What should be done with the aging roundhouse at Kule Loklo? That question is at the center of a timely and nuanced dialogue between the National Park Service and regional Indian tribes about the best way to honor the park’s Native American heritage.
The roundhouse, whose decaying rafters were taken down last month, is the primary structure in the Point Reyes National Seashore’s replica Coast Miwok village. Since the 1970s, American Indian groups, as well as non-Indian groups, have used it for dances, ceremonies and celebrations.
The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, the tribe that includes Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo, have a complicated relationship with the structure. Greg Sarris, the tribal chairman, explained that there is debate within the tribe about its purpose and who should use it.
“When we had no political clout, a group of non-Indian people decided they wanted to play Indians or be Indians and tried to recreate a historical setting,” he said. “In the meantime, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria became stewards of the land legally.”
The replica village was built by volunteers in 1976 when the park service was trying to improve interpretation; they used untreated wood and traditional methods. The Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin, the then-named Dixie School District, and the park service entered into a cooperative agreement to plan, construct, operate and guide interpretation at Kule Loklo, which translates to Bear Valley.
The site became a popular visitor attraction, especially for school field trips. The location did not correspond to a prehistoric village site; instead, planners chose a spot that guaranteed easy access and security. Ongoing construction was part of the plan, and volunteers clocked thousands of hours creating a sweathouse, an acorn granary and cone-shaped structures called kotcas. The annual Big Time Festival has been held there each summer for 39 years.
In 1992, the roundhouse was destroyed by an arsonist, and volunteers rebuilt the structure. Last year, park employees removed the earth top after it appeared the roundhouse would collapse, and there are now just a few wooden poles in the dug-out area. The structure is stable while the park considers its future.
“We are at step one of the longer process of asking, ‘What are we going to do there? What do we want it to look like?” said Paul Engel, the acting head of the seashore’s cultural resources program. “It’s going to be a little bit of a long process, which is a challenge because you go there, and you see the immediate need.”
Coast Miwok built roundhouses for ceremonies prior to European contact in 1776. Mr. Sarris said secret societies within Coast Miwok nations held dances in the structures for a particular purpose, often fortifying a connection to the land.
In the 1800s, California Indians suffered a genocide at the hands of the state, the Spanish and Mexican rancheros, who enslaved the Indians and spread disease. From 1846 to 1873, the California Indian population went from an estimated 150,000 to 30,000, according to historian Benjamin Madley.
In response, some California Indians created the Bole Maru religion in 1871 as a centralized and nationalistic religion. Each tribe was guided by a dreamer, usually a woman who would guide the tribe based on inner directives from her dreams. The dreamer would also create rules, traditions and songs for the roundhouse. The dreamer was responsible for the roundhouse’s center pole, and before his or her death gave specific instructions about whether to keep it, destroy it or move it. The dreamer also could direct another dreamer to take over as the dance and ceremonial leader.
The Bole Maru religion was strong for about 60 years, until Mormon missionaries and urbanization dissipated the community.
But the tradition continued through the work of Essie Parrish, a dreamer for the Kashaya Pomo tribe north of Bodega Bay. She was not as nationalistic and opened up the religion to others. When Ms. Parrish died in the late 1970s, there was great debate over who would carry on her work. Indians across the state had many conflicting points of view, depending on their interpretation of the religion and their relationship with Ms. Parrish. Today, no recognized dreamers are alive.
Bun Lucus, a Kashaya Pomo, officiated many of the dances in the first roundhouse at Kule Loklo, before it burned. Later, Lanny Pinola, another Kashaya Pomo, worked as a cultural interpreter for the park in the 1990s, contributing his knowledge of dances and songs.
But in the time since the demonstration village was conceived, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria were re-recognized by the United States government as a sovereign government. Congress had terminated the tribe in 1958 and distributed its land as private property. But on Dec. 27, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed legislation restoring federal recognition to the tribe. Now the group has a government-to-government relationship with the park service.
The tribal council has proposed keeping the center pole of the roundhouse and allowing any groups to come and dance there. “So there’s no debate about who should or shouldn’t be there,” Mr. Sarris said. “We wanted to keep that as a symbol for a place where people can come together no matter how they see things—as a center of peace.”
Throughout 2020, park employees will work with the tribe on how to improve interpretation both at Kule Loklo and beyond.
Mr. Engel said Kule Loklo itself is limited because it focuses on just one aspect of the tribe—village life at one point in time. “It’s not very holistic,” Mr. Engel said. “It’s sort of left there as an artifact and doesn’t make that connection between how people lived in the past and the current tribe and the community that still exists and is still heavily involved in the park.”
Mr. Sarris agrees. “We’re living people. We’re here now,” he said. “It isn’t about what the Indians used to do.”
Mr. Sarris said the tribe is eager to be involved not just in Native American interpretation but also by contributing indigenous practices for environmental stewardship. “When questions come up about the deer population or controlled burning, the park can work with the tribe to come up with solutions that are sustainable for all of us,” he said.
He pointed to Tolay Lake, a park in Petaluma that opened in October under a co-management agreement between the tribe and Sonoma County Regional Parks. When the lake was dynamited and drained by a rancher in the 1870s, it revealed thousands of charmstones, or oblong rocks used by Native Americans for healing. The tribe helped finance planning and an environmental review to open the park, with the condition that tribal leaders would have a say in what happens there.
Similar points of interest exist in the seashore, Mr. Sarris said. “Once there is a way to manage them—as there is at Tolay—and protect them that is agreed upon by the tribe, we’d love to map these sacred sites. That way we can tell this history,” he said. “My dream and the dream of the tribe is that we continue to solidify a collaborative relationship with the park, perhaps in the form of a co-management agreement, not unlike what we’ve done in Tolay.”