Plumas County News On-line
1/17/2008

Native American Salt Song singers have traveled from across the west to mourn ancestors buried in a basement at UC Berkeley.

Award-winning singers from 14 Indian bands will perform the ancient Salt Songs at Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza Tuesday, Jan. 22, at noon.

Tribal leaders and members of The Salt Song Project, a program of the Native American Land Conservancy, will conduct a historic inter-tribal ceremony to mourn the thousands of Native Americans whose remains are stored in drawers and plastic bags a few hundred feet away in the gym basement adjacent to the Phoebe Hearst Museum.

Traditional Salt Song singers from bands of Paiute and Chemehuevi tribes will travel from Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Southern California to sing the last four songs from the traditional 142-song cycle.

The Salt Songs are mourning songs that traditionally begin at sundown and are sung through the night and into the morning before sunrise.

The last four songs are extremely important for the purpose of the ceremony, which is to send the spirits of the Hearst’s skeletal remains back to their homelands and bring closure to their time here on Mother Earth.

The desecration of Native burial sites by archaeologists has violated Native American ceremonial and religious beliefs about their ancestors, according to tribal leaders.

“To me, the last four songs are the most important,” said Vivienne Caron Jake, a Kaibab Paiute who co-founded the Salt Song Project with Matthew Leivas Sr., a Chemehuevi. “The songs sing about the inevitable death and also the excitement and desire to get to the other side and how these individuals on the other side are waiting.”

“The spirit that will soon join them is drooling at the mouth in excitement and just tasting what is referred to as the happy hunting grounds or heaven.”

Jake and Leivas feel it’s imperative to conduct this rite-of-passage ceremony now to raise public awareness about what they deem is a shocking lack of cooperation from university administrators.

Despite numerous resolutions from tribes and the National Congress of American Indians and thousands of letters and e-mails requesting repatriation, the administrators have refused to meet with tribal leaders and have continued to deny tribes their lawful claim for the religious and ceremonial reburial of their ancestors, conservancy leaders pronounced in a recent press release.

“We urge all Native Americans and social justice allies to bring drums, gourds or other instruments, if they like, to participate in this historic ceremony and support our effort to stop the desecration of our ancestors’ remains,” said Leivas. “We even extend an invitation to Chancellor Birgeneau, Provost Hume and the UC Regents, who might develop a better understanding of the profound sadness that UC policies have produced among Native peoples. They can drum along with us.”

People of the Salt Song Project have conducted similar ceremonies at Sherman Indian School Cemetery in Riverside, Stewart Indian School in Carson, Nev., and at the Old Woman mountains in the Southern California desert.

For more information about the Salt Song Project, those interested may visit nativeland.org, or contact one of the following organizations: Native American Land Conservancy at (760) 775-2204; Cultural Conservancy at (415) 561-6594; Chemehuevi Cultural Center at (760) 874-3052; or Matthew Leivas Sr. at (760) 858-4049.

Posted on January 17th, 2008 by hunwut
Filed under: Culture, Events, Museum