tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91475372024-02-03T09:11:18.646-08:00North Coast Textslonger texts related to the North Coast of CA and the blog This North Coast PlaceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109930234512990322005-03-04T01:59:00.000-08:002005-08-26T18:10:21.296-07:00Celebrating the Arts of the North CoastI hope you enjoy the following portfolio of photographs of North Coast arts together with some favorite quotations. BKUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109929684251953072005-03-04T01:56:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:31:52.981-07:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/potgirl1g.jpg"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 1px solid; MARGIN: 2px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 1px solid" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/potgirl1g.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />"Let the beauty we love be what we do...There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the earth." Rumi. Photo: Fire Arts Center, Arcata by BK <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109929857510395072005-03-04T01:50:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.384-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/girlswbirdg.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/girlswbirdg.jpg'></a><br />"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be lighted." Plutarch. Photo: Fire Arts Center, Arcata, by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109929422666990592005-03-04T01:43:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.384-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/artlovers1ag.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/artlovers1ag.jpg'></a><br />"Art for art's sake? No. Art for beauty's sake, art for the sake of others." Francois Truffaut. Photo: Morris Graves Museum of Art inaugural exhibition, Eureka, by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109929282028456282005-03-04T01:41:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.385-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/momgirlart1g.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/momgirlart1g.jpg'></a><br />"They ask what/the purpose of art is. Is that how things are? Say there were a thousand artists and one purpose, would one artist be having it and all the nine hundred and ninety-nine others be missing the point?" John Cage. Photo: The Ink People center, Eureka, by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109928927184675082005-03-04T01:35:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.385-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/arcatower1g.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/arcatower1g.jpg'></a><br />"The history of peoples and civilizations is written by their art and not by their economics and industries and politics." Gino Severini. Photo: Arcata public garden, by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109928733425824602005-03-04T01:32:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.385-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/kidscarves2g.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/kidscarves2g.jpg'></a><br />"The most beautiful experience we can have is of the mysterious." Albert Einstein. Photo: Morris Graves Museum, Eureka, by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109928459353484992005-03-04T01:27:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.386-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/dancers1g.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/dancers1g.jpg'></a><br />"Rhythm is one of the principal translators between dream and reality." Edith Sitwell. Photo: dance class, Arcata, by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109928148325082802005-03-04T01:22:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.386-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/gospelteens1ag.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/gospelteens1ag.jpg'></a><br />"I am here to live out loud." Zola. Photo: young gospel choir rehearsal, Arcata, by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109927793744835882005-03-04T01:16:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.386-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/cafearcata1ag.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/cafearcata1ag.jpg'></a><br />"Behind every idea there is a thousand years of literature." Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Photo: Sacred Grounds, Arcata, by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1109927559670986232005-03-04T01:12:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:32:09.387-07:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/panboy1ag.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/panboy1ag.jpg'></a><br />"For what is the heart but an instrument that transforms chaos into order and noise into music. Make voyages, attempt them, there is nothing else." Tennessee Williams. Photo: pan student Arcata by BK <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1112782119126624022005-03-01T02:59:00.000-08:002007-02-27T23:11:11.554-08:00Welcome/Site Map<span style="font-size:130%;">Welcome to North Coast Texts, a companion site (with longer posts) to </span><a href="http://thisnorthcoastplace.blogspot.com"><span style="font-size:130%;">This North Coast Place</span></a><span style="font-size:130%;">,</span> <span style="font-size:130%;">about the North Coast of California. </span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">SITE CONTENTS</span><br /><br /><a href="http://northcoasttexts.