Challenging Colonialism

Episode 9 explores the ways in which colonialism and colonial collections have impacted the development of archives, and the restrictions of these spaces. We follow the stories of Indigenous scholars who have worked to reclaim Indigenous knowledge, songs, and documents from archival collections. We also explore questions of data sovereignty, digital sovereignty, and intellectual property rights.

As discussed throughout Season 2, colonial extraction and collections have resulted in the theft of Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous bodies, and so much more. Previous episodes have explored issues of 'salvage anthropology' and repatriation. This episode shifts the focus to efforts to reclaim Indigenous knowledge, whether that be in the form of songs, wax cylinders, documents, letters, or other forms stored in colonial archives.

The speakers in this episode include:

Dr. Robin R. R. Gray (Ts’msyen/Cree)

Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva)

Carolyn Rodriguez (Amah Mutsun)

Sedonna Goeman-Shulsky (Tonawanda Band of Seneca)

Links for further reading:

"Cahuilla Basket Returns Home," by Emily Clarke, August 12, 2022, in News from Native California.

CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance

GIDA, Global Indigenous Data Alliance: Promoting Indigenous Control of Indigenous Data

Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance: Research, Policy, and Practice for Indigenous Data Sovereignty

"Indigenous Digital Sovereignty: From the Digital Divide to Digital Equity," by Davida Delmar, Jul 19, 2023

"Ts'msyen Revolution: The Poetics and Politics of Reclaiming," Robin R.R. Gray Dissertation.

Dr. Robin Gray: “Embodied Heritage: Enactments of Indigenous Sovereignty” (video)

"Toypurina: Our Lady of Sorrows," Weshoyot Alvitre, Kickstarter

Theft Is Property! Dispossession and Critical Theory, Robert Nichols

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales. The title of this episode comes from Dr. Robin Gray.

Episode 8 features an interview with Marion Martinez and her daughter, Veronica, both of whom are members of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. They will be speaking about Marion’s great grandmother, Ascencion Solorsano de Cervantes, and mother, Martha Herrerra. Ascencion, who passed away in 1930, was the last fluent Mutsun speaker and one of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band’s beloved ancestors.

In 1929, Ascencion spent three months with Ethnographer and linguist John Peabody Harrington, who recorded thousands of pages of notes on Mutsun language, culture and history. Today, Marion, Veronica, and many other Amah Mutsun Tribal members draw on these important notes to learn about their ancestors. This season we have featured a series of stories about ’salvage anthropology’ and the damage done by scholars and activists towards Indigenous communities. This story helps show the complexity of this history, and ways in which contemporary Indigenous community members can sometimes draw on these records in important ways.

The speakers in this episode are: Veronica Martinez & Marion Martinez, both Amah Mutsun, interviewed by Martin Rizzo-Martinez.

Links for further reading:

Maria Ascención Solórsano (de Garcia y de Cervantes), Ed Ketchum, Amah Mutsun Tribal Historian (and descendant of Ascención)

The Long Journey to Revitalize a Native Language, University of Arizona News, Feb. 16, 2016

Reviving deep-rooted knowledge, Lisa Renner, UCSC NewsCenter, November 23, 2021

The Amah Mutsun's Battle to Preserve, Mark R. Day, ICT News, Sept 13, 2018

The Saint of Gilroy who helped save her culture and language, Robert Eliason, Benito Link, January 23, 2021

A Native American's Last Testament: Opera, Sasha Khokha, NPR Music, March 29, 2008

Ohlone/Costanoan Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and their Neighbors, Yesterday and Today, Randall Milliken, Laurence H. Shoup, and Beverly R. Ortiz, 2009

Chasing Voices: The Story of John Peabody Harrington (documentary), PBS

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales.

