October 28, 2002
By KIM BACA
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
YOSEMITE -- Recognizing the historic claims that American Indians have on the jewel of the National Park Service, federal officials have included some descendants of the Yosemite Valley's indigenous people as overseers of the $441 million plan to preserve the area's natural beauty.
The park service also is working with descendants of Chief Tenaya, whose tribe lived in the valley for centuries before white men discovered it in 1850, to build an American Indian Center on the valley floor, not far from Yosemite Falls.
The 15-year agreement with the American Indian Council of Mariposa County, which is partly made up of Southern Sierra Mewuks, allows them to build the center and a traditional roundhouse on seven acres where some descendants of Tenaya had lived in park service cabins in the 1930s. The tribe will raise funds for construction.
Dave Forgang, curator of the Yosemite museum, is the park's liaison to the Mewuks and other area tribes. He says Indians have a role in overseeing the park's effort to restore the valley's natural beauty by reducing some of the human impacts that have overwhelmed the area.
Chris Brocchini, a Southern Sierra Mewuk who is overseeing an archaeological survey, said he doesn't see Yosemite Valley construction as destruction because many of the items found will be stored. Instead, he's glad that the federal government has included area tribes in the planning, something hardly done in the past.
But not all American Indians have endorsed the plan.
Joe Rhoan, a Southern Sierra Mewuk, has lobbied against the center and opposes any development in the valley.
He said the efforts will mean more destruction of ancient sites.
Park officials broke ground this summer on the first phase of the restoration plan, which includes relocating garbage bins and a restroom. The entire plan, which could take 15 years to complete, includes removing parking spaces, cutting campsites and reducing employee housing, which park officials say is an effort to preserve and restore areas destroyed when the Merced River flooded in 1997.
"By doing this groundbreaking, it's destroying a culture that has been there. The park service looks at this as a thing of preservation, but it's a thing of desecration," said Rhoan, lamenting that much of his people's culture was already lost when parts of the valley floor were paved over, hotels were built and parking lots constructed.
"That's basically an area where our people have lived and died," said Rhoan.
Yosemite Valley was a hidden paradise well into the 19th century, unknown to all but Indians even after the Gold Rush began transforming the West.
The indigenous people who lived here, Mewuks, called the valley with sheer rock walls, a cascading waterfall and a pristine river "Ahwahnee," meaning "place of the gaping mouth."
They called themselves "Ahwahneechee," meaning the people of that place.
Their lives changed forever in 1850. After a group of Indians raided a Fresno store and killed several white men, the Ahwahneechee were rounded up and led out of their valley. Word of its beauty immediately attracted white travelers, and within a few years it was a tourist spot.
Amy Rhoan, 92, attended Sunday's protest. She said her grandmother and mother were among those removed from the park.
"I don't like it," she said of the renovations. "We've lived here a long time. Now they're just digging everything up."
The park was named Yosemite by white travelers, who heard the Mewuks describe neighboring Paiutes as "Yohemite," meaning "some of them are killers."
Tenaya refused to leave the valley in 1851 and hid out in the Sierra when a battalion was sent to subdue and remove him to a reservation near Fresno. Eventually, he returned to the valley, where his family, for a time, became a tourist attraction.
Under federal law, archaeologists are required to consult with area tribes and survey a site before construction on federal land.
If any funerary objects or human remains are found, tribes are notified and Indians decide what to do with the objects.
About 20 Indians, most of them descendants of Tenaya, showed up Sunday to protest a dig near Yosemite Falls.
"As grandchildren of Tenaya, we should have a say," said Les-lie VanMeter, 48, of Mariposa. "They wouldn't think it was very funny if they dug up Galen Clark."
Clark, considered the first "Guardian of Yosemite," lobbied to secure state park status for Yosemite in 1864. His body is buried in the park.
Jim Nelson, a senior archaeologist with URS, the company hired by the park service to do excavations, said that while he understands the concerns of some Indians, what they're doing now is preserving what's left and trying learn about the people who lived here.
"You take things apart to learn about the past," Nelson said.
"That can be construed as a negative thing, but we wouldn't know how Native Americans lived if sites were never dug or never studied. We wouldn't be able to reconstruct their lifestyles."