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Where Have All the Anthros Gone? The Shift in California Indian Studies from Research “on” to Research “with, for, and by” Indigenous Peoples

2021; Wiley; Volume: 123; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/aman.13633

1548-1433

Peter Nelson,

Archaeology and Natural History

I am Peter Nelson. I am Coast Miwok and an assistant professor in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. I have to say "Miwok" or "Me-wuk," which means "person" in the Sierra language, so you will understand where I fit into the anthropological literature on our culture. It is certainly more specific than "Indian," but it is another tribe's word that an anthropologist applied to mine. Our word for "person" or "people" is michcha (singular) or michchako (plural), tamal michcha (coast person), or simply tamalko, referring to those people along the coast of Marin County. There are many other names for people living in other areas of our traditional and unceded homelands, but through anthropologists' eyes, we are made into a derivative coastal variant of the Sierra-type specimen. The inaccuracies are the anthropologist's legacy, but the story is my own. I may write it differently at another time for another purpose, but this is how I live it at this moment in time and what I think is important for my colleagues in anthropology to hear. My use of archival collections to weave this story is a refusal to contribute more than is necessary to published ethnography. In doing so, this piece is positioned as an ethnographic refusal (Simpson 2007, 2014, 2016; Tuck and Yang 2014), the performance of which is sometimes apparent and sometimes not. In 1906, my great-great-grandmother Ruby Sandoval has her first and only daughter, my great-grandmother Louisa. That same year, C. Hart Merriam visits the Bay to speak with Juana Bautista, the mother of Maria (Copa) Frias (Merriam, n.d.). One year later, in 1907, Ruby is stolen away from our family and community at Tomales Bay, California, and is taken to Sherman Indian Boarding School in Riverside. Her mother, Sevina, is left to care for Louisa. We have a black-and-white photo of Louisa from this time; she is barely old enough to stand on the east shore of Tomales Bay, near their home. The picture is ripped and her face obscured, but I imagine a smirk and eyes squinting in the sun and wind. On May 6, 1908, Ruby is commended in The Sherman Bulletin for her proficiency in baking pastries and making doughnuts. Sevina writes a year later, on April 14, 1909, that she is too ill to take care of Louisa any longer and pleads with the superintendent to let Ruby come home to the Bay. The superintendent types a brief memo on April 20 releasing her. In the archive at UC Berkeley, I find Alfred Kroeber's notes in the script of a fountain pen: "2–21–10 betw. Fisherman and Marshall Tomales Bay Mrs. Mary Frias, (born at S. Rafael)" (Kroeber, n.d.). This is followed by a series of words in tamal machchaw, Spanish, and English as Kroeber tries to decipher our language from one of the very few remaining speakers. The area he mentions is just north of where my family lives along the Bay. Merriam (1910) publishes Dawn of the World, which includes stories from my community. Declining in health, Sevina passes away in 1913. Between 1906 and 1928, government agents establish rancherias for the so-called homeless Indians in California and consult the anthropological literature of that time to inform their decisions about the formation of groups or "bands" who will receive land (Field 1999, 197). The Graton Rancheria is established more than twenty miles north of Tomales Bay in 1920, and about fifteen acres of land are designated for Native American peoples of the surrounding Southern Sonoma and Marin County areas. This grouping conglomerates peoples from several different historical polities spanning two distinct languages (Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok). The fifteen acres of reservation land is hardly enough to support a handful of families, a fraction of the entire community from this area. People do what they must in order to make their way through life. Ruby convinces a rancher to build a house for her by the Bay. She has more children. My great-great-uncle Gil is born south of Marshall, and my grandpa Ben (Louisa's son) is born near Windsor-Healdsburg in 1925. That same year, Kroeber (1925, 275) also publishes Handbook of the Indians of California in which he writes about Coast Miwok people: "There remain a handful of scattered survivors. The missions have played their usual part… . Of the recent culture … little has been recorded." He then focuses the remaining four of seven pages of the Coast and Lake Miwok chapter on the historical account from Sir Francis Drake's voyage in lieu of other information. In this piece, Kroeber's focus on Drake suggests that the most salient point about our history is our "discovery" by an Englishman rather than a Spaniard. Between 1928 and 1933, an act