Can you share a bit about your tribal background and how that informs your identity as it relates to the environment/and or land?
I am a citizen of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation. Our membership includes people whose traditional territory roughly covers portions of the Central Coast Tri-counties of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties and some of LA county. We are second only to the Santa Ynez Band of Mission Indians in terms of our founding, having incorporated in 1980. We are among 50 so-called “state tribes” in California that, by the vagaries of history and politics, were left without recognition by the federal government.
Most people are not informed about the history of California Indians, so I recommend some reading. Decent interpretations are difficult to find. One fairly good book is We Are the Land: A History of Native California (by DB Akins and WJ Bauer). The American education system offers practically nothing about the earliest people of California, but it is impossible to understand the tribal background of any California indigenous community without historical context.
Modern scholars have lately developed a historical interpretation called “settler-colonialism” to identify the political-social-economic impacts on indigenous peoples, which would include the Spanish-Mexican-American occupation of California. It has been a long-established fact that a virtual holocaust of Indigenous people occurred in this beautiful and resource-rich state.
Estimates vary, but starting from first contact until the US census in 1880, California’s Native population declined from an estimated population of 310,000 to only 16,277. That’s about a 95% loss. This was due to disease, warfare and government neglect. The few treaties that were ever negotiated in the 1850s were wrongfully left unratified by the U.S. Senate, and that’s had serious consequences unto present day. (See An American Genocide: the US and the California Indian Catastrophe by Ben Madley). Therefore, every single, surviving indigenous community and family is at varying degrees of recovery and revival.
I mention this because my own family and everyone in my tribe are attempting to recover from these devastating impacts. Some are lost to assimilation.
Also, it is important to understand that our very identity as indigenous people is often called into question, as the historical records are incomplete and sometimes inaccurate. This is true on the family level as well as the tribal and community level. While helpful, mission records, anthropological studies, and government data are incomplete and not without gaps and errors. Tribal groups were oppressed, reduced, and diminished in every way possible and became invisible if they survived at all.
There are family stories about our grandfather, Pacifico Gallego, and his family, dating from the 1840’s who lived during the tumultuous period of transition from Mexican to American colonization and when federally funded, state-sponsored militias or death squads roamed and compelled many Indians to go underground or to serve as indentured-slave labor, just to survive.
All of this is to say that when my mother, Pilulaw Khus, who was sort of rebellious and headstrong, decided to quit hiding and buck the instinct to conceal our Native roots, I was already an adult and found this sudden revelation to be utterly fascinating. I have been on a long path to recover my Native roots ever since.
From the beginning, the common denominator for my family and my tribe has been identifying, reclaiming and protecting both our sacred sites and our natural world, our lands, our waters, and all of our indigenous plants and animals. These are “our relations”, and they are as close to me as my own human family, celebrated and honored in our songs, stories, and spirituality.
How do you see the role of tribal sovereignty in addressing these challenges?
It is important for people to understand that Native Californians have lived here for at least 500 generations. Over a period of time spanning around 15,000 years, millions of people were born, lived their lives, died and were buried here. We see the physical evidence of their presence with archeological sites that cover practically every corner of the present-day Tri-counties of the Central Coast from the Carrizo Plain, to Lisamu (Morro Bay), to the Guadalupe Dunes and everywhere between.
Fortunately, but only recently, the state government promulgated laws and regulations that provide a greater level of protection to what they call “cultural resources”, which also include certain natural resources that Chumash people have traditionally used for our material and spiritual needs. Permits for development now require closer scrutiny and must meet higher standards as they relate to the protection and preservation of all these cultural resources.
It’s not bulletproof or absolute. We can still only “consult” and make recommendations. However, when the Native community asserts its aboriginal and sovereign claims against the destruction of our cultural resources, it may also create the benefit or secondary effect of protecting our lands and waters from pollution, and habitat and wildlife loss.
There have been many places where this happy union of interests has been used to blunt some of the negative impacts of development. One, recent example of note: local tribal groups, including CBCN have led the campaign for the designation of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, in alliance with environmental organizations at the local and national levels. Working together, and using modern communications and networking technologies, we produced a first rate public relations strategy to generate support and overwhelming favorable public comments to persuade NOAA and political leaders that the Central Coast deserved a new marine sanctuary. People viewed videos, followed social media, and watched Native leaders directly appeal for their support while reminding them that a sanctuary is beneficial to their own health and the long-term well-being of their families and communities. Final tallies showed that over 98% of public comments submitted to NOAA from 110,000 people were in support of a new sanctuary!
The synergy generated for environmental initiatives when Native people help to lead are astounding. This is because when tribes lead–who are not perceived as having commercial motivations or similar conflicts of interest–people respond.
You ask about the employment of tribal sovereignty for environmental issues. One way is for Native people to use—in ceremony and traditional practices—their sacred sites, their lands and waters. This may happen on public or private lands. Easements or MOUs for ceremonial or cultural purposes can help Native communities re-establish their ties to their traditional lands, and help them to revive their traditions.
When Native people are empowered to resume their direct relationship with their lands, good things can happen, such as the new Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.
What are some ways that non-Native people can be better allies to Native communities?
