danbacher “That campground was my grandfather’s land that they took and never compensated us,” said Caleen Sisk, Winnemem Wintu Tribal Chief and Spiritual Leader. “They can’t even show the papers that show how they got it. And now all we’re asking for in return is four days of peace and dignity for ceremony.”
“It’s not too much to ask for,” she said.
Photo of Chief Caleen Sisk, Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
caleen-prayer-300×200.jpg
On July 6, Dr. Virgil Akins, Superintendent, BIA of Northern California agreed to meet with Winnemem Wintu Tribal Chief and Spiritual Leader, Caleen Sisk, to discuss the issues surrounding a ‘technical correction’ to restore the tribe’s status as a federally recognized tribe.
The tribe lost their recognition due to a bureaucratic error in the mid-80s, and the California State Assembly, through AJR -39, and the California Native American Heritage Commission have long urged the federal government to restore that recognition.
The meeting, scheduled for today, July 11, will end the twenty-four day fast of Chief Sisk and her nephew Arron Sisk, who have sought the BIA’s intervention into the U.S. Forest Service’s inability to protect the Tribe’s recent Coming of Age Ceremony on the McCloud River arm of Shasta Lake.
At previous Coming of Age ceremonies for the tribe’s young women, the Forest Service has only enforced voluntary closures, which many recreational boaters have ignored – leading to well documented racial slurs, harassment, and abusive language (http://vimeo.com/39867112)
For six years, the Tribe has asked the Forest service for a mandatory closure of the area because of the harassment, but Forest Service officials say no law allows them to do it.
After a great deal of public pressure, a mandatory closure of the river was issued this year for ‘safety’ reasons, but the Forest Service said they had no authority to close off the land area to anyone that wished to enter because the tribe was not federally recognized. During past ceremonies the tribe not only suffered harassment from boaters, but also disruptions of the ceremony by fishermen walking through the ceremonial grounds, and curiosity seekers coming into camp.
Because of the Forest Service’s lack of authority to issue a full mandatory closure of the area, Spiritual and Tribal Leader Sisk has been fasting and praying since Monday, June 18th, that the Forest Service, BIA, or whoever has the authority to grant the tribes request for full closure of their ceremonial sites during times of ceremony, come forward and do so.
“That campground was my grandfather’s land that they took and never compensated us. They can’t even show the papers that show how they got it,” Sisk said. “And now all we’re asking for in return is four days of peace and dignity for ceremony.”
“It’s not too much to ask for,” she said.
danbacher “On the final day, the Angry People make their presence known with a thundering powerboat armada, smashing the tranquility of our event, and proving the Truth of our concerns for the safety of our ceremony participants,” said Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Photo by Stormy Staats, Klamath Media.
by Dan Bacher
Winnemem Wintu Tribe members joined with members of other Indian Tribes and environmental activists in multi-colored kayaks and rafts to place a banner over the McCloud River on Lake Shasta proclaiming “River Closed” on Saturday, May 26.
The direct action took place in conjunction with the Tribes’s four-day War Dance (H’up Chonas in the Winnemem language) held from May 24 to May 27 at the site where they have held their Coming of Age ceremonies for thousands of years.
The War Dance signified the tribe’s spiritual commitment to defend at all costs the ceremony from heckling, flashing and other disruptions by recreational boaters that have occurred in previous years.
I arrived at the ceremony just as the banner was being strung up on a cable over the river. Members of the Winnemem, Karuk, Yurok, Hoopa Valley, Pit River, Miwok and other Tribes and activists from Earth First!, Klamath Justice Coalition, Klamath Riverkeeper, Occupy Oakland and the American Indian Movement worked together to erect the banner and to keep boaters from going up the river.
“Where have you been? We’ve been here for 10,000 years,” quipped Gary Mulcahy, Winnemem Wintu leader and organizer of a previous War Dance at Shasta Dam in September 2004, when I arrived. “What took you so long?”
After the closure banner had been in place for over an hour, U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Coast Guard officials demanded that the banner be taken down. To avoid arrests, the Tribal members and activists complied with the request; this was a “practice run” for the upcoming Coming of Age ceremony.
“We have been backed into a corner with no other choice,” said Caleen Sisk, Winnemem Wintu spiritual leader and chief. “We should be preparing for Marisa’s ceremony, setting down prayers, making regalia, getting the dance grounds ready, making sure it happens in a good way. But instead we have to fight simply to protect our young women from drunken harassment.”
