

    This isn’t what decolonization looks like. It’s what erasure looks like–draped in the language of justice, funded by people too uncomfortable to ask questions, and defended by institutions more interested in performance than accountability.

    5. A Reckoning Rooted in Research

    This project didn’t begin with opposition. It began in good faith.

    In 2020, I supported Corrina Gould. The City of Alameda was considering renaming Jackson Park to Chochenyo Park, a gesture I backed without hesitation. Gould was present at those discussions. At the time, her narrative seemed compelling. Her cause appeared righteous. Like many people, I wanted to help uplift a story that claimed to center Indigenous land and sovereignty.

    So I began researching, intending to support her work. I looked for historical records, linguistic references, maps–anything that could substantiate and elevate her cause. But what I found instead was something Gould never expected anyone to look for: the truth.

    And that truth pointed, again and again, not to a “Confederated Villages of Lisjan,” but to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area–the living successors of the Verona Band of Alameda County, recognized by the federal government in 1906 and unlawfully removed from recognition in 1927. Every credible source I found–mission records, ethnographic interviews, enrollment documents, BIA files–told the same story: this is Muwekma land, and Muwekma never left.

    It was Muwekma who preserved the genealogy. Muwekma who fought for recognition. Muwekma who kept ceremony alive and language breathing. It was Muwekma who gave Corrina Gould the documents she now uses to claim Indigenous identity–and it is Muwekma she now displaces.

    People are quick to give Corrina Gould credit–for symbolic gestures, shellmound walks, and public speaking. Some even claim she “saved the West Berkeley Shellmound.” She didn’t. The Shellmound was already destroyed. It’s a parking lot. Meanwhile, former Muwekma Chairwoman Rosemary Cambra helped save an actual Ohlone cemetery from destruction during the construction of the 680 freeway in the 1960s. That cemetery was later returned in 1971 to Andrew Galvan via the Ohlone Indian Tribe Inc., through a historic and unprecedented decision by the Catholic Church. “It’s the only piece of Californian mission property returned by the Catholic Church to a group of Indians, that I’m aware of,” said Galvan, curator of Mission Dolores in San Francisco.

    That wasn’t an isolated act. In 1967, Phil Galvan [“Mr. Ohlone”] successfully advocated for the naming of Ohlone College in Fremont–ensuring that a major institution would carry the name of his people and their land. And in 1985, Rosemary Cambra again took direct action–striking an archaeologist with a shovel to stop the desecration of her ancestors’ graves by developers attempting to build a hotel in downtown San José.

    These are real, measurable accomplishments–land protected, history recognized, sovereignty advanced–achieved not through branding or ceremony, but through resistance, strategy, and leadership.

    Photo courtesy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area
    Photo courtesy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area
    Photo courtesy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area
    Photo courtesy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area
    Photo courtesy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area
    Photo courtesy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area

    In 2024, Muwekma embarked on the Trail of Truth, a 90-day cross-country journey from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., to demand federal recognition and justice for unrecognized tribes. Along the way, they were joined by members of over 30 other tribes, fostering national intertribal relations. Upon arrival in D.C., they faced violent responses from law enforcement, including arrests and physical confrontations, as they attempted to bring their message to the nation’s leaders. Despite these challenges, Muwekma’s commitment to sovereignty and recognition remained unwavering.

    Meanwhile, Corrina Gould–while formerly associated with service delivery at the American Indian Child Resource Center–has used her platform through Indigenous People Organized for Change and especially through Sogorea Te Land Trust to build what is, at its core, a personal fundraising machine, not a tribal government. And she built it at the expense of real Muwekma–and in the Chochenyo context, Muwekma means “the people” [“la gente“.] She has rebranded the people as herself, and turned their collective legacy into her private gain.

    Her base of support is not grounded in local tribal governance. It comes largely from non-Native institutions, funders, and Native individuals with no ancestral ties to this land. Meanwhile, the real Ohlone Tribe is pushed aside in favor of symbolic leadership that offers visibility, but not accountability.

    Once faced with the facts, I had to admit that I was wrong. I had been led by a compelling story–but the truth was stronger. So I did what solidarity demands: I apologized, publicly withdrew my support for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, and committed to telling the truth.

    Because protecting Indigenous sovereignty sometimes means telling hard truths–and refusing to participate in feel-good illusions.

    6. The Harm Is Real (And Measurable)

    This isn’t just a difference in opinion. It isn’t a clash of personalities. And it certainly isn’t a harmless misunderstanding.

    When institutions platform Corrina Gould as a tribal leader, or treat the Confederated Villages of Lisjan as a legitimate tribal government, they are doing more than making a mistake–they are actively undermining the sovereignty of the real Ohlone Tribe. They are diverting resources, land, funding, and political capital away from Muwekma, and into the hands of a private organization with no legal standing, no elections, and no tribal citizenry.

    This harm isn’t abstract. It’s measurable.

    • Millions of dollars in philanthropic and public funding intended for Indigenous land return and cultural revitalization have gone to a nonprofit corporation with no recognized tribal status.
    • Sacred land–like the site of the West Berkeley Shellmound–has been transferred to Sogorea Te Land Trust, a non-tribal organization, under the false pretense that it represents “the Ohlone people.”
    • Shuumi Land Tax–individuals and institutions are encouraged to believe they are contributing directly to “the Ohlone people,” yet the money flows to Sogorea Te Land Trust rather than to the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, which further entrenches a fictional framework and diverts resources away from the only tribal government tied to this land.
    • Public institutions, including cities and universities, have entered into consultation relationships with Gould and her affiliates, bypassing Muwekma entirely–despite Muwekma’s documented federal recognition and direct ancestral connection to the land in question.
    • Land acknowledgments, educational materials, and grant applications are being written and approved using a fictional framework, misleading the public and distorting the historical record.
    • Nonprofits and state agencies increasingly treat Sogorea Te Land Trust as the default Ohlone contact, creating a monopoly of voice that drowns out the actual tribe’s legal claims and cultural continuity.

    These are not harmless errors. They are a form of structural erasure–the exact kind that has plagued Native nations for generations. When land meant for Indigenous people is given to a nonprofit posing as a tribe, that is not reparation. That is dispossession in progressive packaging.