Episode 7 [1:37:47] explores the complexities of what is known as Federal Recognition, and the Federal Recognition Process, which relate to Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. This is an extremely complex topic, especially in relation to Native Californian Tribes. Our guests, Dr. Olivia Chilcote (a member of the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians), and Dr. Vanessa Esquivido (an enrolled member of the Nor Rel Muk Wintu Nation, who is also Hupa & Xicana), both have expertise in the process as it relates to their Tribes' attempts to achieve Federal Recognition. And yet, this conversation just scratches the surface of this complex topic.

In this episode, we depart from our usual format. This episode features a conversation about Federal Recognition between Dr. Chilcote and Dr. Esquivido, facilitated by our co-producer Dr. Martin Rizzo-Martinez and lightly edited by Daniel Stonebloom. Music by G. Gonzales.

For additional information on Federal Recognition, please see the following:

Dr. Olivia Chilcote's new book Unrecognized in California: Federal Acknowledgment and the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians is now available for pre-order!

The Process and The People: Federal Recognition in California, Native American Identity, and the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians, 2017 Dissertation by Olivia Chilcote

“Time Out of Mind”: The San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians and the Historical Origins of a Struggle for Federal Recognition, by Olivia Chilcote, California History Journal 2019.

"Unsettling evidence: an anticolonial archival approach/reproach to Federal Recognition," by María Montenegro, 2019.

"The Destruction of Identity: Cultural Genocide and Indigenous Peoples," by Lindsay Kingston, 2015.

"Creating the Space to Reimagine and Rematriate Beyond a Settler-Colonial Present: The Importance of Land Rematriation and ‘Land Back’ for Non-Federally Recognized California Native Nations," 2022 Dissertation by Cheyenne Reynoso.

"The study of indigenous political economies and colonialism in Native California: Implications for contemporary tribal groups and federal recognition,” by Kent G. Lightfoot, Lee M. Panich, Tsim D. Schneider, Sara L. Gonzalez, Matthew A Russell, Darren Modzelewski, Theresa Molino, and Elliot H. Blair, 2013.

The final part in this 3-episode series continues our focus on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), where we focus on CalNAGPRA, California’s effort to strengthen NAGPRA, as well as other steps taken to improve and refine this difficult process. But we will also hear about resistance to following through on the promises of NAGPRA as well, and hear a few longer personal narratives than in previous episodes, including all-too-rare success stories of repatriation.

As always, thank you to the guests who gave their time and shared their stories:

Dr. Brittani Orona

Sabine Talaugon

Desireé Martinez

Dr. Vanessa Esquivido

Gregg Castro

Cindi Alvitre

Alexii Sigona

For further reading and more information:

The Social Life of Basket Caps: Repatriation Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, in Hopes of Cultural Revitalization, Vanessa Esquivido

How to Report on the Repatriation of Native American Remains at Museums and Universities Near You, Pro Publica, February 2023.

Righting Historic Wrongs

Ceremony memorializes reburial of indigenous people’s remains at Cal State Long Beach, Press Telegram, September 2016.

Reburying the Past, September 2016.

After 70 Years, UC Berkeley Museum Returns Massacre Remains to Wiyot Tribe, February, 2022.

U.S. Army Corps, UC Berkeley Repatriate Human Remains to Wiyot Tribe, North Coast Journal of Politics, People & Art, January 2022.

UC Berkeley Anthropology Museum Returns 1860 Massacre Remains To Wiyot Tribe

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales. The title of this episode comes from Dr. Anthony Burris.

This podcast is produced with support from California State Parks Foundation

Part 2 in this 3-episode series continues our broad focus on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). As always, thank you to the guests who gave their time and shared their stories. This episode includes significant discussion of how ancestral remains, funerary objects, sacred items, and objects of cultural patrimony have been collected in the past, continue to be disturbed in the present, as well as the process of repatriation and reburial. This is an extremely sensitive topic, but a very important one that deals with basic human rights and respect, or the lack thereof, and we want to make this clear up front. This topic understandably may be triggering for some. You will hear people discussing in detail the ways in which their ancestors’ bodies have been and continue to be mistreated. Please take care while listening.