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_northcoasttexts_archive.html"><span style="font-size:130%;">Celebrating the Arts of the North Coast<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;">Two Men and a Hydrogen Atom </span></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"></span><br /><a href="http://northcoasttexts.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_northcoasttexts_archive.html"><span style="font-size:130%;">Native North Coast</span></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1110164255797176002005-02-06T18:54:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:33:00.657-07:00Two Men and A Hydrogen Atom:<strong>How Louis Schatz and Peter Lehman Made Energy History<br /></strong><br /><em>This article originally appeared in the 2004 Humboldt Stater magazine.</em><br /><br />The Schatz Trust's bequest this year of an estimated $7.4 million is the largest single gift ever given to Humboldt State University. It brings the total contributed by Louis W. Schatz and his estate to approximately $15 million. Schatz died in 2001.<br /><br />Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1912, Louis Schatz first studied forestry, and developed a selective logging technique during the Great Depression that piqued the interest of Franklin Roosevelt's Interior department. After earning a doctorate in chemical engineering, Schatz applied plastic techniques to develop coatings and preservatives for wood products, and founded the successful General Plastics Manufacturing Company.<br /><br />In 1987, his first gift to HSU was land for the 385 acre Schatz Demonstration Tree Farm in Maple Creek, adjacent to the homestead of his son, Gordon. Part of the recent bequest will also be devoted to the tree farm, and to support the L.W. Schatz lecture series in forestry at HSU. But the bulk of the bequest will become an endowment for the Schatz Energy Research Center, which with his support since 1989, produced the first street-ready car in the U.S. to run on hydrogen fuel cells.<br /><br />Fuel cells divide hydrogen atoms into protons and electrons to drive electric motors, emitting no pollutants. They store and convert energy but don't generate it, so when fueled by a renewable energy power source, hydrogen fuel cells can make a major contribution to a sustainable energy future.<br /><br />How this technology came to be pioneered at HSU can been seen as the story of two men---Louis Schatz and Dr. Peter Lehman, director of the Schatz Energy Research Center and HSU professor of Environmental Resources Engineering. Together with co-director Dr. Charles Chamberlin, Dr. Lehman led the fuel cell team that proved the practicality of hydrogen energy.<br /><br />Schatz and Lehman both had the same rare, revolutionary idea. One had the means but not the expertise; the other had the knowledge but not the resources. When they met, more than hydrogen got energized. One morning this summer, Peter Lehman recalled how it all happened.<br /><br />For Schatz, as Lehman later learned, it began with a science project he helped one of his sons perform, which involved producing hydrogen and oxygen from water: separating the H2 from the O by means of an electrochemical cell. Years later, Schatz tried it again, this time using a solar panel for power. He collected the hydrogen in a balloon, and lit a match under it. "When that balloon went BOOM," he told Lehman, "I knew I was on to something."<br /><br />"He came up with the idea himself to utilize hydrogen as an energy storage medium, as a way to move us towards a clean energy society," Lehman said. "He went looking around the world for a research center that would promulgate his ideas, but he didn't find one." Because Schatz already had a relationship with HSU through the tree farm, he called up an HSU vice president, who called Lehman, because he was teaching energy engineering. "He asked me if we had a hydrogen energy program." Even though HSU didn't, he'd asked the right person.<br /><br />"I'd been telling my students that as we progress towards renewable energy, we'll need a storage medium, and I think it will be hydrogen," Lehman recalled. So he wrote Schatz a proposal to start a research program at HSU. "As soon as I sat down that night, I knew exactly what to write. I'd been thinking about it so long, I had the whole thing worked out in six hours."<br /><br />"Two days later, the phone rang---it was Mr. Schatz. He didn't say hello, how are you, he just started peppering me with questions about the proposal. I liked him right off the bat---he was straightforward, no-nonsense."<br /><br />But that he seemed genuinely interested in funding such a high-risk project started to seem unreal. "So I said, 'I hope you don't mind me asking, but why are you doing this?' Mr. Schatz said, 'Well, I made some money in my life, my children are all taken care of, and I want to do some good in the world.' "<br /><br />"That's a good answer," Lehman replied. "Can I revise my proposal?" Lehman sent his new proposal the next day, and a few days later a check for $75,000 arrived in his mailbox. It was the beginning of the Schatz Solar Hydrogen Project.