    This is particularly dangerous because the harm is disguised as justice. The very people who claim to be “decolonizing” are recoding colonization into a new language of rematriation, visibility, and inclusion–but behind the optics, the effect is the same: the real tribe is left out. The real tribe is defunded. The real tribe is made invisible.

    And let’s be clear: the people being erased are not theoretical. Muwekma has over 600 enrolled members. They are the living successors of the Verona Band. They have filed lawsuits, preserved records, won recognition, buried their dead, held their ceremonies, and never left their land.

    But when outsiders accept Gould’s narrative at face value–when they hand over land and money without due diligence–they don’t just cause confusion. They help erase those 600+ people from the public record and from the future of their own homeland.

    This harm is worsened by the fact that many of Gould’s supporters are not Ohlone, not from this territory, and in many cases, not even Native. Her occupation of Sogorea Te (Glen Cove Park in Vallejo) was carried out over the objections of local Wintu and Patwin tribal leaders, who viewed her presence as invasive and inappropriate–and who were already in the middle of negotiations with the city. Once again, her support came not from the tribes whose land she claimed to defend, but from outsiders–many of whom lacked the cultural or historical context to recognize the damage being done.

    This isn’t pan-Indigenous solidarity. This is outsider-enabled erasure masquerading as justice.

    And if you’ve ever promoted Corrina Gould as a tribal leader…
    If you’ve ever funded Sogorea Te Land Trust believing it was an Ohlone-run tribal entity…
    If you’ve ever written a land acknowledgment, curriculum, or policy that names CVL without verifying its legitimacy…

    Then you’ve been part of this harm.

    You didn’t just uplift the wrong narrative.
    You helped erase a federally documented tribe.
    You helped redirect land, funding, and power away from 600 living descendants of the Verona Band–and handed it to a nonprofit that exists because Muwekma gave one woman access to her genealogy.

    This isn’t theoretical. This is real.
    Real people. Real land. Real erasure.

    You didn’t decolonize anything.
    You just changed the branding.

    7. This Is Muwekma Land

    Photo courtesy of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Let’s be clear: this is the unceded ancestral homeland of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area.

    The East Bay–including the very places where Corrina Gould operates, where cities write “rematriation” into land agreements, and where nonprofit funders congratulate themselves on “land return”–sits squarely within the ethnohistoric territory of the Chochenyo- and Thámien-speaking Ohlone tribal groups and intermarried Muwekma Ohlone and Bay Miwok ancestors. These were not abstract “villages.” They were governed communities with kinship ties, linguistic identity, and ceremonial responsibilities. Their descendants are now enrolled in the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe.

    These people were forced into Misión San José de Guadalupe, Misión Santa Clara de Thámien, and Misión San Francisco de Asís. Their names and records exist in the mission rolls, in the ethnographic interviews, in the early court filings, and in the federal Indian rolls. Their presence on this land was never erased–only ignored.

    Muwekma didn’t vanish. Muwekma was excluded–deliberately and illegally. And they never stopped fighting to be seen.

    They are not a nonprofit. They are not a brand.
    They are not “one of many Ohlone groups.”
    They are the documented, federally acknowledged, and unlawfully derecognized successors of the Verona Band of Alameda County–and the only Ohlone tribal government with a continuous ancestral, cultural, and political presence in this region.

    They are the tribe that:

    • Has maintained ceremonial stewardship of sacred sites and burials.
    • Has documented every ancestral line with forensic-level precision.
    • Has filed for federal restoration and fought institutional exclusion for over a century.
    • Has survived the missions, the ranchos, the Gold Rush, the boarding schools, and the bureaucracies–and is still here.

    To pretend that this land is “returned” by handing it to a nonprofit corporation with no governing authority, no intertribal legitimacy, and no community accountability is not just inaccurate–it is a continuation of colonization.

    It is the institutional funding and support of settler colonial violence–the same erasure, dispossession, and genocide that removed tribes from their land in the first place, now rebranded as “rematriation” for white comfort.

    The land hasn’t been returned until it’s returned to the people it was taken from.

    This is not “Lisjan territory.”
    This is not “rematriated space.”
    This is Muwekma land.

    8. To Stand With Ohlone People Is to Stand With Muwekma

    By now, the facts are clear:

    • The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area is the only tribal government with documented continuity, legal standing, and ancestral responsibility for this land.
    • Their aboriginal homeland includes what is now known as San Francisco, San Mateo, most of Santa Clara, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties, as well as portions of Napa, Santa Cruz, Solano, and San Joaquin Counties.
    • The present-day Muwekma Ohlone Tribe consists of the descendants of the Indigenous people who were forced into Misión San José de Guadalupe, Santa Clara de Thámien, and San Francisco de Asís.
    • Cities like Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany, El Cerrito, Richmond, Fremont, Hayward, Niles, and Pleasanton sit squarely within this territory.

    Still, some people will ask, “Why are you criticizing other Indigenous-led groups?”

    Here’s the answer:

    “Representation isn’t just about who shows up — it’s about how they show up.
    When groups claim Indigenous identity without tribal recognition, without elections, and without consulting other Native peoples, it’s not real representation.
    Holding people accountable protects Indigenous identity — it doesn’t attack it.”

    Others will say, “Aren’t you worried this undermines solidarity?”

    Not if you understand what real solidarity is:

    “Solidarity built on misinformation is a weak foundation.
    Real solidarity requires honesty — even when it’s uncomfortable.
    Protecting Indigenous sovereignty sometimes means telling hard truths, not participating in feel-good illusions.”

    And if you’re asking, “Well, what should I do instead?”

    Start here:
    “Support federally recognized and state-recognized tribes, or groups with real historic documentation and transparent leadership.
    Always ask: Who benefits? Who was consulted? Where is the money going?
    Good intentions matter — but real relationships and accountability matter more.”

    If you are an educator, funder, or ally who needs structured help doing this work without repeating these harms, I also teach an online series called Nations vs Nonprofits: How Well-Meaning Allies Can Tell the Difference. It walks through due diligence, red flags, and concrete steps for shifting support toward real Tribal Nations instead of corporate nonprofits posing as them. You can RSVP for the next session here.

    Let’s stay focused on the facts.
    It’s not about personal feelings — it’s about who has the rightful voice, and who’s building legitimacy at the expense of Indigenous communities.

