We hope to educate about Costanoan - Ohlone issues.To make the true (and often whitewashed, murky) history of California's Indians real. It's a metaphorical way to relate a common global thread driving the oppression of indigenous peoples throughout Euro-American history, the age of Empires and Industry into the 21st Century, by indigenous community members and content creators and producers. Our non-profit (Costanoan Indian Research, Inc.) is an educational project for this that works with the public, organizations, and institutions to promote the Costanoan-Ohlone community. Events, ceremonies, and our website (Costanoan - Ohlone Indian Canyon Resource http://www.indiancanyon.org which is one of the first three or four American Indian sites), all value the sharing of our community and history. We engage with the public and the indigenous community to maintain and share customs and perspectives in a changing environment.
Copyright and Your Usage Limitations of Our Materials Herein Contained:
"ALL information at this site is hereby copyrighted and is the property of Costanoan Indian Research Inc. or the respective author(s). Our material MAY be cited but attribute/credit us. Requests can be sent to us for limited and explicit use of our textual, graphical and multimedia materials."
Background of our Organization and website
The site started in 1994 (using [remember?] gopher and, when THE browser was Mosaic!) as a senior project by Russell Imrie, Kahnawake Mohawk at UCSC focusing upon the Indigenous People of Central, Coastal California. We led innovative technologies like video fly-throughs, some of th efirst grass roots video clips using QuickTime (Apple), and first users of applications like (the miserable) Adobe Pagemill, 3-D graphing with DeltaGraph, and implimentation of Vista Pro software migrated from the Venus radar mapping missions. In 2011 we are adopting twitter/embedded video and social networking initiatives to inspire the right dialogues that we use to move ouselves out of the past mythologies and into today and life.
The indigenous people of this area, the Costanoan, or Ohlone, peoples have, at the present time (so far to October 2011) NO recognized tribes among all of the community living throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.The Mewukma Ohlone, after years of work and assembling of documents have just (October 2011–just in time for Columbus Day) been denied recognition. The United States is in denial of their existence as a culture, as part of the myth and process that works to deny a people their rights in the world.
The author is Russell Imrie, registered Kahnawake Mohawk (official Kahnawake Site). Visit the Kateri Tekakwitha site http://www.lily-of-the-mohawks.com/ Kateri Tekakwitha was a Mohawk woman who was recognized as a saint in 2012. The Hail Mary (Catholic prayer) in Mohawk and Algonquin. I wander around the West (and now in 2010 East) Coast whenever I can and love natural beauty and the artifacts of history. The pic below was taken near Clear Lake after a long trip in the Mendocino National Forest. When's Mohawk not Mohawk?
All information and discussion about about activities herein contained in
the Costanoan-Ohlone Indian Canyon Resource site is vetted and/or discussed
with Costanoan people, as it should be at ANY site purporting to be "Indian",
"Tribal", etc. The site supports BOTH The Indian Canyon Community
AND Costanoan Indian Research and explores the use
of the internet as a venue for unmediated (by state/commercial/non-native
powers) communication among, for, by and with First Nations of North America.
Special mention must be made of the presence and influence of Paula Giese
as the website was launched. I was in contact with her in those heady days
when the web would change the world. While it HAS changed. Paula is no longer
with us, passing in 1997. Her
huge, fantastic ground-breaking website goes on. Paula, Nia:wen Kowa tanon
on:en.
We maintain general information about California Indigenous people and serve as a contact point for inquiries from both native and non-native people. Submissions and prospective linkages are welcome.
We reserve the right to include or not include any information at our discretion.
Ann Marie Sayers, Mutsun/Ohlone lives at Indian Canyon (a real canyon) with her daughter Kanyon. It is the only recognized California Indian Country (an Individual Indian Allotment) in the California coastal region between Santa Barbara in the southern part of the state and the Point Reyes/Clear Lake area, in the north. In Spanish Mission times, her family lived in Indian Canyon (once called Indian Gulch) as a secluded refuge within their territory that was generally inaccessible to the roving troopers who rounded up the natives for use at the Missions. In a landmark 8-year struggle, Ann Marie and her family, with the help of friends, was able to reclaim some of her family's original territory in 1988 as an Individual Indian Allotment.
Notable among these friends was Howard Harris, a longtime Hollister rancher whose great-grandfather served as John C. Fremont's scout before California was taken into the US. Imrie interviewed Harris (now deceased) in 1997 and we have some incredible footage of this on YouTube (1 - Howard's first visit to the canyon in 1920) and (2 - Howard with background of the canyon's people). In those heady days of the birth of the world wide web, Allan Lundell and Sun MacNamee were blossoming video gurus who filmed the film and in a later iteration (their site now) burned an old vhs tape copy to DVD enabling me to put this real-life personal history lesson up on youTube - remember there WAS no YouTube in 1997!
Howard's family helped Ann Marie's great grandparents Sebastian and Maria Garcia establish the old original allotment claim in the 1890's and early 1900's. Ann Marie's mission now is to educate about and share the amazing history and life around Indian Canyon. Naturally, our website focuses on issues and events concerning the precious land at Indian Canyon, as well as communicating and archiving information of a more general, [nation-] statewide nature. Costanoan Indian Research Inc. is a Not-For-Profit foundation founded by Sayers during her monumental battle to reclaim Indigenous land in the 1980's.
The Federal Nonprofit ID# is 68-0287736. Donations of time, muscle, tools, and of course funds, are gratefully welcomed.
Mailing Address:
Costanoan Indian Research
PO Box 28
Hollister, CA 95024-0028
