A version of this article first appeared in Berkeleyside and is reprinted with permission.
Hundreds of people gathered at the West Berkeley Shellmound on Saturday evening to celebrate the transfer of the old Spenger’s parking lot to the stewardship of local Indigenous people, whose ancestors first settled there 5,000 years ago.
Unlike at many Berkeley events, this one did not open with a land acknowledgment about participants standing on the “ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people.” The Berkeley City Council has started its meetings with that statement since 2022.
But ever since the 2.2-acre plot on Fourth Street between University and Hearst avenues was transferred to the Ohlone-led Sogorea Te’ Land Trust on April 30, it has been in Indigenous hands, so no land acknowledgment was needed.
The celebration opened with a ceremonial dance led by 13 Pomo and Ohlone tribal members dressed in regalia, including long skirts and feathered headdresses. Some held feathers in their hands and whistles in their mouths. They danced barefoot (and, for the men, bare-chested) in front of banners that read “Save the Shellmounds” and “Protect Our Sacred Spaces.” Before the dancing began, organizers asked that no pictures be posted publicly.
Members of the Bay Area Jewish community were in attendance, including representatives of the group Jews on Ohlone Land. JOOL has held Havdalah services at the shellmound site at least once a month since 2021. The group also encourages local Jews to pay the Shuumi Land Tax, a voluntary tax that supports the work of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and Rabbi Dev Noily, who co-founded JOOL and leads Piedmont’s Kehilla Community Synagogue, were among those who received a white stole in recognition of their advocacy work.
“To see a tribe dance on their land for the first time in over 150 years, it was so moving,” Gottlieb said in an interview Tuesday. “I wept.”
Gottlieb, who attended Berkeley City Council meetings to show her support for the land transfer, called it the first step in “rematriating” the land. (“Rematriation” is a term some Indigenous people use to describe the process of restoring balance to the world.)
“There’s a beautiful vision of lifting up the concrete, restoring the earth and building a cultural center,” she said. “I hope everyone remains engaged as this work continues.”
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Corrina Gould, the chair of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan and co-founder of the women-led and operated Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, participated in Saturday’s prayer dance as did her daughter, granddaughter and other relatives.
Gary Thomas of the Elem Pomo Roundhouse reminded the crowd of the moment’s significance, a feeling that Gould later reinforced. Even though there was asphalt under the dancers’ feet and a freeway overhead, the dance was a reminder that the Ohlone people had never gone away. They had finally regained ancestral land long off-limits because of private ownership, he said.
“We set down a prayer here when we danced just now,” said Gould. “We are using our bodies to put down those prayers because underneath this asphalt our ancestors still hear us and they are calling on us to continue. This is not the end of it. This is the beginning of a new chapter.”
Ohlone people, backed up by archeological investigations, say that the area around 1900 Fourth St. was the first Indigenous settlement on San Francisco Bay. For thousands of years, Chochenyo-speaking natives lived there and fished in the Bay. They threw clam, mussel shells, animal carcasses and ritualistic objects into a huge mound. They buried their dead nearby. At one point, 425 shellmounds surrounded the Bay. When white settlers moved to Berkeley in the 19th century, they scraped off portions of the shellmound and sold it as fertilizer, chicken feed and grading material for roads, according to the Berkeley Historical Plaque project. In 2000, the city of Berkeley formally recognized the West Berkeley Shellmound.
The rematriation of the 2.2-acre parcel came after eight years of protests and legal battles that started in 2018, cost Berkeley millions of dollars in legal fees and fines, and only ended in March when the land’s owner, Ruegg & Ellsworth, agreed to sell it to the city for $27 million. Berkeley immediately transferred the land to the trust.
The bulk of the funding came from a $20 million Shuumi Land Tax donated by the Kataly Foundation to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust. Kataly, which is committed to supporting “the economic, political, and cultural power of Black and Indigenous communities,” was founded in 2018 by Regan Pritzker, whose family owns the Hyatt hotel chain, and her husband, Chris Olin. The 11th Hour Foundation and other individuals also chipped in. Berkeley contributed $1.5 million.
“What’s really gratifying,” said Tom Lippe, the attorney who represented the Confederated Villages of Lisjan in its legal case against Ruegg & Ellsworth, “is we lost in court every step of the way. We lost the legal battle, but we won the war.”
The return of the land to Indigenous hands is part of a growing “land back” movement. In 2020, the Esselen Tribe in Monterey County acquired 14,000 acres of its ancestral homeland paid for in part by a $4.5 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency. Earlier this year, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife returned 40 acres in Inyo County to the Fort Independence Indian Community. In June, California — which issued an official apology to the state’s Indigenous people five years ago for its role in their genocide — said it would support the transfer of 2,800 acres of ancestral land to the Shasta Indian Nation.
The atmosphere on Saturday was festive and celebratory. There were food trucks serving tacos, pizza and lemonade, and it was all free — a thank you from the trust for all the work and support of its “relatives,” as Gould put it. In one tent, people were painting cotton patches to celebrate the transfer. Children ran around and people picnicked on blankets spread on the ground.
“This is an epic, historical moment,” said Veronica Ramirez, an Oakland artist who leads groups in making public altars and mandalas. “It’s a celebration, not a fight anymore. That’s really important to balance the struggle.”
Danielle Epifani of Berkeley came to the celebration with two leis, one made of bay leaves and red ginger, the other of bougainvillea. Her mother is from Tahiti and she had gathered with people from Polynesia the night before to make leis to celebrate a win for all Indigenous people she said.
“We feel a connection to this land, and it’s our way of showing our humility and gratitude for being here,” she said.
Gould told the crowd that the celebration was for all of the people who showed up to Berkeley Zoning Adjustment and Planning Commission meetings, lobbied the City Council, drew murals on the street, and protested when the lot was enclosed by a high fence. Throughout the evening, she called up specific people to thank, including Lippe, Berkeley City Attorney Farimah Brown, Councilmember Sophie Hahn and many others.
Her comments were followed with “ohs,” from the crowd, not hand-clapping. Saying an “oh” is an Indigenous way of thanks.
Plans for transforming the space from a parking lot to a community site are ongoing, and the price tag is likely to be in the tens of millions of dollars. The first project will focus on the portion of Strawberry Creek that runs down University Avenue onto the lot, Gould said.
Other plans include reburying the bones of Ohlone tribe members now being held at UC Berkeley’s Hearst Museum and creating an information center and ceremonial area.
Claire Greensfelder, executive director of the California Institute for Community, Art & Nature, which has been working for years to rematriate the shellmound, said she dreams of the day when instead of just reading about Indigenous people, Berkeley school children can come to the land and immerse themselves in the culture too.