    If you’ve platformed Corrina Gould or the Confederated Villages of Lisjan without doing your homework, then yes–you’ve been misled. Now that you know Sogorea Te Land Trust is not an Ohlone tribe or organization, it’s on you to stop giving them money and land. Because at this point, you’re not helping–you’re enabling the lie. You’re disrespecting the real Ohlone Tribe and their 600+ enrolled members, and you’re disrespecting their ancestors’ living legacy.

    Non-Native people created this problem, and then doubled down and made it worse. So it’s on them to fix it–by demanding accountability. Find out where your money is going. Ask who’s being left out. Demand that Sogorea Te Land Trust include the rightful Ohlone tribe of the East Bay: the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area.

    If non-Native people are really about all this land defender and water protector, rematriation, land back rhetoric they love to post about–
    Then they’ll fight just as hard for a real tribe
    As they fight for a fucking parking lot.

    “Indigenous sovereignty isn’t a brand.
    It’s a responsibility to the ancestors and a duty to future generations.
    I’m here to protect that — without apology.”

    Sources

    Primary Sources from Muwekma Ohlone Tribe

    Official Statement

    • Public Statement on Corina Gould, the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, and Sogorea Te Land Trust
      Received directly from the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area (May 1, 2025)

    News & Archival Sources

    Academic Reports & Federal Records

    • Ohlone/Costanoan Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and Their Neighbors, Yesterday and Today (2009)
      Randall Milliken, Laurence H. Shoup, Beverly R. Ortiz – for the National Park Service
      PDF Link
    • A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769–1810 (1995)
      Randall Milliken – Ballena Press Anthropological Papers No. 43
      Publisher Link
    • J.P. Harrington Chochenyo Field Notes and Vocabulary (1921)
      Smithsonian Institution – National Anthropological Archives, Collection of John Peabody Harrington
    • Ancient and Modern Genomics of the Ohlone Indigenous Population of California (2022)
      Severson, Ramstetter, Kennett, et al. – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
      PDF Link

    Alameda Native History Project Articles

  • Save Shellmounds (Not Parking Lots)

    Shellmounds are ancient structures created by thousands of years of indigenous occupation.

    Shellmounds are cemeteries, or mortuary complexes. The final resting places of the first people to live in this place we call the San Francisco Bay Area.

    There were once over 425 shellmounds in the San Francisco Bay Area alone. In fact, there were many more shellmounds than that.

    If you look closely at the distribution of shellmounds in Marin and Sonoma Counties, and apply that density to the rest of the Bay Area, you will very easily top 600 shellmounds.

    Despite the fact that shellmounds are cemeteries, hundreds were still destroyed all around the Bay Area.

    And–to make matters unimaginably worse–the bodies inside were ground up, and used as overspread to level out train tracks, and build massive infrastructure (like the Angel Island Immigration complex.)

    “How was this possible?” (You may ask yourself.)

    Wouldn’t someone be able to tell there were bodies inside of these mounds?

    Yes. People could tell there were bodies in the mounds.

    Even though some news stories feature witnesses who described bones disintegrating, or “turning to dust” as soon as they were handled…. People are still finding skeletons in places like Alameda, California, whenever they dig somewhere for the first time in a hundred years–which isn’t hard to do when many houses in Alameda are 100 years old.

    In spite of the desecration, and destruction visited on hundreds of shellmounds here in the San Francisco Bay Area, many still survive. And a surprising amount shellmounds survive intact.

    The most well known, “intact” shellmounds in the Bay Area reside in the Coyote Hills Regional Park. They are known as the “Ryan” and “Patterson” Mounds.

    They join a long list of shellmounds which have been reported upon and studied over the past 100 years or more.

    This list includes (but is not limited to):

    • Ellis Landing (Contra Costa)
    • Emeryville (Alameda)
    • West Berkeley (Alameda)
    • San Bruno Mound (San Mateo)
    • Miller Mound (Colusa)
    • Alameda Shellmound (Alameda)
    • Ryan Mound, and Patterson Mound (Alameda)
    • Burton Mound (Santa Barbara)
    • Herzog Mound (Sacramento)

    … Just to name a few.

    Excerpts of Illustrations from “Shell midden” surveys in SoCal showing shellmounds in situ:

    Many of the ancestors and artifacts exhumed and stolen from these mounds reside in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, on the University of California, Berkeley Campus.

    These objects and human remains were taken during a period of “salvage archaeology“. Which was a period of intense extractive and exploitive research into Native American Language, Arts, Culture and Religion under the premise that the “Aboriginal Indians of North America” would soon become “extinct”.

    Obviously, much of this work was made easier by the dispossession, missionization, forced internment (on reservations), and annihilation, that Indigenous People endured since First Contact with Europeans.

    Just as Indigenx, Native American, First Nation and all First People of this place survived colonization: so did their shellmounds.

    It’s up to us to break the cycle of destruction. The cycle of purposely disconnecting people from the places they come from. And then destroying those places (literally) for no other reason than the speculative amount of value or resources the land is worth.

    One of the ways we can put the earth back into balance is by letting those who are from this earth gain access to their ancestors; and traditional places (like hunting camps) and resources (like a river) which provide a tribal cultural benefit.

    Traditional tribal hunting grounds provide a tribal cultural benefit as source of traditional sustenance…. A river (or certain parts of it) where fish are caught, or plants or other things are gathered, is a natural resource which provides a tribal cultural benefit.

    There is an air gap between the idea of land stewardship as a Native American landscaping service; and land stewardship through traditional cultural practices which have shaped much of the natural ecosystems of the Bay Area for over 10,000 years.

    Render of a shellmound on the shore of the Carquinez Strait.

    The mounds which still exist are not flat; have not been dug out; and are certainly not parking lots, transit stations, or shopping malls.

    Parking lots are not “undeveloped” space.

    Parking lots are not “open space”.

    Parking lots have been levelled, packed, and paved.

    …Just because parking lots are flat does not mean the land “isn’t developed”.

    You need to know this:

    When we talk about saving sacred sites. We’re talking about real sacred sites. Places which have been spared from development, either by ignorance, or by luck.

    Render of a shellmound across the bay from San Francisco. Possibly in Albany, or El Cerrito.

    Shellmounds are a part of the natural environment.

    Shellmounds support the ecosystems they reside in.