“We’re not protesters – we’re not good or skilled activists,” noted Sisk. “We’re a traditional tribe trying to hold a ceremony. We’re thankful for the activists who have come here, some from big distances, to stay here in solidarity with us. This is a great thing.”
At the end of the War Dance on the river on Sunday, there was a massive, apparently orchestrated disturbance that demonstrated the exact reason why a closure of the river to all boating traffic by the Forest Service is so badly needed.
A fleet of 10 boats and jet skis motored through the ceremony at high speeds, flipped off tribal members, did doughnuts near their sacred sites and generally tried to intimidate the teens, elders and young women who made up most of the people left, according to the Tribe.
“On the final day, the Angry People made their presence known with a thundering powerboat armada, smashing the tranquility of our event, and proving the Truth of our concerns for the safety of our ceremony participants,” said Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Supporters of the Tribe posed the question: What other religion would ever face that level of intimidation and fear for simply wanting to hold a spiritual ceremony in peace?
Sisk emphasized that the Forest Service “is not being forthright with the permit process for closing the river for our ceremony. They’re not communicating with us. We found out on Friday during the War Dance that even if we get a permit for the ceremony, there is a different permit process required for closing the river.”
“There is not a very good faith effort on behalf of the Forest Service; they made us believe that the special use permit they said we needed was the process required to close the river. They’re making it up as they go,” she stated.
She said the Coming of Age Ceremony is chosen on a full moon to coincide with the last of the flowers blooming. It was traditionally conducted in the spring, but that it is not possible now because the high lake level now covers up Puberty Rock in the spring.
“The strongest peace is at the time of the full moon,” she noted. “The moon regulates the tides and women’s energy.”
Sisk pointed to a spot in the river now under water as the sun began to set. “That’s where Puberty Rock and the dance ground are,” she said. “We are hoping that the rock and dance ground are out of the water by the time of the ceremony at the end of June.”
This is not the first time that the Tribe has been forced to conduct a War Dance in recent years. In September 2004, the Tribe held a War Dance at Shasta Dam to protest the federal government’s plan to rise the dam, a plan that would inundate Puberty Rock and other sites sacred to the Tribe.
The same federal government that is refusing to close the river for the ceremony is the same one that plans to raise Shasta Dam. “We’ve already been flooded out one time when Shasta Dam was built,” said Sisk. “We won’t be flooded again. If the dam is raised, Puberty Rock will be 25 feet under water.”
Then in April 2009, the Tribe held a two-day War Dance on the banks of the American River in Sacramento to to bring attention to decades of injustice and destruction of their cultural sites by the federal government. Male dancers in traditional feathered headdresses, accompanied by female singers in white dresses, performed the ancient ceremony around a sacred fire to the steady beat of a wooden drum.
After that ceremony, Tribal leaders and their pro bono lawyers filed a lawsuit at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Columbia. The suit against six federal agencies and two current federal agency heads alleged that their actions have resulted in the “destruction or damage” to the Tribe’s sacred cultural sites in Shasta County.
The Tribe was federally recognized until 1985 when a clerical error eliminated the Winnemem from the list of recognized Tribes.
The Tribe has played a leadership role in the battle to restore the Delta and stop the construction of the peripheral canal to export more water to corporate agribusiness and Southern California. The Tribe is now working on an ambitious plan to reintroduce winter run chinook salmon, now thriving in the Rakaira River in New Zealand, to the McCloud River above Shasta Dam.
