On a recent Thursday afternoon inside the Point Reyes Library, Elissa Simons stood before an audience and sang a traditional Coast Miwok weya. Her soft voice filled the light-drenched room as her elderberry clapperstick, handcrafted by her father, kept rhythm. At the end, she called out, “Ohhh,” and the enthused audience called back, “Ohhh!”
The performance was the first of several cultural events tied to a rotating exhibit, “Stewards of the Land,” a series of portraits, reflections, and poems from the Indigenous diaspora of Marin County and beyond. Put together by the San Geronimo Community Center’s Greenstitch Youth Climate Action Program, it will make stops at library branches through September.
Cory Van Gelder, director of the internship program, said the exhibit emerged naturally. “Our most immediate kind of call to action was uplifting the voices of the people who carry the knowledge of how to address the climate crisis that we’re in,” she said.
The cohort began a process of self-reflection, research, and outreach as the project took shape around a core idea: how our extraction-based economy has sown desecration and exploitation, and how Indigenous values offer an alternative that sows harmony, responsibility, and connection with Mother Earth.
Along the way, the students interviewed local Indigenous people about their connection to the land. “The students were just really excited to participate in the process of finding out who is here and the research involved,” Ms. Van Gelder said.
Last year, Sasha Gulish began taking portraits beneath the canopy of a large oak tree in San Geronimo. Among those she photographed was Henry Frank, a Novato resident with Pomo roots who is enrolled in the Yurok Tribe. “At first I was a little nervous,” he said of the session. “But if you see the whole reel, you’ll see me get real comfortable and posing forward.”
The resulting black-and-white portrait shows the profile of Mr. Frank looking toward the sky, with rolling hills and treetops on the horizon. The picture is accompanied by a poem he wrote titled “Earth Love,” in which he reflects on his relationship with the earth. “We’re all related,” he said. “If you have that understanding, you would treat things differently and with respect to make sure that all is better for the next generation.”
Close to Mr. Frank’s portrait hangs a photograph of Ms. Simons, who is a member of the Coast Miwok Tribal Council of Marin. Since the group fundraised to purchase 26 acres of ancestral land in Nicasio in 2023, it has held ceremonies there twice a year. “That’s been really incredible,” she said. “For me, land stewardship is twofold: it’s taking care of the land, working with traditional ecological knowledge, but it’s also bringing culture and ceremony back to the land.”
That understanding underpinned many of the offerings at the recent reception. One participant, Marty Meade, shared that her niece teaches workshops to Cal Fire through the nonprofit First Nation Knowledge Keepers, educating firefighters about the Indigenous use of fire and its importance in ecological restoration.
Mr. Frank sang an appreciation song, and Alejandro Alvarado, who is Michoacán Purépecha, shared a story in Spanish about his first time planting and nurturing a tree alongside classmates at age 6. In a performance by Ms. Simons and Sky Road Webb, a Tomales Bay Coast Miwok, the pair switched between Miwok and English and sang, “Come urgently, come urgently, let us shine our light.”
In her remarks, Marin County Free Library Assistant Director Raemona Little Taylor, who coordinated the events around the show, recognized the violent realities of settler colonialism, urging the audience to interrogate these histories. “How do you show up in ways that can honor the land? How can we take a step back?” she asked.
Images from “Stewards of the Land” show at the Point Reyes and Inverness Libraries through Aug. 31, with a reception in Inverness this Friday, Aug. 21 at 3 p.m.