<br /><br />"It was also the beginning of a relationship," Lehman points out, for Schatz remained involved in the ongoing work. At one point, Lehman was frustrated because there were few companies capable of making fuel cells, and the one working on his team's design kept making mistakes. "When they screwed up the plastic molding, that was it for Mr. Schatz. He knew plastics. 'Get rid of those guys!' he told me. 'Build your own!'"<br /><br />That led to another proposal, for a fuel cell lab. This time the check (for $300,000) came with a note: "Get to work." So in 1992, Lehman's team began refurbishing a sprawling, nearly derelict wooden building that had once been a small hospital, and the Schatz Energy Research Center was born. Two years later, they had their first hydrogen fuel cell, which today sits on a corner of Lehman's desk.<br /><br />"We had an interesting and fruitful relationship," Lehman says. "I communicated with him probably once a week, on the phone or by letter---I've got 60 or 70 letters from him. I visited him." So naturally when the Center had its first public triumph---a fuel cell powered golf cart for the Palm Desert Parade in southern California---Louis Schatz got to drive.<br /><br />Schatz also had the Mayor of Palm Desert in the cart. A nervous team from the Center accompanied them on foot, in case anything went wrong. But the golf cart performed well. "When we got to the end of the parade at City Park, we were just overjoyed. Everybody was hugging one another and congratulating each other, and all of a sudden I looked around and I said, 'Where's the vehicle? Where's the cart?' Mr. Schatz had taken off in it, with the Mayor. They'd become great friends during the parade. They were joy-riding in the park. Mr. Schatz was driving it as fast as it would go. When he finally came back he said, 'I wanted to see what she would do.'" (Top speed was about 18 mph.)<br /><br />Their working relationship continued until Louis Schatz death in 2001. At the Schatz memorial service, Lehman said he had been like a second father to him. Lehman stays in touch with Louis Schatz's sons, Henry (who runs the Schatz business in Tacoma, and has a house in Trinidad) and Gordon ( "a Humboldt County kind of guy" who still lives in Maple Creek).<br /><br />As Lehman ponders the future, with hopes for a new building when the Center's current home is abandoned at the expiration of its current lease, he expresses the same idealism that motivated Louis Schatz. " I'm proud to be here," he says, "to be part of an organization that cares about the world."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1106210952688139922005-01-20T01:37:00.000-08:002007-02-27T23:05:17.095-08:00WelcomeThis site is a companion to another web log, <a href="http://thisnorthcoastplace.blogspot.com">This North Coast Place</a>, concerning the North Coast of California. It consists of longer texts, photos and links to supplement discussions on This North Coast Place.<br /><br />Anyone can leave comments and join the dialogue. Simply click on "<em>comments</em>" at the bottom of each post, and select to <em>post a comment</em>. You can register but it's not required. Click on the "Anonymous" line and a comment screen should come up. Enter your comment and add at the bottom of it any identifying information you wish, like your name and town.<br /><br />The first group of posts relate to Native North Coast cultures, particularly the recent and still active efforts of the Wiyot to have their ancestral sacred land of Indian Island returned to them. Two stories and a set of photographs relate the historical background, the fundraising efforts that enabled the Wiyot to buy a small portion of their ceremonial site, and then in 2004, the return of 40 acres to the Wiyot by the City of Eureka. To learn how to contribute to the ongoing Wiyot effort, go to the <a href="http://www.wiyot.com">Wiyot tribal site here</a>.<br /><br />This cluster of posts ends with some personal reflections on the journey of a non-Native to learning more about Native cultures and their vital importance. I hope you enjoy the site, and join in the discussion.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1106203326864162562005-01-19T22:42:00.000-08:002005-01-19T22:42:06.863-08:00<a href='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/map%20native%20sites1g.jpg'><img border='0' style='border:1px solid #000000; margin:2px' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/map%20native%20sites1g.jpg'></a><br />Native North Coast <a href='http://www.hello.com/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif' alt='Posted by Hello' border='0' style='border:0px;padding:0px;background:transparent;' align='absmiddle'></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1106192025093644392005-01-19T19:26:00.000-08:002005-01-19T22:56:58.513-08:00A North Coast Native PrimerBefore the European and Euro-American invasion (known politely as "contact") the Native peoples of California were the most numerous in what would be called the United States, and in all of California, the largest Native populations were in the north.
