Mapping Tribal Land

This project was created by  Aziza Mirsaidova , an incoming master's student at MS in AI program at Northwestern University with a passion for Data Science and Machine Learning, and  Justin A. Muñoz , an undergraduate student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, MA, pursuing an associate's degree in Physics with high levels of interest in sustainable engineering and environmental activism. They worked as interns at  GreenInfo Network , a nonprofit organization that maps and communicates data in the public interest. The interns were also part of the Station1 Frontiers Fellowship.  Station1  is a nonprofit organization that is building a foundation for the future of education through socially-directed science and technology with inclusion and equity, learning through frontier project-based inquiry and research, and the integration of science and technology with societal perspective, responsibility, and impact.

California has the largest Native American population in the United States, and is home to 109 federally recognized and many federally unrecognized tribes. Ohlone people are "unrecognized" by the U.S. federal government, thus, today Ohlone People have no reservation or no protected land base. The Bay Area has always been home for California Native - Ohlone people. The name Ohlone is derived from the name of a single tribe, "Oljon" which can be pronounced as "Oh-low-nee."

The Ohlone Native people are a collective of 8 different bands primarily located in the Northern California Coast, specifically in areas from San Francisco through the Monterey Bay area to the Salinas Valley. Contemporary Ohlone groups include:

• Amah Mutsun (of Hollister and Watsonville)

• The Lisjan Ohlone (of East Bay in the San Francisco Bay Area)

• The Tamien Nation (of Santa Clara Valley)

• Ramaytush Ohlone (of San Francisco Bay Area)

• Muwekma Ohlone Tribe (of San Francisco Bay Area, Greater East Bay)

Today Ohlone people reside in Alameda, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties. In the map below, we show the modern-day location of the Ohlone tribes listed above.

 Muwekma Ohlone  Tribe embraces all notable American Indian lineages native to the San Francisco Bay Area. Today Muwekma Ohlone resides in San Fransisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties in California.

In parallel, the Association of  Ramaytush Ohlone  represents the native Ramaytush people that are original to San Fransisco Peninsula. Before the arrival of the Spanish, the Ramaytush Ohlone tribe comprised about 1,500 people. However, only very few people survived by the end of the Mission period, and only one lineage exists today.

 Amah Mutsun Tribal Band  collectively referred to as "Ohlone," indigenous people aboriginal to the Tribal groups influenced by the Missions of San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz in Mutsun Awaswas territories. The traditional part of the Mutsun Tribal encompassed modern-day counties San Benito, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and San Mateo. The historical tribal band composed of more than 20 distinct peoples; today, approximately 600 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) documented Indians represent the descendant families of historical tribal groups.

The people of the Ohlone territory spoke many similar languages before the arrival of the Spanish missionaries, these languages were: San Francisco Bay Costanoan Awaswas, Karkin, Mutsun, Rumsen, and Chalon. In addition, San Francisco Bay Costanoan had three dialects: Ramaytush, Chochenyo, and Tamyen. The map below represents the Ohlone languages and Native tribes among the Bay Area, California.

There were about 58 Ohlone tribes; some tribes were so intermarried among speakers of two different primary languages that they cannot be placed within a single primary language group.

The California state government enslaved and forced Natives to labor in their ranches through the mid-1860s. Native Americans were then forced onto reservations and their children were sent to "Indian assimilation schools". White settlers and the state legislature's goals were to deprive Native Americans of their cultural wellness and replace them with white, Christian customs and norms. California only apologized for the genocide it carried out against Indigenous residents in 2019.

The 1990 Native Americans Languages Act established a federal policy to allow the use of Native American languages as the medium of instruction in schools. The act protects the rights of indigenous children to learn their own history, be educated, and be assessed in their own language.

