Six months after the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria announced it would rebuild the roundhouse at Kule Loklo, the site remains in disrepair, frustrating the replica village’s devotees and reinforcing the rift between the Sonoma County-based tribe and West Marin’s unenrolled community of Coast Miwok descendants.  

“Nothing’s been done over there,” said Jason Deschler, a headman of the Coast Miwok Tribal Council of Marin. “Graton does not respond to us when we ask to have consultation with them.”

The members of the tribal council trace their roots to two Coast Miwok people who lived in Marin and Sonoma in the 19th century: Tom Smith and Maria Copa. They are not enrolled members of Graton, the federally recognized tribe, and were caught off guard by the tribe’s July announcement that it would rebuild the roundhouse, which lies on Point Reyes National Seashore land. But they have undeniable ties to Kule Loklo: Dean Hoaglin, the council’s chairman, led dances and ceremonies there for years after taking up the torch from Lanny Pinola and Bun Lucas, two Indigenous park rangers who helped turn the recreated village into a living cultural center in the 1970s. 

The roundhouse roof collapsed in 2019, and the following year, the Woodward Fire narrowly spared the village, damaging nearby trees and prompting the park to close the site. But Mr. Hoaglin and Mr. Deschler still feel the pull of Kule Loklo, despite not being able to hold ceremonies there. 

“I’m out there any chance I get,” Mr. Deschler said. “That’s our homeland. Yes, it is a replica village, but we chose that site because of the significance of the area. This is a place that was given to us to be connected with our homeland.”

Kule Loklo is still in disrepair. The picnic tables and cone-shaped cedar kotcha houses are overgrown with grasses, and only the skeleton of the roundhouse remains, nearly three years after the park removed the decaying roof that partially collapsed. Blue tarps and a folding table are stuffed under the entryway of the structure, and beams from the roof sit in a jumbled pile nearby, surrounded by traffic barricades. The trail from the Bear Valley Visitor Center remains closed off, with park signs advising visitors of the hazards of falling trees and flash flooding.

“Even though the park and FIGR say that they’re moving toward [rebuilding], the proof is in the pudding,” said John Littleton, a retired teacher and volunteer with the Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin. “Nothing is happening.” 

Mr. Littleton has been involved with Kule Loklo since it was built by MAPOM, the park service and other local Miwok community members in 1976. He led students on field trips to the village for years, taught Indigenous skills classes there with the College of Marin and attended Big Time, an annual festival with traditional dancing last held nearly three years ago. 

Graton may have the only formal relationship with the park, but Kule Loklo predates the tribe’s official formation, and there’s a larger community of stakeholders who care about the village, Mr. Littleton said. He believes they all need to be a part of the discussion, and he called Graton “the main impediment to moving ahead.” 

“There’s nothing clear about what’s happening,” Mr. Littleton said. “No announcements, no concrete timeline has emerged. For a lot of us, it’s a real tragedy.” 

Graton turned down two requests for comment. The tribe approved the dismantling of the roundhouse in 2019, offending the tribal council. At the time, Graton chairman Greg Sarris seemed to dismiss the site’s importance, saying it was built by people who wanted to “play Indian or be Indian.” 

But last year, Mr. Sarris said the tribe would pay for engineers and structural updates, and planned to add new interpretive materials that would better reflect the present-day Coast Miwok. 

The seashore entered into a formal agreement with the tribe in August, a move that further alienated the council, which believes it should have a formal seat at the table. Park spokeswoman Christine Beekman said the seashore is in continued conversation with Graton over the rebuild, but nothing has been decided. 

“To date, we have neither firm plans or ideas as we are continuing to get into a regular pattern of communication per our newly established general agreement,” she wrote in an email.

Without a clear cultural gathering place, the tribal council has been seeking to reclaim some piece of ancestral Coast Miwok land. 

Last year, the council met with the Trust for Public Land, which owns the former San Geronimo Golf Course, and proposed taking on the role of the land’s caretakers. But Mr. Deschler said T.P.L. hasn’t followed up, and a lack of funds has prevented the council from buying land elsewhere. He said the council is working to organize as a 501(c)(3) and form a land trust sometime in the future.