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<br />Today California has more Native people than any other state, but many are no longer living where their cultures developed. In this North Coast region, several of the many more indigenous cultures that thrived here still survive. They each have a land base, a tribal government, and in recent decades have revived at least some of their ceremonies and traditions.
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<br />The<strong> Karuk</strong>, possibly the oldest culture in the area, lived in villages along sixty miles of the Klamath River, in territory now called the Siskiyou and Salmon Mountains, and on land now part of the Six Rivers and Klamath National Forests. The Karuk govern trust land that is separated into settlements on a few traditional village sites. The Karuk are the Upriver people.
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<br />Here are a few links:
<br /><a href="http://karuk.us/">Karuk Tribe</a>
<br /><a href="http://inkpeople.org/karuk.html">Institute of Native Knowledge</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.magickriver.net/karuk.htm">Magic River</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.ncidc.org/bright/karuk.html">language scholar</a>
<br /><a href="http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~rwj1/kar.html">photos</a>
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<br />The <strong>Yurok,</strong> the Downriver people, lived just below and to the southwest of the Karuk. Yurok territory once included some forty miles of the Klamath and some sixty miles of seacoast. Today the Yurok have the largest single tract of reservation land in California.
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<br /><a href="http://www.yuroktribe.org/">Yurok tribe</a>
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<br /><a href="http://www.californiahistory.net/2_natives/yurok.htm">history</a>
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<br /><a href="http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~rwj1/yur.html">photo</a>
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<br /><a href="http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~yurok/">language</a>
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<br /><a href="http://www.yuroknation.com/">Yurok Nation</a>
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<br />The <strong>Hupa</strong> lived in an inland valley along the Trinity River south of the Karuk. Today the Hupa inhabit a self-contained reservation area in their valley.
<br /><a href="http://www.hoopa-nsn.gov/default.htm">Hoopa Valley</a>
<br /><a href="http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~rwj1/hup.html">photo</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~ammon/danny/Hupa/HupaLanguage.html">language</a>
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<br />The ancient hunting grounds of the <strong>Tolowa </strong>were to the northwest, above the watersheds of Bluff Creek. The Tolowa lived in as many as 18 villages along the Pacific coast and the Smith River.
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<br /><a href="http://www.tolowa.com/">Tolowa tribe</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.fourdir.com/tolowa.htm">history and links
<br /></a>
<br /><strong>Wiyot </strong>lands once spanned a radius of forty square miles, centered at Humboldt Bay. They had many villages from the present McKinleyville (and perhaps farther north), south to Scotia and inland to Blue Lake.
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<br /><a href="http://www.wiyot.com/">Wiyot tribe at Table Bluff</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.kstrom.net/isk/art/basket/wiyot/wiyot.htm">Blue Lake and basketry</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.originalvoices.org/PriceOfGoldEight.htm">history</a>
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<br />Several other tribes and bands lived on the North Coast but were essentially exterminated as cultures since contact. Partly as a result of the historically notorious slaughter of the majority of surviving Wiyot on one night in 1860, the Wiyot were in most imminent danger of dying out as a culture and a people. But today the Wiyot tribe is revitalized. (For much more on the Wiyot in history and today, please see the posts that follow.)
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<br />These tribes were always small, and developed separately according to exactly where in the landscape they were. Their languages not only differed one from another, but are classified in different linguistic groups. The Yurok and Wiyot speak an Algonquinian language, the Karuk speak a Hokan, and the Hupa an Athabascan language. <em>"Here, within a circle whose radius is approximately six miles," writes Native scholar Jack Norton, "three of the six major linguistic groups recognized in North America came into contact."
<br /></em>
<br />And they did come into contact. They were remote, but not isolated. They traded with each other, and with other Native peoples. They shared ceremonies and stories. They are also related to other indigenous cultures in California, southern Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, and according to current standards of linguistic group classification, their languages link them to indigenous peoples of the northeastern United States, the Great Plains, Canada and the Yucatan.
