And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: "Victor Rocha" Bones of Contention American Indians are divided over whether Catholic Archbishop Roger Mahony is building his massive new cathedral atop an old Indian graveyard By Victor Mejia The bones were just fragments, but they appeared to be human: a piece of skull, some teeth, a left arm with no hand. A city construction crew unearthed them while digging a trench near Temple and Hill Streets in downtown Los Angeles. It was 1957. Did they belong to a murder victim? The crew immediately contacted the county coroner's office, which in turn called Dr. Charles Rozaire, an archaeologist, because the bones looked very old. Rozaire concluded they were definitely human, perhaps American Indian. But he never tested to determine their actual age, and no one at the L.A. County Museum of Natural History, where the remains have been housed for the last 42 years, ever bothered to investigate further. The mysterious bones might have been forgotten by history had the Archdiocese of Los Angeles not decided in 1996 to build a cathedral on the site where the remains were found. It was then that their memory was resurrected, and a debate unfolded over claims by some American Indians that the site, a parking lot for 40 years, had previously been an Indian burial ground. "That whole hill was part of the village site of Ya'ngna," says Leona Klippstein, cofounder of the Spirit of the Sage Council, a Pasadena-based group dedicated to preserving both Shoshone culture and the environment. "Hundreds of Gabrielino people used to live there. The church is building on sacred land." Although construction of the massive cathedral is under way, the battle is not over. The Sage Council is suing the Catholic Church, the city of Los Angeles, and the Community Redevelopment Agency, which approved the project, arguing that they failed to adequately measure the project's environmental impact on the area and that the city's sale of the land to the church was illegal -- a violation of the separation of church and state doctrine. Moreover, the council says that constructing a church over the remains of Shoshone people is a great historical insult, the equivalent of Nazis building atop a Jewish cemetery. But the CRA is not convinced the site is an Indian burial ground. And neither is an American Indian group that is monitoring the project. Although there is disagreement over whether or not the area is an Indian grave site, at the heart of the debate is a clash of two incompatible cultures and a fight to preserve the memory of California's Gabrielino/Shoshone people. "They are destroying our culture and imposing their culture on us," says Chief Ya'Anna Vera Rocha, 70, a Shoshone and cofounder of the Sage Council. "They've been doing that for 500 years. They just want to wipe us out." "They are destroying our culture and imposing their culture on us." -- Chief Ya'Anna Vera Rocha Bordered by the Hollywood Freeway, and Temple, Grand, and Hill streets, the 3,000-seat Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels will replace St. Vibiana's Cathedral, which was damaged by the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The mammoth five-and-a-half acre project includes a 600-space underground garage, a 120-foot-tall bell tower, a three-acre plaza, and living quarters for Archbishop Roger Mahony and his priests. The project's total cost is estimated at $163 million. "Cathedrals take hundreds of years to finish, and this one won't be fully completed for a long time," says CRA Deputy Administrator Don Spivack. "But it should be ready for occupancy by mid-2001." In 1997, the Sage Council filed a lawsuit and sought a court order to halt the cathedral's construction, but was denied. Council members argued that the site chosen was an old Shoshone village and that the CRA failed to adequately study the project's impact on an archaeologically significant zone. The council pointed to the 1957 remains found there as well as to Shoshone oral histories describing the area as an Indian settlement. The Pasadena group also complained that the CRA refused to allow Vera Rocha to participate in excavation monitoring in 1997. In the end, the court was not convinced the area was an Indian burial ground and gave Archbishop Mahony the green light to start building. But the Sage Council, determined to stop the project, is still pursuing its lawsuit. Craig Sherman, an attorney for the nonprofit group, says the city's sale of the parking lot to the church for $10.4 million infringed on the city's own general growth plan. The land was earmarked to be part of the downtown government center complex and intended strictly for public use. "They have violated this general plan," says Sherman. "There are municipal codes that restrict the use of that land to public use." To local Shoshones, the cathedral project is not only illegal, it's a deeply offensive symbol. After all, it was the Spanish missionaries who enslaved their ancestors, taught them self-hate, forced them to build the missions, and shoved Christianity down their throats. They say that erecting a cathedral on what they consider sacred land is a continuation of that brutal behavior and disrespect for the indigenous people. If this had been an Anglo grave site, the Shoshone believe, it would never have been desecrated. "What they are doing is sacrilegious," says Klippstein. "In California, only Native American cemeteries are allowed to be excavated. It's very racist." But the CRA says it did a careful study to ensure the project would not destroy a possible archaeological zone. Public hearings were held over a period of 45 days to get the community's feedback and an inch-thick report was filed assessing the project's environmental impact. In the end, nothing was found to support the Sage Council's claim that the area was a grave site. "The view of the [CRA] was that if there was anything to it, we wanted to be respectful and know for sure," says Spivack. Private archaeologists and monitors from the Gabrielino Tongva Tribal Council in San Gabriel were hired to oversee the project. But as the excavation has proceeded, no new remains or Indian artifacts have been found, which seems to undercut the grave site argument. Indeed, the CRA believes the bone fragments that did surface are actually from somewhere else, since they were found in fill material trucked in to level the land in the '50s. "That indicated they had been moved from another site," says Spivack. "But no one knows where that fill material came from, exactly." The only thing uncovered so far has been a series of brick foundations from old apartment buildings and a few remnants from the turn of the century: horseshoes, glass bottles, spoons, and other objects. Because they have found no prehistoric artifacts or signs of a grave site -- nor do they expect to -- the Tongva Council approves of the project. Moreover, it is satisfied with the steps the archdiocese has taken to ensure the protection of any archaeological zone. "I'm happy with the care being taken here," says Sam Dunlap, the monitor for the Gabrielino Tongva Council. "I don't disapprove of this project. Not at this point in time." But the Sage Council says the Gabrielino Tongva group doesn't disapprove because it's being paid by the archdiocese. It says this is a conflict of interest. "They're just in it for the money," says Vera Rocha. "I do not recognize them as indigenous." Dunlap, who is both trained in archaeology and a Gabrielino, is being paid, but wouldn't say how much. "It's standard monitor wages," he says. "I offer a service that I think should come with pay." But he points out that no American Indian has been barred from viewing the excavations. Any Shoshone, including Rocha, can come down and participate. "If any Native American out there is concerned, they should come down here and look for themselves," says Dunlap. "This site is not closed to any Native-American group. It's an open invitation." As for the charges that the land was sold illegally to the church, the CRA says that's simply not true. The land was sold for the "market value based on appraisal and was not treated any differently than any other land transaction," says Spivack. But Chief Rocha doesn't trust the CRA. Unfortunately, she's too old and sick now to help to help monitor the excavations. (She suffers from congestive heart failure.) And even if no more remains are found, the land is still sacred to her. "The remains might not be there," says Rocha. "But the blood and the sweat of our people is there." http://www.newtimesla.com/1999/060399/faultlines1.html Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