    Shellmounds are not parking lots!

    Aside from the spiritual impact of shellmounds to their surrounding areas: shellmounds today provide habitat for plants and wildlife where that habitat is endangered–and, under constant threat of development.

    You can help protect sacred land by protecting the environment around it.

    You can help protect sacred land by advocating for its conservation, and return to the San Francisco Bay Area Ohlone Tribe: the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe.

    While support for land trusts,
    and ideas like “rematriation” are wonderful….

    Fundraising campaigns like “Shuumi Land Tax” take away from the real causes of Ohlone Tribal Recognition, Ohlone Tribal Sovereignty, and Ohlone Ancestral Land Back.

    Ohlone people deserve respect and deference. When you give your land acknowledgment or money, do your research first. Don’t confuse non-profit corporations with actual tribes.

    *The Shellmounds section of this website has more links to information.

  • What about the East Bay Ohlone of Oakland, Emeryville, Alameda?

    Someone recently responded to the article “Who are the Lisjan Ohlone? What does Chochenyo mean?” with some questions of their own.

    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, CA
    Alameda, CA
    Albany, 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.

    The truth is: Corrina Gould appointed herself as a “chairwoman”; she doesn’t represent Ohlone people beyond herself and her immediately family.

    The Muwekma Tribe has hundreds of members.

    Coyote Hills Regional Park
    Muwekma Group Picture 001
    Muwekma Group Picture 003
    Why Federal Recognition is Important
    Muwekma 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.

    Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area

    If you take away anything from this, it should be that:

    You need to know the difference between Tribe, and a corporation run by a convicted fraud whose main activities consist of fundraising for her own personal benefit, and that of her immediate family.

    In truth, Shuumi does not help Ohlone people.

    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.

    But it’s a mistake I want you to avoid, too.

    This isn’t some nebulous grey zone. There are peer-reviewed articles and genetic studies establishing these facts. All you need to do is look at Muwekma’s petition to the BIA to learn way more than you ever needed to know about this subject.

    You should do your own research, and educate others.

    This confusion and misinformation is detrimental to the sovereignty of real, bona fide tribes.

    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.

  • SF Bay Area Shellmounds Are Some of the Most Endangered Cultural Resources in the World

    Save Shellmounds Not Parking Lots campaign image of archaeologists sifting through soil in a cemetery. Title reads: “You wouldn’t let them dig up your grandma. Why would you let them dig up ours?”

    The San Francisco Bay Area had well over 425 shellmounds.

    Gabriel Duncan, from the Alameda Native History Project, estimates the true number of shellmounds around the S.F. Bay Area’s shoreline is closer to seven or eight-hundred shellmounds, which existed before European invasion and colonization.

    Shellmounds are ancient burial grounds used by the First People of the San Francisco Bay Area for over 10,000 years. Shellmounds form ancient mortuary complexes created by Ohlone, Miwok, and Karkin people. Shellmounds were not village sites; but they were places where ceremonies dedicated to indigenous ancestors were performed; and large seasonal gatherings were held nearby to celebrate the unity, harmony, and balance indigenous people share with the earth, each other, our ancestors, and all creation.

    Grave robbing by universities and treasure hunters; as well as desecration by railroad companies, oil refineries, and quarry operators, has made the remaining San Francisco Bay Area Shellmounds one of the most endangered cultural resources in the world.

    One of the chief defilers of shellmounds are quarry companies. These companies are still operating today, at places like the San Rafael Rock Quarry–which is home to no less than five shellmounds; and Dutra Materials Quarry, in Richmond, California–an area dotted with the highest concentration of shellmounds in the East Bay.

    But not much is being said about the historical and ongoing desecration and defiling of indigenous bodies to build the infrastructure and institutions all around us.

    This is surprising, considering the amount of time, effort, and fundraising which has gone into “preserving” a parking lot in West Berkeley, and protesting a thriving and established shopping mall in Emeryville, California.

    While other cities and corporations used shellmounds to level their train tracks, and pack for roadways: the Angel Island Immigration Station is one of the best surviving answers to the question of “What Happened to the Shellmounds?”

    Angel Island was home to about four shellmounds. All of which were quarried and used as a base for the concrete to construct the immigration buildings now standing as Angel Island State Park. However, there is no mention of this fact in the park brochure, or uttered by any tour guide on the island.

    The historical and continuing desecration goes unspoken, and right before our very eyes; all over the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Instead of directly addressing and challenging the corporations and cities responsible for the desecration of Ohlone, Miwok, and Karkin burial grounds, and sacred sites: advocates and allies are being fooled into believing these parking lots (in West Berkeley), and post-industrial waste sites (in East Oakland) are the priority for the fight against desecration of indigenous land. This is not true.

    “Saving” parking lots is not an indigenous priority over stopping the desecration of indigenous sacred sites today.

    Optic-driven, PR events, like urban gardens, and cultural easements to use our own land for free, do not address the fact that shellmounds are being quarried into extinction. That these ancient structures are being erased by shoreline development, and urbanization of the San Francisco Bay Area waterfront.

    This situation will not change; the desecration will not stop, until our supporters and allies start to critically assess the information being given to them by non-profit corporations trying to fundraise for their money, and compare that with information provided by scholars, experts, and bona fide tribes like the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Save shellmounds. Not parking lots.

  • The Alameda Shellmounds Map: The First Alamedans

    Created using derivatives of open-source data, including (but not limited to) USGS, NOAA, USCG, NASA, Google Earth. Analyzed, processed, and produced by the Alameda Native History Project, using open-source software available to anyone with a smart phone, and the most basic computer.

    Why did the Alameda Native History Project create these maps?

    Necessity

    The first map created by the Alameda Native History Project was the geographicaly-conformed (or “geo-conformed”) version of N.C. Nelson’s historic 1909 Map of the San Francisco Bay Region Showing Distribution of Shell Heaps. This 20th Century version of Nelson’s map was painstakingly converted, and conformed, to 21st century Geographic Coordinate Systems.

    Geo-conforming Nelson’s map made it possible to accurately plot the coordinates marked on Nelson’s map; and perform Present Day Observations of the Bay Area Shellmounds.

    The San Francisco Bay Area Shellmound Map now has over 300 confirmed locations. The accuracy of this map has improved considerably over time; and the research version is now accurate to within 100 feet.