Here is the video of Sunday’s disturbance at the Winnemem’s ceremony. Please share and take action for the rights of indigenous people to hold ceremony in peace and dignity: http://youtu.be/nW9WClzC5Og/
Please contact the US Forest Service, and anyone else you think could make a difference, to tell them to allow a closure of the river for their Coming of Age ceremonies:
Randy Moore, Regional Forester
707-562-8737
rmoore [at] fs.fed.us
For more information, go to the following links:
Press Release: War Dance Scheduled for May 24-May 27
http://www.winnememwintu.us/2012/05/21/press-release-war-dance/
Photos from Winnemem Wintu May 26th War Dance
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79496947@N04/sets/72157629929809948/with/7284846044/
Video:
Day 1 — War Dance for Safe Coming of Age Ceremony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Boa2gmLQcA&feature=relmfu
Day 2 — War Dance for Safe Coming of Age Ceremony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGB2CthnwKA&feature=relmfu
Day 3 — War Dance for Safe Coming of Age Ceremony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=927rV2BO7T4&feature=relmfu
Day 4 — War Dance for Peaceful Coming of Age Ceremony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW9WClzC5Og
Boats Close River For Winnemem Wintu Ceremony – May 26 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPBHbxkVf1o&feature=plcp
Media Coverage
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/25/MNJE1OLUPQ.DTL
http://www.redding.com/photos/galleries/2012/may/28/winnemem-wintu-war-dance/20879/
http://www.krcrtv.com/news/31114827/detail.html
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/05/21/18713874.php
danbacher “We have been backed into a corner with no other choice. We should be preparing for Marisa’s ceremony, setting down prayers, making regalia, getting the dance grounds ready, making sure it happens in a good way,” said Caleen Sisk, spiritual leader and chief. “But instead we have to fight simply to protect our young women from drunken harassment.”
Photo of Caleen Sisk (speaking) and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe at a protest at the U.S. Forest Service office in Vallejo on April 16 by Dan Bacher.
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For Immediate Release: May 21, 2012
For more information:
Caleen Sisk, Spiritual Leader and Tribal Chief: 530-710-4817
Michael Preston: 510-926-1513
Jeanne France: 530-472-1050
Winnemem Wintu Tribe needs 4-day closure of 400-yard section of McCloud River to Perform Girls’ Traditional Coming of Age Ceremony
Redding, CA – The Winnemem Wintu Tribe will hold a four-day War Dance (H’up Chonas in Winnemem) May 24-27 at the McCloud River site where they hold their Coming of Age ceremonies.
The War Dance signifies the tribe’s spiritual commitment to defend at all costs the ceremony from heckling, flashing and violating disruptions by recreational boaters that have occurred in previous years.
“We have been backed into a corner with no other choice. We should be preparing for Marisa’s ceremony, setting down prayers, making regalia, getting the dance grounds ready, making sure it happens in a good way,” said Caleen Sisk, spiritual leader and chief. “But instead we have to fight simply to protect our young women from drunken harassment.”
More than 400 volunteers from throughout the country, native and non-native, are expected to converge upon the sacred sites to help the tribe close the river and protect the War Dance from interference by boaters.
The ceremony will begin Thursday with the light of the sacred fire and an opening dance. On Friday and Saturday, the Tribe and volunteers will blockade a 400-yard stretch of the river. These will be the best days for media to attend.
“We hope the blockade will let the Forest Service know that boats don’t belong in ceremony and that we will do it ourselves if they won’t take the appropriate measures to protect our young women’s ceremonies,” said Sisk.
The tribe has contacted the U.S. Forest Service to arrange a discussion with officials to let them know what to expect and to ensure that everyone will be safe and have their rights respected. The tribe will have lawyers, legal observers, videographers, and the media present at all times during the War Dance and other activities.
The Tribe hopes the War Dance will convince the U.S. Forest Service to implement a mandatory river closure for 16-year-old Marisa Sisk’s Coming of Age ceremony, a traditional rite that is vital to the tribe’s social fabric.
The ceremony lasts four days, and takes place at the McCloud Bridge campground, which is within the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The site was once a Winnemem village, Kaibai, and is home to numerous sacred sites vital to the ceremony.
At the tribe’s ceremonies in 2006 and 2010, the Forest Service enforced only a voluntary river closure, which led to drunken recreational boaters heckling the young Winnemem women and other tribal members with shouts of “It’s our river too, dude!” or “Fat Indians.”
One woman flashed her naked breasts at the Tribe, and another boater dumped cremated ashes into the river shortly before a ceremonial swim.
For six years, the tribe has unsuccessfully worked with Shasta-Trinity Forest officials to secure a mandatory closure of the 400 yards river necessary for the ceremony. It is not a thoroughfare. Access for the general public dead-ends at the north end of the site, which is private property.
On April 16, the Winnemem Wintu held a direct action event at the Vallejo office of Regional Forester Randy Moore, asking him to take action and close the river using his professional discretion. The tribe gave Moore a May 1 deadline to respond to their request, but he has never contacted the tribe.
U.S. Forest Service officials say that laws that would allow for a mandatory river closure for American Indian ceremonies – the 2008 Farm Bill and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act – do not apply to the Winnemem because they are not federally recognized.