of Congress (May 18, 1928: 45 Stat. 602) allows for a census to be conducted establishing the California Indian Judgement Roll composed of all Indians residing in the state on June 1, 1852, and their descendants. Treaties were signed with California tribes between March 19, 1851, and January 7, 1852, but these treaties were never ratified (Heizer 1972; Shipek 1989, 410). The "Indians of California" file suit against the United States for the seizure of land without compensation (Shipek 1989, 410). People at Tomales and Bodega Bays are living just outside of the property lines of ranches and farms, pushed to the extreme western edge of our tribal lands after a history of removal, slave trafficking, and genocide throughout the last century (Dietz 1976; Ortiz 1993; Schneider and Panich 2019). You cannot put value on that. There is no apology or amount of money that will make it right. Between 1931 and 1932, Isabel Kelly receives funds from the UC Berkeley Anthropology Department to support her research with elders Maria (Copa) Frias and Tom Smith at Tomales and Bodega Bays (Collier and Thalman 1991). Despite Kroeber's position that the missions had played their part and not much cultural knowledge exists in my community, Isabel Kelly produces copious notes in eleven field journals on Coast Miwok language, culture, history, and ethnogeography. She later organizes this body of fieldnotes on about 8,000 3" x 5" slips of paper, which she intends to publish as a manuscript. She never finishes this manuscript, but Collier and Thalman (1991), two non-Native women working outside of academia, will later edit and publish a 544-page manuscript on Kelly's work with Coast Miwok people. They note stories from Maria Copa Frias's family that Tom and Bill Smith reserved information from Isabel Kelly and advised Maria Copa Frias to do the same (Collier and Thalman 1991, xxxix). This knowledge remains within my community. While Uncle Gil and I sip coffee and eat his favorite berry pie, we look at photocopies of the old schoolhouse records from Marshall that I brought. He turns over each page delicately, reading every word and chuckling at his and his friend's bad grades. In the 1930s, they are always working when there is work and have high truancy rates—some upwards of 100 to 200 days. He also tells me about the time in his childhood when UC Berkeley researchers come to Tomales Bay to dig burials. There is nothing anyone up or down the Bay can do. Indian people do not have rights, and there are other issues threatening the livelihoods of our families. We have to hide children with a quarter or more Indian blood so they will not be taken to boarding school. Those without a quarter do not receive government commodities, and it is more difficult for their families to make ends meet. Uncle Gil digs clams and gathers oysters. He is the baker in the family, taking after his mother. He also works the ranches, as does my grandpa. In 1934, S. F. Bryant conducts an archaeological survey of Tomales Bay by boat. He talks to Coast Miwok people, the Pensotti family, and Bertha Campigli, maybe others, but he is not there to study the living (UCAS, n.d.). Everyone knows what he is there to do. In the 1940s, Coast Miwok men join other US citizens and go to war; my uncle Gil and grandpa are among them. In 1941, a young Robert Heizer digs more burials in Point Reyes and finds porcelain and nails from Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeno's ship (Heizer 1941). Kroeber, as the supervising professor, poses for the camera with Heizer. Each of them supports one side of the wooden and glass case containing artifacts taken from Coast Miwok sites. Kroeber makes a statement for the Reno Gazette-Journal newspaper on December 24, 1941, that anthropologists "can now definitely date the native culture of the Estero mound as of around 1595" (Reno Gazette-Journal 1941). He notes that these findings can be used elsewhere in California, where "the earliest positive dating of Indian-European contact material has been from the beginning of the Mission period, about 1775. We have now pushed chronology back almost two centuries beyond" (Reno Gazette-Journal 1941). These are the days before radiocarbon dating, and this finding is revolutionary in terms of refining their version of our history, a taxonomic cultural sequence for Central California that UC Berkeley anthropologists are working to establish. US Government officials in the land-claims cases from 1946 to 1959 use Kroeber's (1925) Handbook of the Indians of California and other early anthropological works that are viewed as definitive research on California Indian peoples despite insufficiencies and outsider perspectives (Shipek 1989). Many California tribes in this body of early anthropological literature are described as being extinct, especially those along the coast of California under the influence of the Spanish missions (Field 1999; Kroeber and Heizer 1970; Panich 2013). Few of these tribes along the coast between San Diego County and Sonoma County