    This was because maps like those featured by the Stanford University’s Spatial History Lab were little more than photocopies of the original coastal surveys, with graphic overlays.

    While this might be impressive to some, the lack of any real functionality or new information derived from this kind of exercise was underscored when I tried to find/use this information in the context of the Shellmounds of Alameda.

    Stanford University, Spatial History Project
    1909 N.C. Nelson Map of the San Francisco Bay Region Showing Distribution of Shellheaps

    This made it necessary to recreate a map of the historic shoreline of the San Francisco Bay Region, and hand-plot more than 300 shellmounds, just so I could view these maps and take screenshots of them to share with you. All in an effort to show you where the Shellmounds of Alameda are.

    Clarity

    Reproduction of Whitcher’s Survey.

    The same geo-conformance process was applied to an historic map of Alameda, which has become the Alameda Museum’s sole reference concerning the shellmounds of Alameda: Imelda Merlin’s “Alameda: A Geographical History”. This book is a Geology Master’s Thesis, by Imelda Merlin, who lived and died in Alameda, California.

    The fact that Merlin was an Alameda resident; and that Alameda Museum owns the copyright to the book should be immaterial to the generally dubious nature of a photo-copied map, with hand-drawn notations.

    In spite of the fact that Imelda Merlin was a student at the University of California, Berkeley, it appears that the most relevant information created by N.C. Nelson–for the archaeology department of the same university–was avoided altogether by Imelda Merlin in her work.

    For the aforementioned reasons, it was determined that Imelda Merlin’s work merited careful scrutiny and interrogation.

    Because, at this point, I already had two other sources of location information compiled for the Alameda Native History Project:

    1. Public Records Aggregate

    Any mention of Alameda Shellmounds in the following archives/libraries/collections:

    • All references to the Alameda Shellmounds at the Alameda Free Library:
      • this includes references in the Historic Alameda Newspaper Archives, and the “Alameda Historic Reels”;
      • as well as Clipping Files, Alameda Historical Society Card Catalog [Defunct];
      • Library Catalog, and Special Collections.
    • Online Newspaper Archives, Indexes
    • Online Finding Aids
    • Genealogy Websites, National Archive, and More.

    References were logged, and copies of the documents were saved. Then the documents were analyzed, information was extracted, and processed to produce an aggregated list of locations of the Alameda Shellmounds–according to explicit references in these sources.

    Then the locations were geocoded, and plotted to create a map that … I don’t even know what to call. “Shellmounds Mentioned in the News”? “Historic Shellmounds”?

    “Public Records” is not a very attractive label; but it might be the best label for that layer on the Alameda Shellmounds Map. [So, in case you ask “What is the Public Records Layer on the Alameda Shellmounds Map”, now you know.]

    2. Nelson’s Map of the SF Bay Region Shellmounds

    Like I said, this was the first map I painstakingly recreated. So, therefore, I had the locations Nelson marked within Alameda.

    When I analyzed the base map printed in Imelda Merlin’s book, I was able to use these sources to help conform Merlin’s base map with current Geographical Coordinate Systems, so I could plot the positions marked in the Imelda Merlin layer in the Alameda Shellmounds Map.

    I used innumerable copies of maps, surveys, photographs, and other visual representations of Alameda, from 1880 to 1910 to help conform the “Whitcher Survey” referenced in Merlin’s Map. I was never able to find a true copy of the “Whitcher Survey”. The survey is not at City Hall–as Merlin’s book states–or in the Alameda Free Library. The Museum did not have it, at last check.

    I also looked to see if any map copy provided by the official website of a University, or Government Institution, or the publisher itself, or a credible archive, actually included similar shellmound positions during the time Merlin’s map was created.

    TL;DR: they do not. Not even the Land Grant Case Maps, or the legit Combined, Drafted, or Official Coastal Surveys of that time, have even a hint of a shellmound anywhere. (I even tried to find a copy of the coastal survey used in a well-known documentary about the Shellmounds of West Berkeley, but was unable to track down the file before publication.)

    However, even though Merlin’s map diverges from the Official Historical Record, she did capture something in her hand-drawn sketch: all of the dots on her map correspond to places where Ohlone graves have been found.

    In spite of the fact Merlin calls the First Alamedans “Miwok”–instead of Ohlone. In spite of the fact that Merlin doesn’t even mention the map in the actual narrative (or “text”) of her book. In spite of the fact that the map was published in her thesis (which was then published a few years later, in a book) without any references, or citations–aside from the coast survey base map.

    Somehow, she manages to highlight the same places I have located using mentions of Ohlone graves and Native American remains found in historic Alameda newspapers. Many of these discoveries happened decades after the publication of Merlin’s work. …Which could indicate that these discoveries are coincidences, rather than correlations.

    It makes sense that the discovery of human remains would be carefully guarded; only mentioned in whispers between Alameda insiders, and related professionals. Certainly, the newspaper would be encourage to leave anything like that out. … At least until the houses were sold.

    It’s not hard to have editorial control when real estate companies were the primary revenue sources for local Alameda newspapers. Furthermore, the Redline wars in Alameda were brewing long before residents voted to approve Measure A, in 1973.

    In a “closed”, racist, housing economy, where BIPOC are excluded, and declining property values could be caused by even a whisper of non-white interest in a neighborhood: the prevalence of bones underfoot could undermine the appeal of an entire city.
    Historic Redline Map showing Oakland, Berkeley, and Alameda

    Alameda was probably a place where the surrounding Indigenous communities would come to bury their dead.

    When you take into account historic newspaper articles like the one below (from 1893;) and the preponderance of subsequent articles concerning Native American Graves and Remains found, and then plot those locations into their own map, you get a layer of “Remains & Relics Found”.

    While it is the Euro-Centric imperative to determine a single point; and explicit boundaries: the size and nature of the shellmounds was as much a mystery to these colonizers as it is to us today. For different reasons though.

    Early anthropologists, archaeologists, and ethnologists lacked the imagination necessary to make the logical leaps necessary to recognize the purposefully obscure nature of our infrastructure, or decode the metaphors we left in notes and drawings for our friends.

    Because of this, and because white people destroyed as much of our stuff that they possibly could (on purpose [I don’t know why]), we are now–in many cases–left with the remnants of remnants.