Today, Ohlone tribe members have been speaking three of these languages: Chochenyo, Mutsun, and Rumsen. The Native Ohlone speaking these languages live in the East Bay, San Juan Bautista, Giroy, Watsonville, and Monterey. Chochenyo, one of the indigenous languages of the East Bay, continues to be spoken by Muwekma people. The majority of those speakers are elders, aka "knowledge keepers" in their 70s, seeking ways to preserve their cultural language to pass their knowledge to the next generation of speakers. There is an active Chochenyo language learning group for the Muwekma tribe that works with University California Berkeley linguists to ensure that it continues to thrive for future generations.

Ohlone people are initiating programs to revive their cultural language by organizing summer culture camps and creating indigenous language curriculum for public schools. Tribal communities in the Bay Area promoting the Ohlone language through  Cafe Ohlone mak'-amham  where two Ohlone people, Vincent Medina (Chochenyo Ohlone) and Louis Trevino (Rumsen Ohlone), communicate about Indigenous traditional cuisine through using Rumsen and Chochenyo languages. The name of the cafe "mak'-amham" means "our food" in the Chochenyo language.

 Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival (AICLS)  is an organization that brings together indigenous language speakers with the goal of helping build the community of native speakers. For about 30 years, AICLS activists have been advocating and raising awareness about the importance of indigenous languages in political arenas. The AICLS developed various programs focused on indigenous language revitalization, including the California Indian Spoken World program that gathers together community members to share songs, poetry, stories, and much more in their language. 

"Creator gave us the responsibility to care for Mother Earth and all living things,... we knew that we had to find a way to extert stewardship over those lands to restore our relationship with the land." says Chairman Valentin Lopez of the Amah Mutsun tribal land.

Federally recognized tribes have been able to do much in off-reservation  protections.  Tribes recognized by the U.S. government have more than three centuries of federal law to back them up, but non-federally recognized tribes by and large lack the legal authority when a local ecological or cultural area is threatened by development or resource exploitation.

"Funding and support for tribes for climate change was coming from the federal government, yet they were really focused on federally recognized tribes." Native Environmental Activist Kyle Powys Whyte, professor at Michigan State University.

In 2014, the California State Legislature passed A.B. 52, also known as the tribal amendments to the California Environmental Quality Act. This reinforces Native American heritage protection rights. The Supreme Court decision (1988) Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association states that "as long as government policy or practices doesn't prohibit an Indigenous person from thinking about religion, it's not a constitutional violation of their First Amendment rights." This exemplifies how not even federally recognized tribes are able to easily protect sites and areas considered sacred or culturally important.

The city of Berkeley landmarked the West Berkeley Shellmound and Village Site, a sacred burial site for Ohlone Native Americans'. Ohlone people regard shellmounds as sacred cemeteries and places of intense connection with their ancestors. In 2020, the site was named one of the 11 most endangered historic places in the United States.

However, developers wanted to build affordable housing units for low-income members on the site that is so sacred to the Ohlone people. On Feb. 18, 2021, while the developers' lawyers were appealing a decision that protected the site, they enclosed the property with a fence and barbed wire, according to the  Daily Californian Press .

"We are not against development. Our own families need housing,... But there are places that need to be saved that are special." Corrina Gould said, tribal chair of Confederated Villages of Lisjan (Ohlone).

The struggle for sacred land has been so difficult despite the site's historic status in part because the tribal group is unrecognized. California has the largest number of non-federally recognized tribes in the United States.

"People don't enter churches and start fires, they protect property but just because an area does not have a door or a fence, does not mean it's not sacred. Native people's view entire landscapes and soundscapes as cultural resources that deserve respect and protection," said Kanyon "Coyote Woman" of Indian Canyon.

Preserving burial sites, protecting traditional gathering areas from development, and preventing villages from being bulldozed has been virtually impossible since the tribe lacks federal recognition. Ohlone people continue fighting for the protection of their sacred land and these unheard voices deserve recognition.