Speakers:

Gregg Castro

Sabine Talaugon

Dr. Brittani Orona

Dr. Anthony Burris

Dr. Vanessa Esquivido

Cindi Alvitre

Desireé Martinez

Additional Reading:

To share Native American culture and history the right way, artifacts should always be returned to tribes, San Diego Union Tribune, November 2022

UCSB out of compliance with state, federal laws for decades; works to return Native remains, Daily Nexus, March 2023

How to Report on the Repatriation of Native American Remains at Museums and Universities Near You, Pro Publica, February 2023.

UC Riverside slow to return Native American artifacts to tribes audit

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales. The title of this episode comes from Brittani Orona.

This podcast is produced with support from California State Parks Foundation.

Part 1 in this 3-episode series focuses on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). As always, thank you to the guests who gave their time and shared their stories. This episode includes significant discussion of how ancestral remains, funerary objects, sacred items, and objects of cultural patrimony have been collected in the past, continue to be disturbed in the present, as well as the process of repatriation and reburial. This is an extremely sensitive topic, but a very important one that deals with basic human rights and respect, or the lack thereof, and we want to make this clear up front. This topic understandably may be triggering for some. You will hear people discussing in detail the ways in which their ancestors’ bodies have been and continue to be mistreated. Please take care while listening.

Speakers:

Sabine Talaugon

Dr. Brittani Orona

Cindi Alvitre

Dr. Vanessa Esquivido

Dr. Anthony Burris

Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy

Dr. Desireé Martinez

Alexii Sigona

Additional Reading:

"Continued Disembodiment: NAGPRA, CAL NAGPRA, and Recognition” by Brittani Orona and Vanessa Esquivido

Propublica database for institutions holding human remains or burial artifacts

Our Story Lives Forever [documentary short by Sacred Lands Films]

Carrying Our Ancestors Home website: https://www.coah-repat.com/

“Returning the tataayiyam honuuka' (Ancestors) to the Correct Home: The Importance of Background Investigations for NAGPRA Claims,” by Desireé R. Martinez, Wendy G. Teeter, Karimah Kennedy-Richardson

“The Politics of Archaeology: Diverse Concerns and Interests at the West Bluffs Project, Los Angeles, California,” by John G. Douglass, Cindi Alvitre, and, Jeffrey H. Altschul

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales. The title of this episode comes from Cindi Alvitre.

This podcast is produced with support from California State Parks Foundation.

Episode 3 continues and deepens our critique of academia's extractive and complex relationship with Native California by examining the history of one of California’s most renowned and celebrated anthropologists, Alfred L. Kroeber. Kroeber helped establish the school of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, and, up until 2021, his name adorned UC Berkeley’s Kroeber Hall. This episode examines Kroeber & his legacy, the life of a Native man known as Ishi, and the renaming of Kroeber hall, from the perspectives of Indigenous Californians.

Speakers:

Dr. Cutcha Risling-Baldy (Hupa, Yurok, Karuk)

Dr. Brittani Orona (Hoopa Valley Tribe)

Mark Hylkema

Dr. Samuel J. Redman

Cindi Alvitre (Tongva, co-founder of the Ti'at Society)

Alexii Sigona (Amah Mutsun Tribal Band)

Dr. Vanessa Esquivido (Nor Rel Muk Wintu, also Hupa and Xicana)

Additional reading:

We are Dancing for You, by Cutcha Risling Baldy

Ishi's Brain: In Search of Americas Last "Wild" Indian, by Orin Starn

“Alfred Kroeber’s Handbook and Land Claims: Anthros, Agents, and Federal (Un)Acknowledgment in Native California,” by Nicholas Barron

A Top UC Berkeley Professor Taught With Remains That May Include Dozens of Native Americans, ProPublica article, March 5th, 2023.

Alfred Kroeber and his Relations with California Indians, by Dr. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, July 24, 2020.

Grave robbing at UC Berkeley: A history of failed repatriation, Sage Alexander, December 5, 2020.

