Imagine: Sacred graves destroyed, subjected to toxic waste dumps, and shrunken to a small 2.2-acre area of what is now the parking lot of Spenger’s Fish Restaurant. Since the eighteenth century, the Ohlone tribe have been fighting to protect their ancestral burial grounds. Now, a 5,700-year-old Ohlone Shellmound and Village Sacred Site is under threat from a new development project.
Just north of Oakland, California, are the historic lands and Shellmounds of Ohlone Indians, who are estimated to have been the principal inhabitants of the area from 500 BC to about 1700 AD, when Spanish missionaries arrived, carrying with them diseases that proved deadly to Ohlone communities. The missionaries enslaved those who survived. Since then, the Ohlone have been further marginalized, forced off their lands first by the Spanish, later by American settlers, and now by corporations and city councils. The Shellmounds were a visual reminder Ohlone heritage in the area.
Shellmounds are circular artificial hills about 110 meters in diameter and 18 meters high, made of molluscan shells, tools, bits of earth, and Ohlone human remains. These sacred burial grounds predate the pyramids of Egypt and the city of Jerusalem. The West Berkeley Shellmound is currently registered as a historical landmark by the City of Berkeley.
Yet they are not being protected.
As early as the nineteenth century, development projects began to threaten the mounds, without any consultation or consent from the Ohlone people who live in the area. In the late 1800s, the mounds were partly destroyed to make way for an amusement park and dance pavilion. In the 1920s, a paint factory was built on top of the mounds. Toxic waste produced by the factory was left in the ground even after the factory was removed. In 1997, a mall was proposed on top of the remains of the Shellmounds. Despite protests, the retail mega-center was built and continues to be in use today.
Now, the actual Shellmounds have been destroyed. The land that remains in the restaurant parking lot is considered to have sacred roots and remains vitally important to the Ohlone people.
But not even that land is safe.
West Berkeley Investors has applied to build a five-story mixed-use building on the 2.2-acre Shellmound site. They plan to turn the current site and adjacent building into apartments, stores, restaurants, and a six-level parking garage. Many Ohlone people and local communities are outraged at this attempt to seize the last bit of land that remains of this sacred and historical site.
Photo credit: Wendy Kenin/Flickr
The City of Berkeley Planning and Development Department held a public comment period on the 1900 Fourth Street development project from late 2016 to early 2017. People sent over 1800 individual comments to the city opposing the project and requesting protection of Ohlone land. CIEL sent a letter to the city urging them to reject the Draft Environmental Impact Report on the grounds that affected indigenous peoples were not properly informed or consulted to allow them to participate in the decision-making process as required under international law.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is the realization of a centuries-long struggle by indigenous peoples around the world to achieve recognition of their identity and respect for their rights by unifying what had been put forward in many treaties and agreements beforehand. This international law recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples to practice their cultural traditions and customs, including the right to maintain, protect, and develop the past, present, and future manifestations of their cultures such as archeological and historical sites. Also recognized in the UNDRIP is the right of indigenous peoples to Free, Prior and Informed Consent regarding decisions that may affect them.
This international law has direct bearing on this development project as the Berkeley City Council officially recognized and endorsed the UNDRIP, took steps to implement it as Municipal Policy, and also committed to protecting the Ohlone within its framework.
According to these protections, the project violated the rights of the indigenous Ohlone peoples, as stated in the City Council’s resolution:
“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that free, prior, and informed consent of the Ohlone and other indigenous peoples of the region be integral to any alteration planning for the Berkeley Shellmound sacred site, in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and calls upon all parties to follow the principles of the Declaration with respect to the West Berkeley Shellmound site.”
The Ohlone people are asking not only to be recognized as an indigenous people but to exercise their indigenous rights to preserve their sacred land. In their own words, “Our sacred sites were never given up by our families—not legally, nor in theory. They are not properties or parcel numbers that can be bought and sold… But where we draw the line is when you propose to dig up and desecrate the most sacred places where our ancestors are buried… The Shellmounds are not for sale.”
_____________________________________________________________________
Show support and visit the West Berkeley Shellmound Facebook page.
Sign the petition to keep the 1900 4th Street development from happening.
_____________________________________________________________________
By Samantha Clements, Communications Intern
Originally posted on March 26, 2018