COMMENTARY

Sogorea Te Victory: Balancing the Present with the Past

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Condition. Discussion »

Sogorea Te Sacred Burial Site

The news arrived midweek last week that after 98 days there was a victory for the protesters at the Sogorea Te sacred burial site, commonly known as Glen Cove.

Sogorea Te was an Ohlone village some 3,500 years ago and it is reported that there are thousands of ancestral remains there. At different times each year, American Indians from the San Francisco Bay area gather for ceremonies.

The group of American Indians from the San Francisco area have called their protest a spiritual encampment. They have kept the fire going every moment since arriving there back in mid-April.

They arrived to literally stop the bulldozers from coming in and destroying what they consider a very sacred site.

They were there fighting the building of two restrooms and fifteen parking spaces on land they know have ancestral remains that were going to be erected by the Greater Vallejo Recreation District. They stopped bulldozers.

They were faced with the threat of arrest.

They were told they had no tribal jurisdiction over the place. They were not the right tribe of Indians. They were not of the right "recognized" tribe. In other words, they were in essence told they did not belong there.

In essence, they were at a standoff off for 98 days.

At all turns they countered with mere passive resistance. In the end, the sheer perseverance of the protesters using passive resistance won.

Last week, after several weeks of negotiation between the Cortina Band of Wintun Indians, Yocha Dehe Tribe and city officials, the group of protesters agreed to an easement that the Greater Vallejo Recreation District will put on the site without threat to any disruption of graves.

For some, like Norman "Wounded Knee" DeCampo, Miwok, the battle was much longer than 98 days. Wounded Knee is a citizen of Vallejo and has been fighting the proposed project for the past twelve years. At times, he was one of a handful of people who kept fighting the city officials on the erection.

"It balances the present with the past. It enables the people of today to walk on these lands and enjoy the vistas while ensuring the spirits of those who rest on those lands remain undisturbed," Chairman Marshall McKay of the Yocha Dehe Tribe told the Vallejo City Council very eloquently.

American Indians all across the country and indigenous people everywhere in the world can take pride in the group of American Indians in the San Francisco Bay area for the commitment and determination of following the path of passive resistance.

posted July 26, 2011 8:59 pm edt