    Because the records concerning these events, and the mere existence of the massive burial grounds under the City of Alameda, and the cities of the rest of the San Francisco Bay Region have been actively concealed, and suppressed, this story has remained untold.

    “Alameda’s Indian Mounds“, published in The San Francisco Examiner, on Sunday, March 26, 1893:

    “When the progressive Alamedan decides to build a home of his own on a section of the encinal that have been allotted to him by his favorite real estate dealer…

    “He does not order work suspended when the excavators, who have undertaken the task of building his prospective basement, run across a well preserved skeleton or turn up a hideous looking skull.

    “He has become used to such things and he knows…

    “in all Alameda there is scarcely a square yard of ground that does not harbor the crumbling remains…”

    The pieces of the puzzle can still be found.

    And so, Nelson’s Map, Merlin’s Map, and the Public Records map were offered as three separate layers of the Alameda Shellmounds Map; so that you may also discover and analyze the similarities and differences between the locations, yourself.

    The other layers mentioned, such as “Remains & Relics Found”, and more are also available to view using the layers panel of the Alameda Shellmounds Map.

    As our records continue to grow, and new information found, the map and this site continue to grow as well.

    Aesthetic &
    Availability

    Let’s face it: no one wants to look at nth generation copies of copies.

    I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of trying to squint, and adjust brightness, contrast, and gamma until I can barely almost read the most important part of this chapter….

    I want to look at a webmap of the San Francisco Bay Area Shellmounds. I need my experiences to be more interactive, and offer more than an empty citation to a book I can’t even find anymore. I want to see a scan of the book. And read the citation myself.

    But even that’s not enough. I find myself getting triggered by the language of these old, dead, white men that I just want to fight.

    Most of these narratives are written from an all-white perspective, often using racial slurs, and offensive descriptions. For the past 74 years, the Alameda Museum has furthered the “gentle savage” myth that permeated Victorian Era culture in America. And continues to push the idea that Ohlone people just disappeared from Alameda, and the Bay Area, entirely.

    It’s been the same narrative since “time immemorial”. (Even that phrase is from a white-washed narrative meant to pander to a White Gaze that isn’t even a majority anymore.)

    California History, when it comes to Indigenous People, is broad, at best. Very little space or effort is given to properly naming, or describing Native Americans, how they looked, where they lived, what they ate….

    Most textbooks will even allude to American Indian relationships with White People as something symbiotic; and leave this chapter of history conveniently blank, to make room for the concept of Manifest Destiny.

    The history that we are being taught has specifically avoided the policy of indigenous extermination enacted by a California Governor in the late 1800’s; California’s military support of Indian Wars in Oregon in the early 1900’s; or, how Los Angeles stole water rights from Tribal Nations in the Central Valley and has helped to destabilize the California ecosystem, with devastating effects.

    We are not taught about this.

    We have instead been dazzled by trains, bridges, and pretty houses with gardens, like babies with a ring of keys.

    California is the most diverse state in terms of Tribal Nations, with over 300 Indigenous Languages Spoken in California, alone. We are astronomers, conservationists, artists, engineers, doctors, and so much more. Our stories and contributions matter.

    Ohlone people still live in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area could use your help in fighting for federal recognition.

    The Native American, Indigenous People that you speak of like they went extinct in the 1800’s; those people are my great-grandparents.

    The first step in justice for Indigenous Californians is recognizing us.

    This is why it’s important to update the aesthetic of Historical Curation, and Exhibition Design, to utilize the tools we have in the 21st Century to reach learners everywhere, using the interactive multimedia methods they use and engage everyday.

    Alameda Shellmounds Map

    San Francisco Bay Area Shellmounds Map

  • Bay Area Shellmound Map

    Alameda Native History Project’s map of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Area is available now.

    This map is based on N.C. Nelson’s “Map of the San Francisco Bay Region Showing Distribution of Shellheaps”, which was published in 1909. This map, represents the first-hand observations of shellmounds during N.C. Nelson’s survey of the San Francisco Bay Area. taken between 1907-1908.

    Excerpt of map, emphasis on map legend, showing “Present”, “Partial”, and “Destroyed” shellmounds. These symbols are more prevalent in the North Bay.

    Each marker on the SF Bay Area Shellmound Map represents a shellmound which Nelson marked as “present”. These mounds appear as solid dots in his map. Nelson also noted mounds which were partially present, as well as shellmounds he was told used to exist in the past.

    It’s important to note that–in Nelson’s paper, “Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Region”, and similarly in many other publications of the time–archaeologists were engaged in what they considered “Salvage Archaeology“.

    During the time that these scientists were ignoring the California Genocide, and Indian Wars, archaeologist, anthropologists, linguists, and ethnologists all decided that Native Americans were extinct; and that graves and other Native American Cultural Resources should effectively be raided, before they were destroyed by the encroaching colonizers, or gluttony of their civilization.

    Notable shellmounds, like the Emeryville Shellmounds, Alameda Shellmounds (near Mound Street), and the Drake’s Bay Shellmounds were being studied during their destruction.

    Schenck wrote the “final” report on the Emeryville Shellmound. These are two pictures from that paper.

    The Bay Area had over 425 shellmounds. Though many of them were already gone by the time Nelson conducted his survey of the SF Bay Area.

    The Alameda Native History Project’s “Map of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Region” features 315 shellmounds, and unparalleled specificity within 100 feet.

    This map is offered to the public in an effort to:

    • Educate the public about the prevalence of shellmounds in the San Francisco Bay Area;
    • Present “Native Land”, and “Indigenous Land” as something tangible, and literally all around us;
    • Help illustrate colonization’s impact on Indigenous Landscapes, and Native American Cultural Resources, such as Sacred Sites, and Shellmounds–which are actually cemeteries;

    Most of all, this map is made available to provide actionable information which the public can use to help “Save the Shellmounds”, and advocate for Sacred Lands which have been shrouded in secrecy since the passage of NAGPRA.

    The Native American Graves Protection Repatriation Act was supposed to help protect land, by providing a Notification and Consultation process to Tribal Nations.

    But the law effectively prevents the public from being told about the true scope, nature, and importance of Tribal Cultural Resources.

    NAGPRA also allows development to continue under any circumstances, as long as a mitigation plan is presented and approved, according to the CEQA process.

