24 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY august 8-14, 2024 www.montereycountynow.com before she passed. “Grandma was not an ordinary woman,” it reads. “She was born on that edge of time which separated her from the Stone Age and flung her forcibly in our 1800s. Her whole life, brimful with adventure, existed in the tiny area around San Juan Bautista. The longest journey Ascencion ever made was only 30 miles away, when she saw the Bay of Monterey.” Herrera writes of Ascencion’s youth spent playing along streams and creeks where willows grew, and that willows were integral to Mutsun life—their branches provided limbs for shelter, in cold or heat, and its sprouts she used to make baskets. “This was the lesson of the willows,” Herrera writes. “Awareness was the bequeath from Ascencion’s Indian heritage and no one is closer to nature than an Indian.” She writes that, “By instinct the Mutsun Indians were a thoroughly peaceful people. Plans of spoliation rarely entered their minds but if suspicions arose they plotted magic songs with no names mentioned, to express their frustrations.” Historically, she writes, villages had dwellings a few feet apart built of willow poles and walled with tule or grass. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Mutsun men typically wore no clothes, while women would wear just a loincloth. Deer skin coats provided warmth, when needed. (The Spanish forbid them from going naked; they also forbid them speaking their native language.) “They were the Earth children… They gave back to the Earth reverently what they took. Their life was not a tangled web of pollution, speeding cars, inflation, computers and bombings. Their legacy was fresh air, water and among the family group, old age security.” In Herrera’s telling, Ascencion’s father Miguel took their family to live at a ranch below the Pinnacles when she was young, and that the place “abounded in rattlesnakes and wild animals.” Food was sparse, however, and while her father was away on business, Ascencion and her mother Barbara survived on little but greens. “Ascencion told her mother she could even eat an owl if she could kill it. Her wish came true.” Ascencion reportedly clubbed it to death with a stick, and “Mother and daughter ate the owl.” In adulthood, after marrying and settling in Gilroy, Ascencion turned her home into a convalescent resort of sorts—she would care for people until their health improved. Sadly, though, while Ascencion had 18 children, all but four were taken by diseases to which they had no immunity. Herrera writes, “Perhaps her finest accomplishment was the gift of conscious pride in their race. They learned of joy in small things. One fine gift handed down by Grandma to her present-day grandchildren (now 50 to 70 years of age) is the spirit of independence. They retained enough Indian knowledge, completely invisible to their neighbors, to know they could exist if necessary again on what nature produced for their forefathers. They can tell you that many of the plants that grow beside a country actually when stewed are remarkably appetizing.” Of the Mutsun language, Herrera wrote, “Time had muffled all its sounds. Indian corners had disappeared into history, its people had succumbed to the white man’s life, the youth were absorbed into modern times.” Mondragon was one of those youths. Growing up in the ’70s, he would skateboard all around Monterey and Pacific Grove, and was friends with cowboys in Carmel Valley. His father never talked much about their heritage, Mondragon says, and in fact, his father says that when he was growing up, he was told by his parents to keep his heritage secret—being Indigenous was frowned upon. “He really didn’t start talking about our heritage until I was an adult, and he and my uncle Joe started looking into the history,” Mondragon says. But he’s diving into his heritage now, and is reflecting on how he can carry on Ascencion’s legacy—he’s the caretaker of so much of the Mutsun knowledge she and Harrington helped keep alive, before the candle burnt out, and he wants to carry it into the future. And part of his vision for his nonprofit, Mutsun Tribal Foundation, is seeking help to acquire some Mutsun ancestral land to steward and protect for future generations. Ideally, he says, that would be land that Mutsun descendants and like-minded people could also live on and have ceremonies, and that would host retreats that strive to bring people closer to nature. Seeking federal tribal recognition is also on the table, and he’d also like to help repair Ascencion’s grave marker at Mission San Juan Bautista—it’s the only grave in the Indigenous cemetery with a name on it. He’d also like to potentially set up a museum about the Mutsun, with artifacts, somewhere in Monterey County. “It’s unbelievable what we can do,” he says. Mondragon feels like the Mutsun are a forgotten tribe, and he doesn’t understand why: “We have more documentation than most tribes in most of North America.” As it stands now, he says, “Mutsun people are kind of like ghosts…The deep history is not known.” Mondragon is trying to change that, just like his great-grandmother did a century ago: “I want it to never disappear.” Ascencion Solorsano Where on the height beside the meadow The ancient church its vigil keeps, Enfolded in the kindly shadow, ’Tis there a noble woman sleeps… Whose deeds of mercy were uncounted, Whose duty found her unafraid, Whose charities increased and mounted The more she found them poorly paid. Born mid the past’s bright-burning embers She learned the ways of earlier times Talked with a vanished folk’s last members, And heard the belfry’s pristine chimes. That lore of earlier horizon, Caught from her lips, shall not be lost— Her wisdom science now relies on Her knowledge now is history’s boast. Let her be known in near and far land As one whose act was true as word; Let mercy grace her with its garland, And service bless her with reward; Let all who love the ancient history That once camped round the Mission spire Bless her who hath revealed its mystery And led us to its hidden fire. By John P. Harrington Above left: Ascencion Solorsano, in a photograph John Harrington took before she died in 1930. Above center: Ascencion’s daughter (and Mondragon’s grandmother) Maria, with his father Victor. Above right: Ascencion’s grave in the Indian cemetery at Mission San Juan Bautista is it looks today; it’s the only marked grave in the cemetery. Left: Ascencion’s burial at Mission San Juan Bautista, just a few days after she died in 1930. Dave Schmalz Daniel Dreifuss Daniel Dreifuss
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