L.A. Times Editorial: ​​The real way UC Berkeley can make up for disrespect toward Native Americans, January 31, 2021.

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales.

This podcast is produced with support from California State Parks Foundation.

Episode 2 follows the introductory episode with a deeper dive into Salvage Anthropology and its origins. Academic study of Indigenous cultures in California trace back to scholars such as Franz Boas and Aleš Hrdlička. They were both proponents of what was called ‘Salvage Anthropology’ - the belief that Indigenous communities were dying and making way for modern society. These beliefs were built upon problematic eurocentric ideas of culture and value. And, at the same time, the recordings and interviews of these early scholars are today helping some Indigenous communities reconnect with ancestral knowledge and insights. This episode delves into this complicated history.

Speakers:

Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy (Hupa, Yurok, Karuk)

Dr. Samuel J Redman

Cindi Alvitre (Tongva)

Dr. Robin R. R. Gray (Ts’msyen/Cree)

Mark Hylkema

Interviews conducted by Martin Rizzo-Martinez; music by G.Gonzales; audio production by Daniel Stonebloom

This podcast is supported by California State Parks Foundation

Resources for more information:

Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology

Samuel J. Redman

Archaeologies of Indigenous Presence

Edited by Tsim D. Schneider and Lee M. Panich

Community-Based Archaeology: Research with, by, and for Indigenous and Local Communities

by Sonya Atalay

“Towards an Analytic of Survivance in California Archaeology”

Nate Acebo and Desireé Reneé Martinez

Collaborating at the Trowel's Edge: Teaching and Learning in Indigenous Archaeology

Stephen W. Silliman

Overcoming Hindrances to Our Enduring Responsibility to the Ancestors Protecting Traditional Cultural Places

Desireé Reneé Martinez (Tongva)

Yanomami: The Fierce Controversy and What We Can Learn from It

by Rob Borofsky

There is a long legacy of extractive and exploitative relationships in academic study of Indigenous California, seen clearly in the origins of the fields of anthropology, ethnography, & archaeology. These unethical relationships have resulted in colonial collections of Indigenous ancestral remains, funerary objects, songs and ceremonies, and Indigenous knowledge and wisdom, much which still has not been returned to Indigenous communities. This opening episode of Season 2 of Challenging Colonialism offers an overview of this history, helping shed light on why many Native Californians have understandable concerns about working with academics.

Speakers:

Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy (Hupa, Yurok, Karuk), The Honorable Ron W. Goode (Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono Tribe), Dr. Robin R. R. Gray (Ts’msyen/Cree), Cindi Alvitre (Tongva, co-founder of the Ti'at Society), Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash), Gregg Castro (t'rowt'raahl Salinan / Rumsien & Ramaytush Ohlone), Mark Hylkema, Maia Posten

Audio editing: Daniel Stonebloom

Interviews: Martin Rizzo-Martinez

Music: G. Gonzales

The title for this episode, Illicit Acquisitions, comes from our interview with Cindi Alvitre.

Links & Further Reading:

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

“Archaeology and Social Justice in Native America” By Nicholas C. Laluk , Lindsay M. Montgomery, Rebecca Tsosie, Christine McCleave, Rose Miron, Stephanie Russo Carroll, Joseph Aguilar, Ashleigh Big Wolf Thompson, Peter Nelson, Jun Sunseri, Isabel Trujillo, Georgeann M. Deantoni, Gregg Castro, and Tsim Schneider

We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming-of-Age Ceremonies By Cutcha Risling Baldy

Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, And The Battle For Native American Identity by David Hurst Thomas, Foreword by Vine Deloria Jr.

Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums Samuel J. Redman

Supported by California State Parks Foundation

Episode 1 will provide an overview of the themes we’ll cover in Season 2. We’re excited to share what we’ve been learning about anthropology, museum collections, archeology, intellectual property, rematriation, and more. You’ll hear about extractive colonial collections from Native Californians who are Challenging Colonialism in California and beyond.