The Amah Mutsun have created a land trust that works with landowners and agencies to preserve important cultural and ecological sites including  Quiroste Valley Cultural Preserve  in Santa Cruz County. Cultural practices that have been conducted by the Mutsun to support the land including "cultural burn -- which is a prescribed burn that's been practiced by Native people for millennia to eliminate wildfire fuels, enhance food sources, support biodiversity, and groom watersheds --- to support plants used in the traditional basket--making," as described by  IntercontinentalCry.org .

Furthermore, California cities and counties need to be educated on inherent sovereignty because federal and state policies can come into conflict when non-recognized tribes try to exercise their rights. Tribal leaders are working on developing coordinated programs to address climate change and issues regarding sustainability and land conservation. All indigenous peoples, not just federally recognized tribes, play a role in protecting their lands across the United States.

 Indian Canyon  is the only federally recognized  "Indian Country"  between the cities of Sonoma and Santa Barbara, settled in the Gavilan mountain range, 15 miles south of Hollister, California. For thousands of years, Indian Canyon has been sacred land and home for the Ohlone/Costanoan people.

"Indian Canyon has served as a safe haven for Indigenous peoples, pre and post contact. Opening sovereign land for all indigenous peoples in need of land for ceremony and education." - Ann Marie Sayers, Chairwoman of Indian Canyon, Mutsun Ohlone.

 Indian Canyon  promotes cultural wellness by storytelling, spiritual healing and preserves the environment through numerous projects such as Indigenous botanical restoration, stream restoration, fire prevention, and more. In addition, Costanoan Indian Research Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Indian Canyon that supports the Native American community through cultural, educational programs and provides a ceremonial site for California Natives in need of sacred land to perform their cultural and spiritual practices.

“My mother believed, and I too believe, that when the ceremonies, songs, and dances stop, so does the Earth.” - Ann Marie Sayers, Chairwoman of Indian Canyon, Mutsun Ohlone.

The compelling message Ann Marie Sayers portrays is that the Canyon is not only a ceremonial site for Native Americans but a reminder of their beliefs, a place where they can freely practice their ancestral traditions. Many people including non-natives come to the Canyon to learn, gain a new perspectives, and promote awareness of Native Californian peoples.

Currently Ann-Marie Sayers and her daughter  Kanyon "Coyote Woman"  manage the Canyon which was Kanyon's grandfather's land allotment and Native peoples were able to refuge when escaping the missionaries. The interns had the honor to interview Kanyon Coyote Woman about the past and present of the Ohlone peoples in the San Francisco Bay Area, of what we now call California. Kanyon Coyote Woman is an activist, artist, and educator. She is the CEO of Kanyon Konsulting LLC, an agency that shares Indigenous insights through various educational programs, hosts workshops with the Native community, and other culture-sharing projects.

I identify as a proud Ohlone community member who advocates for truth in history. I also know that the term Ohlone is a misnomer that my ancestors before the 1800s wouldn't recognize. It is important that the community we connect with recognize how deeply we all have been impacted by colonization and how it informs us, as well as helps us recognize how it is that we are in this place today. I am very lucky to have this insight both to land, culture, and community. — Kanyon "Coyote Woman"

Our insights from our interview shows that Kanyon urges to honor the truth and history of Indigenous peoples' by educating Natives and Non-Natives about the history of the Ohlone in California, their land, language, and culture. Kanyon also highlighted that Native peoples' governing socio-economical structure is more considered for the environment, including communities that preserve salmon population and rivers. Therefore, we should be good stewards of the Earth.

Although the Ohlone people are not recognized by the U.S. federal government and don't have a protected land base, they are still present and they are actively sustaining their language, traditions, and culture. The federal trust policies drastically affected the economic development, living patterns, and exploited Native Californians' natural resources. The Ohlone people deserve federal recognition, and acknowledgement by the community, including mapmakers. A territorial acknowledgment through mapping is a technique to recognize the Indigenous people's disposition from their territories due to federal trust policies. Mapping is an effective tool to acknowledge and communicate about the Ohlone people's modern-day territory, sacred lands, language, cultural and spiritual practices.