Posted on 10/13/2020 11:26:17 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Monday marks another year celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day
Monday marks another year celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day. There is a rich history of many Native American tribes living on the Central Coast. Felicia Van Stolk, the executive director at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History explained some tribes have been living in the Santa Cruz County area for at least 12,000 years.
"The oldest known village site in California was found near Scotts Valley,” said Van Stolk. “We have some of the oldest records of native people."
That tribe, along with many others Van Stolk said were living in the Awaswas territory, a language spoken by several tribes from Davenport all the way down to Aptos.
"Right where Santa Cruz is there was a tribe called the Uypi tribe,” explained Van Stolk. "Some of them have names that you might recognize like Aptos or Sayanta and Chitactac. So those are all different tribes speaking the same language in the Santa Cruz area."
Van Stolk went on to say tending to the land was an art for these tribes, but it was more than just harvesting crops.
"These cultures stewarded the land by setting intentional fires to open up space by tending to certain plants, removing other plants, and using the cycles of nature and understanding the cycles of nature to have plenty of abundance,” she said.
And life changed when the Santa Cruz mission was built in 1791.
"(They were) taken from their land, taken from that part of their culture and their religion and forced to work in the missions,” said Van Stolk. "This is why we have fewer tribal bands and even fewer languages spoken in California now, is because it didn't matter what tribe you were from, if you were an indigenous person, you were brought to the missions against (your) will."
Many decedents of these tribes, known as Tribal Bands, are still here today.
"People have been here since time (immemorial) is how it's referred to, taking care of the land. I think Indigenous Peoples Day is here to honor that and not erase any part of history but celebrate the fact that indigenous people are here and surviving and reviving their cultures and relearning and connecting with their land,” said Van Stolk.
Van Stolk said one of the ways people can celebrate this day is by supporting your local Tribal Bands.
#29 Have they been traced back further?
Yes, the Wisconsin Cheesehead tribe.
People there still celebrate the tribe by wearing a slice of cheese on their head....
“priests with primitive guns.”
Eh? What do you think went on back then?
There’s a movie about Junipero Serra that I remember being pretty good.
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