Shellmound Marchers meet Francisco Da Costa.

SACRED BURIAL GROUNDS
SHELLMOUNDS

Archeologists in the Bay Area have found artifacts at Shellmounds that date to 13,000 years. They belong to the First People of the Bay Area and to the Ohlone people that is a wide term that incorporates all the various clans, tribes, and sites that progressed in the Bay Area. Some of them being the Esselen, Matsun, Amuctec-Tubsinta, Tuiban, Petlenuc, Huchiun, Alson, the Muwekma Ohlone clans, tribes, and site specific named after the various Shellmound.

Some White archeologists steep in bias and not appreciating facts of life and reverence to a rich history of human being that were here thousands of years before some uncivilized Whites came to this land as strangers have dared to called Sacred Burial Ground also known as Shellmounds - Middens. Scrap the word midden when it comes to the First People of California. Study etymology.

A Midden is a heap of trash that the Whites that derived that name can keep for themselves it does not matter from which University these scum bag archeologists come from Stanford University, University of California Berkeley or any European University.

For the last 25 years I have been encountering the worst type of stereotyping California First People by the strangers that have really no history as most of them migrated to America within the last 300 years.

Having traveled the world and studied in some of the best Universities and met some of the so called best minds - minds, I have learned to listen and learn to understand. How ever I am never ever going to condescend to some ignorant, arrogant, half learned so called professors and experts that have no grounding and lack the ability to understand any fundamental elements pertaining to the aboriginals, the First People and in this case the Ohlone of the Bay Area. We have large Shellmound and small Shellmound. But the fact of the matter is that many Sacred Burial Grounds, Shellmounds have been destroyed. This is crime crying to heaven and some one has blood on their hands.

Many will understand fully what I say especially when in California 18 treaties signed between the United States Government and the First People of California were not kept. Let me say again as I have said so many times; this Sacred Land all of it we call California was stolen from the First People. This fundamental truth must be acknowledged.

Further the United States Government participated in the genocide of the First People and that includes the Ohlone. Up until 1927 and later it was fine to kill any Ohone and other tribes all over California and beyond and fetch $5 for their scalp. No questions asked. What is most abhorring is that Edicts were sent by the Governor of California encouraging Whites to kill the First People.

No one takes responsibility for this great injustice and even in the year 2005 we have the same thing happening only this time camouflaged under different aspects of greed and money.

The recent gambling compacts have given some California tribes clout just because they have the Federal Recognition or tag acknowledged by the Whites. How ever no where did the Great Spirit put money before the spiritual good that lives in all human beings and in this case the First People of California.

First People must remember that the spiritual elements and respect for our Elders comes first. Respect for Mother Earth and all the elements that help nurture this Earth is deep within the DNA of all First People. The Wisdom of our Elders supersedes the Greed and Money that belong to another world and when we die and leave this Earth we cannot take with us.

The values of the Shellmounds, respect, consideration, hospitality, the values of our dances and deep ceremonies cannot be substituted with mundane stuff especially greed that has no place among the First People not only in America but all over the world. Whites do not understand this notion and will only when they have cleansed themselves. Here is San Francisco I have fought the hard fight and taken the cause of the Muwekma Ohone, the Miwoks, and the Pomos to the highest level of meaningful discussion among those that consider themselves to be the authorities. Again and again I have won because I have clearly stated the Spiritual Platform against which the Whites have nothing to compare.

All of the Land Use, the Economic Development, and the so called progress inherently embraces greed and exploitation and is deeply ingrained in the psyche of the Whites. These EVIL elements are far removed from any principle that the First People, the Native Americans, other aboriginals all over the world adhere to. Now suddenly imagine being driven from one's land and told to eat, sleep, live and think like the devil himself.

The Unites States saw fit to steal the land and keep the First People on Reservations. People from all over the world cannot fathom that concept. Today the Department of Interior owes billions to the many Native American Tribes but stalls the negotiations. It is the Department of the Interior that first put the Muwekma Ohlone on the Federal Register and then took them away.

Imagine one stupid Bureau of Indian Affairs agent L.A. Dorrington being given the power to erase many tribes and clans that were alive but faking the documents so say that these living clans and tribes were no more in the Bay Area and California. Only in America can such nonsense happen. It did not take one single evaluation or inspection to confirm this great misdeed. How ever it will take thousands of hours, millions of dollars, to undo the nonsense of this one single evil man.

Since the late 1980s the Muwekma have been in Court and now in the Supreme Court and every time we are near to getting Federal Recognition which was ours until 1927; we are told another story and further told be furnish documents that are difficult to produce. As I clearly stated up until 1927 Native Americans in California were hunted down; more in the Bay Area after the Gold Rush of 1849. Millions were killed and before that the Christian Missionaries killed more and so did the Whites by introducing Venereal Diseases and more. Now, imagine the Supreme Court and the Department of Interior instructing those on the run to produce documents and prove that the clan, the tribe, the family were intact and had a long continuity and lived as a family, clan and tribe. Only in America.

This nonsense must stop and the Muwekma Ohone should be put back on the Federal Register. The land that was stolen should be given back and billions of dollars put in trust for the good of those that were adversely impacted for hundreds of years since the Strangers set foot as lambs and then suddenly became wild, greedy, and took part in the murder of thousands of innocent human beings.

The California history of the First People has not been told to our children. I know that for a fact. Hundreds of people e-mail me and talk to me and are horrified to know the truth. The Truth is told in documents but the documents are NOT reflected in the history that is taught in our schools and Universities in California. Fake ass professors pretend to know about Shellmounds and call them Middens for example.

From November 7th to November 25, 2005 there will be a Sacred Site Shellmound Peace Walk. I will report about it. Call Corrina Gould at (510) 453-9002 for further information or shellmoundwalk@yahoo.com

www.vallejointertribalcouncil.org