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<br />Other links:
<br /><a href="http://www.7genfund.org/">The Seventh Generation Fund</a>
<br /><a href="http://www.originalvoices.org/Homepage.htm">Original Voices
<br /></a>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1100479061649988342005-01-10T23:37:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:34:01.962-07:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/26.jpg"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 1px solid; MARGIN: 2px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 1px solid" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/26.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />on the water from Tuluwat <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1106208479629906752005-01-10T22:04:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:34:37.710-07:00Coming Home: The Resolutionby Bill Kowinski<br /><br /><em>most of this account of the transfer of 40 acres of Indian Island from the City of Eureka to the Wiyot on June 25, 2004, first appeared in News from Native California Fall 2004. Photos by BK.<br /><br /><br /></em>Cheryl Seidner was driving in Connecticut when she began praying for good weather in Eureka the next day. She was leaving the National Congress of American Indians, on her way to the airport and across the country. In less than 24 hours, she would be riding across Humboldt Bay in a redwood canoe to sign papers as tribal chair of the Wiyot at Table Bluff. Those papers would officially transfer back to the tribe 40 more acres of Indian Island, the traditional center of the Wiyot world and its most sacred site. She prayed for calm waters.<br /><br />For at least a thousand years before non-Natives came into far northern California, the Wiyot gathered at Tulawat village on what came to be known as Indian Island, often with guests from other tribes, to perform their world renewal ceremonies. In February 1860, a few settlers crossed Humboldt Bay from Eureka and brutally massacred Wiyot women and children, while the men were away gathering supplies to continue the dance. It was one of three coordinated attacks that day that almost wiped out the Wiyot, whose traditional lands spread across some 40 square miles surrounding Humboldt Bay, including the present cities of Eureka and Arcata. The Wiyot have not danced on the island since.<br /><br />Denied federal recognition as a tribe in the 1950s, the Wiyot reorganized at the Table Bluff reservation and regained it in 1990. A few years later, Cheryl Seidner---a direct descendant of the only known survivor of the Indian Island massacre---began an annual candlelight vigil commemorating her ancestors, together with Maryle Rhode, president of the Humboldt County Historical Society, and Peggy Betsels, then pastor of Eureka's United Church of Christ. The February vigils are open to everyone, and soon grew from some 75 people to several hundred, including members of other tribes and non-Natives. So began two journeys: the Wiyot's revival, and efforts at reconciliation between the Wiyot and the non-Native community.<br /><br />In the year 2000, after several years of fundraising, the Wiyot purchased 1.5 acres of Indian Island, the location of Tulawat Village itself. There was some confusion about the legal borders of this purchase, and it was in the process of clarifying them with Eureka city officials that the longstanding discussions leading to the larger land transfer began in earnest. "That was about a year and a half ago,"Cheryl recalls. "But the real hard core stuff, with attorneys and things like that, started around Thanksgiving[2003]."<br /><br />The city of Eureka owns most of Indian Island, except for a few private residences. The 40 acres deeded back include the Wiyot burial grounds and shell midden. The negotiations, Cheryl said, "were all done in good faith. Everybody was working to make sure it was going to come out right." The land is to be developed as a sacred site, and not for commercial or residential purposes. The resulting agreement was presented to the Eureka City Council in May.<br /><br />Maria Tripp (Yurok), chairperson of United Indian Health Services, told the Council, <em>"Every tribe has a center of the world, and Indian Island is the center of the Wiyot world...The healing has begun. The return of this land to the Wiyot people will be an important step in that healing."<br /></em><br />UIHS director Jerry Simone pointed out that their facility in Arcata was called Potawat Village, a Wiyot word for the nearby Mad River. <em>"I strongly believe that this site on Indian Island has as much if not more to do with the healing of the Wiyot than all the health services UHIS can provide."<br /></em><br />Those speaking in support of the resolution included representatives of Mike Thompson, Member of U.S. Congress for the district, and Wesley Chesbro, state Senator for the district; John Wooley, Humboldt County Board of Supervisors; a representative of Roland Richmond, President of Humboldt State University and the vice-president for academic affairs from College of the Redwoods; the Humboldt County superintendent of schools, and Peter Pennecamp, executive director of the Humboldt Area Foundation.