20 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY august 8-14, 2024 www.montereycountynow.com The great-grandson of the last full-blooded member of the Mutsun is trying to find the tribe a home. By David Schmalz The Forgotten Tribe On a sunny Saturday afternoon on June 29, scores of people are gathered at Indian Canyon, about 14 miles south of Hollister in a forested, mile-long stretch at the eastern base of the Gabilan Range. It’s a singular place—it’s the only federally recognized Indian land on the Central Coast, and according to Anne Marie Sayers, who owns it, it’s the only piece of land in the region that never fell out of Indigenous ownership, and during the Mission era, was a refuge for Indigenous people fleeing enslavement at Mission San Juan Bautista. The canyon, bisected by Harlan Creek, is lined with cottonwood, sycamore and oak trees, and feels like a place barely touched by Western civilization—it’s off the grid, and at the end of a road. The day’s celebration is Indian Canyon’s 27th Annual Storytelling Gathering, a fundraiser for nonprofit Costanoan Indian Research, and Sayer’s daughter, Kanyon SayersRoods, who also goes by her native name Coyote Woman, is emceeing the gathering. Sayers-Roods is an artist, educator and tribal consultant, and like her mother, she grew up on this land, and while in front of the mic as attendees watch on lawn chairs and blankets, she pays respect to her mother. “Without her, this would not be happening,” she says, adding that her mom passed down these words of wisdom: “Honor the past to shape the future.” Before introducing the kickoff to a ceremonial dance in the New Arbor, a sunken, wood-lined circle for ceremony just behind her, Sayers-Roods shares some of her own words of wisdom. “All peoples, all nations, all of us, we all have had Earth-based spiritual practices in our family lines, in our timelines—when you honor your elders, your ancestors and your ancestors’ ancestors, we all have Indigenous lineages in our families,” she says. “We all have Earth-based practices that our ancestors practiced, and they all have their indigenous lineage from wherever they come from… “I’m so privileged as an Indigenous person to always know where I come Nik Blaskovich
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==