    However, when one actually reads the CEQA filings related to projects on Sacred Lands, you can’t help but notice the majority of these projects are approved without any input from Tribal Nations, at all.

    Because there is no legal avenue for protecting land if you are not the Most Likely Descendant, as determined by the California Native American Heritage Commission….

    And, because the public is barred from learning about the Nature, Scope, Location, Use, or any other information regarding Tribal Cultural Sites, Items, Graves, etc. it is virtually impossible for the public to advocate for the conservation, and preservation of Sacred Lands. Much less learn why these sacred sites are important, and should be preserved.

    The blackout on this information also affects the ability of cities to participate in goodwill building, like re-zoning areas for open space to be returned to Tribes; or educating their citizens about the first inhabitants of this area, and the importance of preserving these heritage sites.

    The Map of the Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Region is just one tool in the Land Back Toolbox.

    [mapsmarker map=”47″]

    Full-screen Map of the SHellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Region

  • What Does “Save Shellmounds, Not Parking Lots” Even Mean?

    It’s not just a salty catch-phrase. It’s a plea for reason, and a plan to move forward in realizing the protection and return of sacred Native American sites in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    The only way to protect sacred sites, like Shellmounds, and Petroglyphs, is by actively protecting them.

    This means:

    • Recognizing the difference between corporations who claim to be tribal governments, and actual Tribal Governments.
    • Empowering Tribal Law Enforcement with the Authority to Arrest and Prosecute Non-Indians Within Their Sovereign Borders
    • Adding Sacred Sites not protected by Tribal Law Enforcement to the “Beat” of the Law Enforcement branches of the Bureau of Land Management, USDA Dept. of Forestry, Cal. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, etc.
    • Utilizing modern surveillance technology to serve as witness to crimes like vandalism, theft, and dumping.

    By concealing these heritage sites, we begin to make them taboo. They become places we don’t go to anymore. Places that we could lose our connection to, ironically, because we wanted to protect them.

    (more…)

  • Independent Alameda Native History Project Develops First 3D Shellmound Model

    Local Native American-led Research Project Aims to Educate Public, Advocate for Shellmounds

    Click here to skip the article and download the Alameda Native History Project Shellmound Model, made by Gabriel Duncan.

    For the first time ever, an entirely independent research project, led by a Native American descendant, has produced a tangible representation of pre-contact Native American Spirituality and Engineering.

    Shellmounds, up until now, have largely only been talked about as a theoretical object, which “used to exist.” And shellmounds have been used as a tool to gain funding, and political influence.

    As a descendant of California Native Americans, adopted out of my tribe at birth, raised by white people, and growing up in a place like Alameda–which is a “good ole boy” town, and known for it’s white racist, residents, and it’s over-policing of people of color….

    As all of that…

    I needed more than these pretty words and vagaries.

    More than a rock in the middle of Lincoln Park, in Alameda, Commemorating the Ohlone Shellmound the City of Alameda dug up and used to pave Bay Farm Road.

    When public figures speak about shellmounds, they are referred to in terms of what shellmounds symbolize.

    We’re given a rosy, idealized, wash of what life was like in the San Francisco Bay Area before the Spaniards and “White People” came.

    It’s very light on details, but gives us just enough to sort of “dream” of what life was like.

    This is all well and good if you’re not that interested.

    If all you wanted was a simple answer to the question of,

    “What happened to those shellmounds in Emeryville and Alameda?“
    “Where was the shellmound in West Berkeley?“

    But some people want to know what it looked like, really. In the sense of being able to know where things were. Being able to see what kind of plants were growing at that time (some plants and animals have gone extinct in the intervening 300 or so years.)

    Some people would like to see the same attention devoted to Native American History, Research, Preservation, Conservation, and Education that has been devoted to:
    Bodie State Historic Park
    Bodie, California
    • Old Mining Towns
    • Victorian Houses
    • Military Forts and Installations
    • Warships
    • Mount Rushmore
    • Stone Mountain
    • Arlington National Cemetery
    • Foreign Archeology & Anthropology

    We’re entering an era of what could be considered “Salvage Archiving“, or something of the sort.

    Where an impetus should be placed on saving those withered, orphaned pages, plastered to the back of shelves, and in the dark grimy corners of filing cabinets. Getting those pages archived, digitally. Creating new renditions of old data and information, in modern formats. In high-fidelity.

    Why? Because they’re primary sources.

    The last scribbled field notes, and crumpled photographs that are almost lost to history; but which carry the little bits and pieces glossed over by researchers who were never looking for more than statistical data, or a PhD. Or who just hunted for the citation, without bothering to read and comprehend the rest.

    These bits of real world meta- and scrape-data…

    We need our histories, language, and secrets, to help us re-imagine what a De-Colonized Future really looks like. To help us repatriate the ancestors being returned to us from these museums and universities. And we need land back, so we can have a place to bury our ancestors, and let them rest in peace.

    Native American History and Culture was taken away from the First Californians.

    It was cataloged and scattered around the world, to different museums, universities, and private collections. Everything from our oral histories to our ancestors’ bodies are in pieces.

    This is our inheritance.
    Our family property.

    It should not have to take feats of academic, and legal, scholarship to gain access to our own language, history, and the physical bodies of our ancestors.

    But not everybody knows they’re family…

    There was a time in America where white-passing Hispanic people claimed to be White, and light-skinned Native Americans pretended to be Mexican.

    This was because Native Americans who were caught in public, off the reservation, could be subject to arrest–where a white man could “buy an Indian” as a slave–forced on to a nearby reservation, or just killed on the spot.

    Indian Census Roll

    Mexicans and Spaniards were allowed agency, and relative freedom, when compared to the possibility of being criminalized and sold into slavery, or killed.

    So that’s why many Native Americans declared Mexican ancestry, and took Spanish last names, or married into those families: to hide from the terror and racism Native Americans were subjected to by the American Government.

    It wasn’t until recently that people started talking about their abuelitas,

    “I think mentioning something that they were really some part American Indian, or Native American?”

    These people, with surprise ancestry, or “hidden heritage” cannot be discounted. They have been completely oblivious to their own ties to this land, and these shellmounds.

    But, an awakening is happening, the veil of [necessary?] secrecy is finally being lifted.

    This begs to question the fairness of gate-keeping.