have gained federal recognition status compared to tribes elsewhere in the state, and the anthropological work is an accomplice to federal agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Acknowledgment and Research in this process (Field 1999; Panich 2013). Very little additional ethnography is conducted with communities in these decades associated with land claims and federal acknowledgment (Shipek 1989), and forty-six tribes, including Graton Rancheria, are wrongfully terminated with the passage of the California Rancheria Termination Act of 1958, Public Law 85–671 (72 Stat. 619). Kroeber and others offer expert testimony during the land claims and try to recontextualize their earlier statements about the "extinction" of many California Indian tribes. As Kroeber and Heizer (1970, 2–3) state, "Anthropologists sometimes have gone a step farther and when they can no longer learn from living informants the speech and modes of life of the ancestors of these informants, they talk of that tribe or group as being extinct—when they mean merely that knowledge of the aboriginal language and culture has become extinct among the survivors." Though this statement recognizes some of the fallacies of their past position on our supposed biological extinction, it doubles down on their opinion that California Indian culture is extinct, which is not much better. It also highlights the fact that anthropologists in any subfield are interested in California Indian people as data, not as collaborators. If we have no more data to offer anthropology or refuse to take part in ethnography, anthropologists write us out of their research as extinct and they move on to new fieldsites in other regions of the world. In 1969, Native American students from the University of California system—including one of our California Indian scholars, Edward Castillo—protest injustices at Alcatraz Island in the wake of the governmental policies of termination (Castillo 1994). Vine Deloria (1969), a Lakota scholar, publishes a critique of the obnoxious persistence of anthropologists coming to the reservation to mine communities for their research in Custer Died for Your Sins. This inspires a Dakota singer and actor, Floyd Westerman, to write a similar critique in a ballad, "Here Come the Anthros," that begins, "And the anthros still keep coming like death and taxes to our land." This was certainly true in the first half of the twentieth century in California, as well. However, Heizer (1978, 14–15) declares an end to the old-style ethnography and an uncertain future for cultural anthropology because of the passing of the older generation of California Indians. He also predicts that some activity will remain in the areas of linguistics and archaeology even though there may be a decline in these disciplines because of fewer speakers of the language and efforts by California Indians to pursue repatriations of cultural materials (14–15). Heizer's (1978, 14–15) prediction of a future of continued loss and cultural extinction for California Indian peoples is not new. It is steeped in settler perspectives that refuse to acknowledge contemporary Native American stories, experiences, and adaptations as legitimate or authentic compared to those of our precontact ancestors. From this perspective, Native American peoples are destined to or have already disappeared from the land and resources that settlers want to inherit. This extinction myth continues to be so pervasive in publications, parks, and museums throughout the twentieth century that Graton Rancheria has to host an exhibit in 1993 literally called "We Are Still Here" (Ortiz 1993). This exhibit challenges the public to see our people as living in the present while our leaders diligently work to restore our federal recognition status through congress. Our community and political efforts are successful, and on December 27, 2000, Graton Rancheria's federal recognition status is restored, days before President Bill Clinton leaves office and President George W. Bush arrives. Federal recognition enables us to reestablish trust lands or a reservation in Rohnert Park, develop tribal business, protect our cultural heritage, and support our community with resources and staff that were not possible or extremely limited before. I think about Kroeber's legacy and Heizer's predictions and wonder again: Where have all the anthros gone once the regulations and ethical codes mandate that we be partners rather than data? I would extend this question to the entire field and the academic institution in general, not a single department or individual. What epistemologies and modes of knowledge production are acceptable and legible in a world where the publication of research and data drive tenure? Do we write about methods and relationships too much, refuse to publish too much data to protect our relations and ensure our knowledge is not used secondarily without our consent? We helped you build your future, and you still use our data from your archives. Will you help us rebuild ours? As