The Winnemem were federally recognized up until the 1980s when they lost recognition due to Bureau of Indian Affairs clerical error.
Today, they are state recognized. The California Native American Heritage Commission has asserted that the Winnemem Wintu should be federally recognized. The California State Assembly also passed Assembly Join Resolution 39, which urges Congress to restore the Winnemem’s federal recognition.
The Winnemem Wintu are a traditional tribe of 125 who still practices their ceremonies and traditional healings within our ancestral territory from Mt. Shasta down the McCloud River watershed. When the Shasta Dam was constructed during World War II, it flooded their home and blocked the salmon runs. It also flooded all the other Puberty Rocks that could be used for Coming of Age ceremonies.
For directions to the War Dance, a cultural guide for the ceremony and more info, visit http://www.saveourceremony.com/wardance.
Learn more about the Winnemem Wintu at http://www.winnememwintu.us/
Learn more about the ceremony at http://www.saveourceremony.com.
Download Video of motorboats speeding past ceremony and flashing the participants at: http://vimeo.com/39867112
Footage of April 16, 2012 protest at Forest Service Region 5 Headquarters in Vallejo: http://youtu.be/oglCy–o7oY
danbacher “I am saddened that Moore does not have the courage to do what’s right,” Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, said. “We lost all our land when they built Shasta Dam, and now all we want is four days of peace and dignity for our ceremony, which is vital to the social fabric of our tribe. A peaceful ceremony is our right, and we are not accepting anything short of that.”
Photo of Caleen Sisk (speaking) and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe at a protest at the U.S. Forest Service office in Vallejo on April 16 by Dan Bacher.
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Winnemem Wintu Tribe
For more information:
Caleen Sisk, Spiritual Leader and Tribal Chief: 530-710-4817
James Ward, media relations: 530-638-5580
Forest Service Ignores Tribe’s Request for Peaceful Sacred Ceremony
Tribe Plans War Dance to Protect Traditional Women’s Rights
Winnemem Wintu Tribe needs 4-day closure of 400-yard section of McCloud River to Perform Girls’ Traditional Coming of Age Ceremony
Redding, CA – U.S. Forest Service Region 5 Forester Randy Moore has missed his May 1 deadline to respond to the Winnemem Wintu’s request for a mandatory river closure to protect their Coming of Age ceremony this summer.
The tribe has had not received any intention of Mr. Moore to respond in a timely fashion, and because the government’s legal process is clearly a dead end, the Winnemem will now hold a H’up Chonas, or War Dance, in the near future to defend their cultural rites in a traditional way.
Previous Coming of Age ceremonies have been disrupted by drunken recreational boaters motoring through the site and heckling the tribe with racial slurs.
“I am saddened that Moore does not have the courage to do what’s right,” Sisk said. “We lost all our land when they built Shasta Dam, and now all we want is four days of peace and dignity for our ceremony, which is vital to the social fabric of our tribe. A peaceful ceremony is our right, and we are not accepting anything short of that.”
The tribe is placing a call to action. During the War Dance, the tribe, hundreds of tribal members from around the west coast and allies will gather in solidarity to ensure their sacred ceremony will proceed unhindered as it has for thousands of years before the Forest Service existed.
For more information, contact the tribe at: winnememwintutribe [at] gmail.com. Details will be on the Winnemem Wintu web site soon.
The tribe first brought back the H’up Chonas, or War Dance, in 2004 to protest the proposal to raise Shasta Dam, which would flood many important sacred sites, including the site of the Coming of Age ceremonies. The War Dance signifies a commitment to a spiritual and physical resistance to threats to the tribe’s culture. It means the Winnemem are willing to die to protect their tribal way of life.
Frustrated by being ignored by Shasta-Trinity Forest officials for the past six years, members of the Tribe challenged Mr. Moore at his office in Vallejo, CA, April 16, to ask him directly for the closure for the young women’s ceremony.
Citing the U.N. Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples recently signed by President Obama, Chief Sisk and several women of the tribe sought to convince Mr. Moore that this is an issue of human rights and women’s rights.
The Forest Service’s position has been that they lack the authority to grant the request for the traditional tribe, though sources within the agency have verified that Mr. Moore has the authority to close the stretch of river necessary for the ceremony.
In previous ceremonies, the Forest Service attempted a “voluntary” closure of the river, which has led to the tribe being heckled and abused by antagonistic recreational boaters who are often drunk and have shouted racial slurs like “Fat Indians!”.