    Tuibun Village Reproduction
    Coyote Hills Regional Park
    Fremont, California
    • Shouldn’t the living descendants of these ancestors be given the opportunity to visit, experience, and learn about all of these things?
    • Is it really the role of anyone to deny them their birth rite, or the ability to at least find some solace or peace within themselves; because here is a place where they can pilgrimage to learn about themselves?
    • How can we really expect to know what “rematriation” or “land back” looks like, if we don’t even know what Native Land looks like (outside of vast pictures of forests, and dingy shots of dust-swept reservations?)

    How can we teach ourselves, and each other about what Native Land really is, without being able to visit it, or even talk about what they look like?

    Examples like the diorama of the Tuibun (Ohlone) Village at Coyote Hills Regional Park, in Fremont, California, are invaluable to helping one imagine, envision or just “picture what it was like.”

    There is more than one type of “estranged”, or,
    “dis-enfranchised” Native American….

    Strange word, “dis-enfranchised”.

    There are Native Americans who were adopted, who grew up outside of their communities.

    People who never chose to be separated from their people, and Tribe. People who were never given the opportunity to be reunited. Sometimes forever.

    As a descendant of California Native Americans, adopted out of my tribe at birth, raised by white people, and growing up in a place like Alameda–which is a “good ole boy” town, and known for it’s white racist, residents, and it’s over-policing of people of color….

    As all of that…

    I needed more than these pretty words and vagaries.

    More than a rock in the middle of Lincoln Park, in Alameda, Commemorating the Ohlone Shellmound the City of Alameda dug up and used to pave Bay Farm Road.

    The symbolism of shellmounds is tied to colonization, and landback, and rematriatrion, and gardens.

    But this only uses shellmounds as a strawman, an existential fallacy. Because the argument is only ever over places where shellmounds have been destroyed.

    But what about the other shellmounds?

    Shellmounds still exist in the San Francisco Bay Area

    Every article says the San Francisco Bay Area had at least 425 Shellmounds. But these rely on the recitation of the same, stale facts. The main narrative, and recurring implication, is that, all the shellmounds have been destroyed, and there’s nothing left but three locations in the San Francisco Bay Area:

    • Emery Bay outdoor mall, in Emeryvile, California;
    • Glen Cove, in Vallejo, California; and,
    • Spenger’s Parking Lot, in Berkeley, California….

    Because the mission of the Alameda Native History Project was to discover what happened to the Alameda Shellmounds; and that, of course lead to researching other Shellmound locations, I learned: of these three locations, only the shellmound in Emeryville is the correct location.

    Alameda Native History Project map showing true location and observed (approximate) dimensions of West Berkeley Shellmound.

    Upon closer inspection both Glen Cove and West Berkley Shellmounds exist, or existed about 100 feet away from the locations Corrine Gould has alleged, on average. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal if there weren’t huge protests and millions of dollars spent in legal battles over protecting a thing that wasn’t even there. It’s not even a masked-man fallacy. But it’s close. (Especially in West Berkeley.)

    This brought about frank questions like, How come Corrine Gould is only interested in Shellmounds that are already destroyed? How come her groups aren’t interested in protecting other shellmounds, like the four at San Rafael Rock Quarry? (She went out to Miwok Territory, despite the fact she’s Ohlone and occupied Glen Cove Park, without the permission or endorsement of the real tribes who’s territory Vallejo falls in.)

    Is it just easier to advocate for seizing parking lots? An open space can fit hundreds of protestors, and garner much more attention, when it’s in the middle of a city. Places like outdoor malls, and the center of a shopping district are perfect for garnering public attention. Maybe that’s why more remote mounds in places like Contra Costa and Marin county haven’t been advocated for?

    Regardless of the new questions the research has uncovered, the Alameda Native History Project has a self-proclaimed mission to educate the public about shellmounds, and provide detailed, actionable information for their preservation, and protection.

    As such, this project will continue to produce and release educational and research materials; to bring attention to all San Francisco Bay Area Shellmounds, and advocate for their protection.

    But it’s hard to do that when the leading voice is trying to limit, or stifle the discussion about Shellmounds, to the point of providing incorrect information about their locations.

    So let’s start with this:

    What is a shellmound?

    A lot of people wanted to know, “What is a shellmound? What does a shellmound look like? How big were the shell mounds?”

    And, while one could spend time curating schematics, maps, and historical images there are truths which reveal themselves.

    Basic traits of a shellmound….

    1. Shellmounds range anywhere from about 3 to 70 feet tall.
    2. Shellmounds have a diameter of about 10 to 300 feet.
    3. Shellmounds have a distinctive domed shape,
      usually with a pavillion, and a ramp or walk-way down one side.
    4. Each shellmound accounts for hundreds to thousands of Native Americans.
      Around 2,000 people were buried in the Emeryville Shellmound.
    5. Shellmounds are not trash heaps.
    6. Shellmounds are burial grounds.
    7. Shellmounds are sacred burial structures, built by the first occupants of the San Francisco Bay Area.
    8. Over 425 shellmounds existed in the San Francisco Bay Area.
    9. Only a few dozen shellmounds still remain, intact, and undisturbed.

    ANHP Shellmound Model
    Featured in Augmented-Reality

    Available Shellmound Models

    This video has loud background noise.

    There are two Shellmound Models available. They are version 2.5, and 2.6, respectfully.

    Version 2.6 is in .REAL format, which is used with Adobe Aero, a mobile-based Augmented Reality platform.

    Version 2.5 is in USDZ format. Universal Scene Description is used by Pixar (among other companies); and is now a native 3D Object Format for both iOS and Android 3D Object Viewer.

    These shellmound models were created for educational, and research purposes. Commercial use of this model is strictly prohibited. When featuring this model, please include the following citation:

    “Shellmound Model created by Gabriel Duncan.”

    Shellmound Model v.2.5(download)
    Android / iOS (.usdz)
    Shellmound Model v.2.6(download)
    Adobe Aero (.real) (in-app)
    Info about Adobe Aero “Adobe Aero Get Started” on the Adobe website.

    Let us know how you use the Shellmound Model!

    Tag your AR experience on Instagram using @AlamedaNativeHistoryProject!

    Send us a note, share your stories via collab@alamedanativehistoryproject.com!