<br /><br />Several private citizens also spoke in favor, including Jan Kraepelien, who worked behind the scenes to encourage the transfer. He complimented Eureka City Manager David Tyson. "This simply would not have been possible without his courage, understanding, and patience," Jan said. "He is the very model of a dedicated public servant acting in the best interests of the community."<br /><br />Each member of the City Council present spoke in favor, most with visible emotion. The resolution passed unanimously, and June 25 was set as the date for the official signing. The voluntary transfer of land, especially a sacred site, from a municipality back to its indigenous people, may never have happened in California before. It's safe to say that even in all of North America, it is a rare event.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1100478877599920902005-01-10T21:34:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:35:11.953-07:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/19.jpg"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 1px solid; MARGIN: 2px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 1px solid" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/19.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />approaching Eureka <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1106208717509866092005-01-10T20:09:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:35:34.636-07:00Coming Home: Starting OutSo on the morning of June 25, Cheryl Seidner got ready. She brought a ceremonial basket cap and buckskin shawl to wear, both of them designed and made for her by her sister, Leona Wilkinson. She wore two necklaces. One was made from abalone beads belonging to her grandmother, Hazel James. The other had been made for her several years earlier by Eureka school children. Later she would wear one more-a large dentilium necklace with cobalt blue beads given to the Wiyot tribe that day by the Elk Valley reservation.<br /><br />Julian Lang (Karuk, whose great great grandmother was Wiyot) took on the challenge of developing a meaningful Native component for the transfer event, to be held at the Adorni Center on the Eureka waterfront.<br /><br />He began with the idea of something based on a traditional boat dance. "Not really a boat dance," he said, "but as a model from within our Native cultures that we could use for this event." The crossing of the waters is a journey to the afterlife, and so it links the present and people today with the past and the ancestors on Indian Island. It could also suggest a journey to unity among Native peoples, and reconciliation of all peoples. "It's symbolic, based on our cultural knowledge."<br /><br />Julian began by approaching Walt Lara (Yurok) with the idea. " He said, 'count me in. It's really important, and an Indian presence is incredibly important in this case, especially because we are the dancemaker families, the dancemaker people within our Indian community, and it's our job.' He made it a possibility."<br /><br />Walt Lara would bring the redwood canoe made in the late 1990s, with a grant from the Seventh Generation Fund. Julian hoped for a total of five canoes, including the oldest to still be in use, but most of them were damaged, being repaired or couldn't be properly prepared in time. Richard Myers (Yurok) volunteered a smaller dugout canoe, and the Yurok tribe provided their water marshal boat as an escort. "But ten boats or two boats, it doesn't matter," Julian said. "It's the same thing. It's the way our ceremonies work."<br /><br />Julian consulted others about various elements of the event. "We reached out to include many ceremonial folks from all the tribes, because we are related not by blood but by ceremony. They were inspiring at every stage. Everybody recognized the significance of the event---not as a civic or government to government event, but as a Native American event, bringing together the past and the present in healing. As it got closer, I realized these people were really important people who made it an incredibly big event, full of meaning. It just blossomed. It said, this is who we are today."<br /><br />Cheryl agreed. "It needed to have something to do with who we are, where we are coming from, and what we plan to be doing with our lives from that point forward."<br /><br />Most who became involved were present on Indian Island that morning. After the television crew and reporter from the Associated Press were gone, they gathered for prayer. Then for the first time in 144 years, two redwood canoes left Indian Island. In the larger boat with Cheryl was Walt Lara and his grandson, Walt Lara III, Chris Peters (Pohlik-lah/Karuk), Jessie Sherman (Hupa, Wiyot) and Thomas Wilkinson (Wiyot.) In the smaller boat were Frank Myers, Julian Lang, Skip Lowry(Yurok, Pitt River) and Frank Tuttle (Yuki/Wailaki/Konkow Maidu, who supplied much of the regalia).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1100478516312012122005-01-10T19:28:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:35:57.936-07:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/wicanstand1g.jpg"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 1px solid; MARGIN: 2px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 1px solid" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/wicanstand1g.