Heizer (1978, 14–15) predicts, the majority of anthropological research in California today takes place in the subdiscipline of archaeology, not cultural anthropology. However, I would argue that the slack in anthropological research is actually being taken up by our own scholars from California Indian communities in disciplines largely outside of anthropology. Today, more than fifty California Indian people are actively producing scholarship in a variety of different academic fields at several institutions in California and abroad (e.g., Bauer 2009, 2016; Minch-de Leon 2021; Miranda 2013; Nelson 2020; Risling Baldy 2018; Sarris 1993, 2017; Schneider 2015; Schneider and Panich 2019). I would also argue that older generations of California Indian scholars were doing this work long before our current generation of scholars (e.g., Costo and Costo 1987; Peri and Patterson 1976, 1978). However, unlike what Heizer (1978, 14–15) predicts, the urgency of the current movement of Indigenous-led scholarship is not solely motivated by the close study of ethnohistory, archival materials, and museum collections as vaults of pristine California Indian knowledge. Nor is this work predicated on the harmful idea that our cultures have somehow gone extinct. This movement comes from the strength and survivance of our people who are culturally grounded in our perspectives, values, and intellectual traditions. We are reframing scholarship "on" to scholarship "with, for, and by" California Indian people. Our perspectives and relationships with our communities as partners rather than informants are what drives this research. And our many colleagues, mentors, supporters, co-conspirators, allies, and accomplices join us in collaborative projects and in celebrating the empowerment, health, and well-being of our communities (e.g., Byram et al. 2018; Hinton 2001; Lightfoot 2008; Lightfoot and Lopez 2013; Sowerwine et al. 2019). Together, we are recrafting our stories and our futures. Part of recrafting the story and making space for Indigenous futures is unnaming and reassigning value to reflect who we are today. On January 26, 2021, Native American students and staff of UC Berkeley speak about their efforts to unname Kroeber Hall, as janitorial staff take down the weathered letters from the building wall. I think back to the Bay. It is time immemorial, and the story is ever-present. The story is not the American anthropologist's. The story is ours. I feel good, proud to be an alumnus of the UC Berkeley Native programs and now returning to Berkeley as a professor. Being at UC Berkeley is an isolating experience for California Indian and other Native people, even with supportive colleagues. There are currently five Native American professors, including myself, out of more than 1,400 total tenured and tenure-track faculty at UC Berkeley. I am the only California Indian tenure-track professor on campus—maybe the only one in Berkeley's history so far—and one of only eight California Indian tenure-track professors in the entire UC system. There are "world-class collections" from California Indian communities delicately packaged and cared for in folders, trays, and boxes in the Bancroft Library and Hearst Museum for future study. These collections house roughly 8,000 Native American ancestors, far outnumbering the few hundred living Native American students, staff, and faculty who have advocated for and gone without a Center for Native Americans on campus until this past semester, spring 2021. I hope that this move, as well as a Native American faculty cluster hire and new UC policies on repatriation and research with Native American collections, is the beginning of reenvisioning a more inclusive campus for Native American peoples. But there is still much more work to be done. I still remember the first time I arrived to talk to Uncle Gil about old times over a decade ago. He brings out the big blue book—the Isabel Kelly ethnography of Tom Smith and Maria Copa Frias. He says, "Well, I don't know. Everything you want to know is probably in here already." This is what anthropology has done to generations of our people, even some elders and those who have a great wealth of knowledge. It has laid claim to our intellectual territory, forced us to cite their publications of our stories to validate and legitimate this knowledge as authentic, and portrayed us as broken, divorced, and relocated from our history and knowledge. It has stolen our authority to tell our own story, even in our most intimate spaces. The book—a useful book that I read often—threatens to silence Uncle Gil and eclipse my family's history in comparison to the "authoritative" old-style Kroeberian or Boasian ethnography. We put the book away, talk to each other, and in so doing, we unname our story from all the authors—Kelly, Merriam, Powers, Heizer, Kroeber, others—telling us what that history should be. Once unnamed, it is ours again, and my uncle has so much to share with us. Our story will live forever, beyond these pages, beyond those names.