At the April 16 event, Chief Sisk reported to the press that a voluntary closure means that, “the 10 percent who mean harm, disrespect and possible violence barge through the ceremony by motor boat and prove that a voluntary closure does not work.“
Though the Winnemem are federally unrecognized due to a bureaucratic error, the Forest Service has previously signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the tribe, which states they are the indigenous people from the McCloud River.
Moore said the Forest Service could close the river for a federally recognized tribe on the Winnemem’s behalf. Not only is this an insult to the Winnemem, but it is exceedingly dangerous. It could set a legal precedent that another tribe has authority over the site and the ceremony.
“What if the Mormons had to ask the Catholic Church for permission to have a ceremony?” Sisk asked. “What if one day the Catholics said no? Then what do you do?”
The north end of the ceremony site is private land not accessible to boaters. The river closure would not stop a thoroughfare, but simply cut off a 400-yard corner of the 30,000 square-acre Shasta Lake.
At previous ceremonies, the Forest Service’s law enforcement officers have implemented a mandatory closure of the river on the last day of the ceremony when the young women swim across to symbolize their transition to womanhood. They have cited safety reasons behind the closure.
Learn more about the Winnemem Wintu at http://www.winnememwintu.us/
Learn more about the ceremony at http://www.saveourceremony.com.
Download Video of motorboats speeding past ceremony and flashing the participants at: http://vimeo.com/39867112
Footage of April 16, 2012 protest at Forest Service Region 5 Headquarters in Vallejo: http://youtu.be/oglCy–o7oY
danbacher “Since 1941 most of our ceremonial sites have been buried beneath the still waters of Lake Shasta,” said Sisk. “We ask that the Forest Service grant us this one small dignity by allowing our girls to enter womanhood in privacy at one of our last remaining traditional ceremonial sites.”
Photo of Caleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemen Wintu Tribe, meeting with U.S. Forest Service Regional Forester Randy Moore at his Vallejo office on April 16. Photo courtesy of Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
by Dan Bacher
Members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe from northern California on Monday, April 16 challenged Randy Moore, U.S. Forest Service Regional Forester, at his Vallejo office to protect indigenous women from racial slurs and physical harm during coming of age ceremonies planned for this June.
Caleen Sisk, Winnemem Chief and Spiritual Leader, and Tribal leaders met with Moore after members of the Winnemem, Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Ohlone and other Tribes picketed outside the office for an hour. Over 50 Tribal members and allies held up signs stating “Our Ceremony, Our Rights, Close the River” and “Respect Native Women. Close the River.”
Although claiming to be unfamiliar with the issue, Moore promised to review the Winnemem’s request to close 400 yards of the McCloud River arm of Shasta Reservoir for 4 days so that the Tribe can conduct the ceremony. Moore committed to respond to the Tribe’s request by May 1, 2012.
“This is a very important issue that we will look at very seriously,” said Moore. “Our concern is that the Winnemem Wintu are not a federally recognized tribe, although they are a state recognized tribe.”
Moore said the preservation of sacred sites is a “significant issue” with the Forest Service, but that since the tribe doesn’t have federally recognized status, they would have to decide on what basis the river would be closed for the ceremony.
“I will look at what we have here and I will get together with the program manager,” added Moore. “I won’t know more until I read through the materials the Tribe has provided me.”
After the meeting in the foyer of the office, Tribal leaders conducted a press conference on the office steps.
“I am glad that Moore took the time to meet with us,” said Sisk, “even though we didn’t have an appointment. He accepted our letter and resolution. We asked him to respond by May 1 and we we will find out what his word is, whether he will help to close the river for the ceremony.”
Tribe’s ceremonies protected under UN Declaration
Sisk pointed out that the Tribe’s ceremonies are protected under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a document that the Obama administration signed on to, regardless of whether a tribe is “federally protected” or not. She also noted that “federal recognition doesn’t apply to sacred places; it’s like asking the Catholic Church to recognize the Mormon Church every time they hold a service.”
Marine Sisk, who went through the coming of age ceremony in 2006, emphasized that this “ceremony is very important – it is about learning to be a woman.”
Her sister and Chief’s Sisk’s 16-year-old niece, Marisa, is in training as the next leader of the Tribe. Her coming of age ceremony is scheduled in late June.