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />landed at Eureka <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1106209002191982952005-01-10T18:14:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:36:17.296-07:00Coming Home: WelcomeBy the time they paddled across Humboldt Bay it was afternoon. The thin veils of mist hovering near the surface of the water had dissipated. In the deep blue sky only low wisps of white clouds floated in the distance across the forested mountains. It was the first sunny day after weeks of gray summer clouds. The waters were calm.<br /><br />In fact, the boats made surprising progress. "We didn't know how easy it was going to be," Julian Lang said. "We thought it was going to be really hard, but those canoes just took to the water. So we were half an hour early."<br /><br />They also put in at a different dock than many on shore expected. When the canoes glided past the place where the crowd had gathered, many ran along the shore to the right dock, getting doused by the Adorni Center sprinklers.<br /><br />Cheryl was then escorted to the building by a group of young women from the various tribes, in traditional regalia. They sang a welcoming song. Peter La Vallee, the Mayor of Eureka also welcomed Cheryl, and Julian Lang spoke briefly. "People have come here today from the Hupa tribe, the Yurok tribe, the Karuk tribe, the Tolowa tribe as well as the Wiyot tribe---all these different tribes are represented because we are one kind of people: we are 'fix the earth' people. That's our job as human beings." (As Julian noted later, these were also the tribes most likely to have sent participants to the Wiyot "world renewal" ceremony on Indian Island, even when it was last held the night before the massacre.)<br /><br />There were Indian representatives from other places as well. Cheryl said later that she had been particularly impressed by the delegation from the Redding Rancheria. "I found that very heartening that they came from a couple of counties away," she said.<br /><br />Before everyone went into the building, Julian had the crowd repeat the Wiyot name for Eureka: CuruCiCi.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1100478107522596742005-01-10T17:21:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:36:52.250-07:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/wiycrowd1g.jpg"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 1px solid; MARGIN: 2px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 1px solid" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/wiycrowd1g.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />the crowd gathers <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1106209205764036672005-01-10T16:18:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:38:03.682-07:00Coming Home: Everyone in this roomOnce inside the auditorium that doubles as a basketball court, it became apparent that quite a few people had come to witness the signing: judging from the overflow, probably 500, and maybe more.
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<br />The Mayor of Eureka, Peter La Vallee, spoke first. "I am honored and humbled," he said. He acknowledged the wrongs done by Eureka citizens in the past. "There is a time and a place to do the decent thing, the right thing," he said, "and that time and place is right now, right here."
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<br />Cheryl began by welcoming everyone from the four directions. "I want to welcome you to Wiyot country," she said. "We are coming home to our island. In 1860 people did not see fit for us to live. But this City Council, they beg to differ. They said, come, let us be together. And the Wiyot said, this is what we want..." She spoke of the Wiyots' desire to have all 175 acres of the island back eventually. "Today we get part of our island back... Each generation said we want it back. Each generation learned something new about the island, and each generation got closer..."
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<br />She said that it took many generations, all the tribes and many people of Eureka to make it happen. "It took everyone in this room, and more. We are grateful." After saying a prayer in the Wiyot language she repeated it in English. "We thank you for our differences and our different ways. We thank you for the Wiyot people who are coming back, who are coming back to life, CuruCiCi. It's been a long day coming."
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<br />The agenda for the rest of the event was short, with a few Eureka officials and government representatives, including state representative Patty Berg, scheduled to speak. But a spontaneous decision to bring forward some of those who worked with Julian to assemble the events outside led to a continued Indian presence in the proceedings.
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9147537.post-1100477736093189262005-01-10T15:15:00.000-08:002009-07-13T23:38:47.136-07:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/640/6.jpg"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 1px solid; MARGIN: 2px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 1px solid" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/68/1600/400/6.jpg" border="0" /></a>
<br />Walt Lara (Yurok), Peter La Valee <a href="http://www.hello.com/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px" alt="Posted by Hello" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbh.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" /></a>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0