Alameda Native History Project

Tag: indigenous lives matter

  • 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.

  • Foreword to A Land Defender’s Guide, Vol. 1

    The following is the Foreword to A Land Defender’s Guide to: Making the Exploitation of Land Expensive & Unappealing To Would-Be Colonizers, Volume I: Work-Site Blues.

    Foreword

    You told them this was Native Land, Indigenous Territory, A Sacred Site, or even the place where your great-grandparents are buried. But they laughed in your face, and hid behind a wall of lawyers. And a wall of militarized police.

    And, then, they shook hands with the very politicians who promised to protect your tribal homeland, and your great-grandmother’s grave, as they broke ground right on top of her.

    This is not figurative, or metaphorical, in any sense at all. You literally watched the shovel break the ground above her resting body. Desecrating forever the sanctity of this place, and guaranteeing an afterlife without rest, or peace.

    It made you feel ridiculous; a welling of impotent anger, aggrieved frustration, and justified indignation at this betrayal; at the destruction of the most precious and pristine place you were proud to call your home.

    Now, it’s become the site of a lithium mine; host to a four foot wide petroleum pipeline; or worse, a dumping site for nuclear waste that won’t be safe for hundreds of thousands of years (if ever.)

    Meanwhile, your ancestors are pulled out of the ground like empty corn husks. The prairies and forests you used to visit, pray and play in have been flattened and become a parking lot for heavy equipment, modular offices.

    The water flowing from the springs smell bad now, and none of the animals will drink it, anymore because they will get sick, and die—just like the trees and plants that used to grow around this place.

    You tried to tell them they were destroying the place you held close to your heart. Tried to tell them that the well-being of this land wasn’t just important to your people, but that it was integral to the survival of all life on earth.

    Other people agreed. They said deforestation, not only led to loss of habitat for the animals you depend on, and who depend on you; but that the earth would never be able to recover from critical damage to its carbon reducing, oxygen producing, infrastructure.

    Your new friends got lawyers, and held protests, made t-shirt slogans, eye-catching signs, and raised awareness on social media. But it didn’t mean anything to the people who only saw profit in loss and exploitation. And your new friends left as soon as their GoFundMe’s reached their goals—never giving you the help they promised, or the money they raised in your name.

    Now your ancestor’s resting place has a metal fence around it with big signs saying “KEEP OUT”, “PRIVATE PROPERTY”. But you know the signs should be for them, instead of you, and your people.

    Now what?

    The guide is available by request through email, or via direct link to the PDF on Proton Drive.