Marine and other Winnemem Wintu leaders stressed the importance of conducting the ceremonies without interruption by boaters and others, especially those hurling insults and racial slurs. While closing the river will mean a lot to the Tribe, it will have no impact on the Forest Service.
“USFS Regional Forestor Randy Moore can close the river for four days, but it doesn’t change anything in his world,” Chief Sisk said.
The Tribe is demanding that the Shasta-Trinity National Forest provide the four-day closure of a quarter mile stretch of the McCloud during a coming of age ceremony for a teenage girl planned for late June.
Sisk said the Tribe’s past two coming of age ceremonies have been disrupted by racial slurs, alcohol use, and indecent exposure from passersby in motorboats who refused to honor a voluntary closure. These boaters also endanger the physical safety of young tribal members who swim across the river as part of the ceremony.
“Since 1941 most of our ceremonial sites have been buried beneath the still waters of Lake Shasta,” said Sisk. “We ask that the Forest Service grant us this one small dignity by allowing our girls to enter womanhood in privacy at one of our last remaining traditional ceremonial sites.”
The Tribe has requested for the past several years that the Forest Service close this stretch of river during their Coming of Age Ceremonies, held in an area accessible on Lake Shasta by boat.
Voluntary closures don’t work
Although the Forest Service has issued “voluntary closures” that discourage most boaters from entering the area, several times during each ceremony groups of individuals powered into the ceremonial area, often with beers in hand and music blaring as they verbally insulted the Tribe’s members.
During a Coming of Age Ceremony in 2006, a woman “flashed” the ceremonial participants with naked breasts and yelled racist insults. “If someone did this during Mass, they would be arrested,” said Sisk.
A mandatory closure was issued later at this same ceremony by the Shasta County Sheriff after a Forest Service District Ranger’s kayak was rammed by a boat.
Sisk said this is about “respecting and protecting Native women while they pass on traditional ways to the next generations.”
“Like many traditional people, we hold our women in high regard,” said Sisk. “This beautiful ceremony is vital to our girls’ transitioning to womanhood with confidence, grace and knowledge. We must hold this ceremony for our tribe to survive.”
Members of Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley Tribes back Winnemem
Members of the Klamath and Coastal Justice Coalitions showed their solidarity with the Winnemem Wintu at the protest.
Molli Jane White, a member of the Karuk Tribe and Coastal Justice Coalition, said, “We stand up for native rights everywhere. We look forward to working with the Winnemem Wintu in the future and attending their ceremony without any disturbances.”
Frankie Joe Myers, a member of the Yurok Tribe and the Klamath Justice Coalition, stated, “We are here to support the Winnemem Wintu. They are salmon people and we are salmon people too; we are supposed to help each other out. What happens on the McCloud affects what happens on the Klamath and the Trinity watersheds.”
Sisk put the protest in the context of the international struggle for indigenous rights, including the battle by indigenous people in Brazil to stop the construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam complex on the Xingu River.
“We were those people who are now facing inundation by the Belo Monte Dam,” said Sisk. “We see the Chief fighting the dam and we know, from our experience with Shasta Dam, what will happen to their land if the dam is completed.”
The coming of age ceremony takes place as the Tribe is fighting a federal plan to raise Shasta Dam. The dam raise would flood many of the Tribe’s remaining sacred sites, such as Puberty Rock, that weren’t inundated when Shasta Dam was built.
The plan also threatens to hasten the extinction of winter run chinook salmon and other imperiled fish that have declined, due to water exports from the California Delta in recent years.
The dam raise will be used in conjunction with the construction of the peripheral canal to export more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Westlands Water District and other corporate agribusiness interests and southern California.
The Winnemem Wintu have also launched a campaign to restore winter run chinook salmon to the McCloud River above Shasta Dam. In the spring of 2010, members of the Tribe went to New Zealand to conduct joint ceremonies with the Maori in an effort to bring the winter run salmon, now thriving in the Rakaira River, back to California. The New Zealand and Maori governments agreed to provide salmon eggs to be hatched in a conservation hatchery on the McCloud.
Take Action/More Information:
Call Regional Forest Manager Randy Moore at (707) 562-8737 and tell him to respect Native Women, and let the Winnemem practice their ceremony with peace and dignity.
Pictures and video available at http://www.winnememwintu.us/
Learn more about the ceremony at http://www.saveourceremony.com.
Download Video of motorboats speeding past ceremony and flashing the participants at: http://vimeo.com/39867112