There are over 50 California tribes that do not have the status of federal recognition (the so-called “state tribes”), including CBCN and several Chumash and Salinan tribes in SLO county. We need your help and support if we are to continue to be a strong voice for the environment because Assembly Bill 52 in the California legislature would effectively strip these tribes of their right to speak up to protect their cultural resources.
State agencies, such as Cal-Trans and State Parks, for example, would be instructed to consult only with federally recognized tribes. Developers could ignore local tribes who ask for protection of cultural and natural resources. It is notable that there is only one federally recognized tribe between Los Angeles and San Francisco, thus leaving a huge stretch of Central California without native voices for conservation, should AB-52 become law. This is a travesty of justice and so unfair to many tribes like CBCN, that for decades have protected the environment and demonstrated strong, effective and reliable alliances with environmental groups. Please contact your local state legislators and urge them to stop AB-52.
Let me outline some other ideas, then I can further expand upon them below:
- Include Native communities in the environmental organizations to which you belong, perhaps with advisory committees or periodic joint meetings.
- Be mindful of the presence of cultural resources in projects that you may hear about or that your organization chooses to engage and communicate findings to local tribes.
- Educate yourself about the history and culture of California Indian people and support similar educational and cultural programs.
- Do not allow differences among tribal groups dissuade you from working with them. Like all people everywhere, we are diverse and consist of various groups with dissimilar ideas.
Including tribal representatives and leaders in the regular operation of your organizations opens the door to new possibilities and projects, while showing due respect to them. Land acknowledgments are nice, but not enough. It is important also to understand that two-thirds of California Indians do not belong to federally recognized tribes, they have few resources and many tribal groups remain dispossessed of lands to live on, are under-resourced, dependent upon volunteer leadership and have minimal capacity to engage in public affairs. They may need support in order to boost their operating capacity.
While the state Native American Heritage Commission keeps a contact list of tribes to notify when development projects might threaten their cultural resources, there’s nothing like old-fashion, eyeballs and boots on the ground to keep tabs on local developments. If something looks suspicious, it’s “see something, then say something.” Make a call or send an email to local Native representatives and to the State Native American Heritage Commission.
It is shameful that the level of education among the public about Native California history and culture is so low. When people do learn about indigenous people, they learn about the values and practices that sustain our natural world. Science education is not enough and can even be counter-productive if students do not also learn that science should be directed to value, conserve and restore our natural world.
A ray of hope comes from the recent adaptation of the new high school requirement for “American Cultures” (or Ethnic Studies), that has an American Indian component. Encourage local high schools–students and teachers–to engage with local Native people to make this a meaningful curriculum.
Also, since many native people need financial support, I encourage the public to attend local pow-wows, art shows, and the like to support Indigenous artists and crafts-makers, whose creativity reflects their love of the environment.
Finally, how should one respond to inter-tribal contention and conflict?
Patience. Grace. Perseverance. Most California Native communities are still struggling to survive. Naturally, given the decimation and fracturing of their original and traditional infrastructures and given how under-resourced they are, tribal groups may not always communicate in timely ways.
Unfortunately, there is unproductive competition and rivalry among some native people. Some are contentious over scarce resources, jobs, contracts, or status. There is also concern that some individuals and tribal groups are not genuinely Indigenous, and this becomes an issue that leaves outsiders confused and unsure about how to proceed. AB-52 is a by-product of this issue. Native identity squabbles serve to benefit those who would take advantage of inter-tribal divisions to the detriment of sound environmental and cultural resource policies.
So, avoid taking sides and encourage cooperation, help establish and keep lines of communication open and always model the benefits of working together.
What does it mean to you to celebrate Native American Heritage Month?
My day job was a high school social science teacher, something that I did for over 30 years. By training, I have an inclination to consider things from a professional educational and learning perspective. So, Native American Heritage Month should be about exchanging knowledge and information.
Most Americans do not have any understanding of the indigenous history or people who still inhabit the land where they now live, or they may only think in stereotypical terms about Native people. We’re still here and we’re not artifacts from the past. This celebratory time should be when people meet people as they are, mindful of the past but anxious to explore ways that they can work together for the benefit of our life-giving Hutash or Mother Earth.
About Michael
Michael Khus-zarate is a traditional Elder of the Northern Chumash Bear Clan and a board member of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation. Michael can trace his Indigenous ancestry to the early Spanish colonial mission era, ancestors who have inhabited this land for 500 generations.
As a practicing spiritual traditionalist, he has responsibilities passed down from his late mother, Pilulaw Khus. As part of these responsibilities and as a tribal leader, Michael has advocated for the protection of sacred sites since the 1970s, including Humqaq or Pt. Concepcion, Whales Cave in Avila, Lisamu or Morro Rock, and the Painted Rock on the Carrizo Plain. Most recently, Michael has served as a senior advisor for the successful campaign to designate the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.
Michael is Chairman and a founding member of the Carrizo Plain National Monument’s Native American Advisory Council. For the past 30 years or so, Bear Clan has conducted the Summer Solstice ceremony at the Painted Rock. Michael is now retired from a 30-year career as a high school social science teacher. He works with his tribe to provide cultural/science camps for youth, including the annual Chumash Heritage and Marine Science Camp, and the Painted Rock Art & Science Camp.