Archaeology for Cultural Empowerment
Archaeology for Cultural Empowerment – The
story of the development of a culturally sensitive archaeological
training program for Native American Site Monitors.
By: Teresa M. Lorden, MA, c.Phil, Anthropology, UCR (delivered
at the California Indian Conference, October 2002, Palomar
Community College)
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| Elderberry: kúuta |
The Temecula Band of Luiseño Mission Indians has operated
a site monitor training program for several years through
their Cultural Resources Department. For the past year, in
collaboration with two graduate students from the UC Riverside
Anthropology Department, UC Riverside Extension, and the Costo
Chair in Native American Studies, a Site Monitor Training
Certificate program was developed. The first class received
their certificates at the end of September 2002. This program
was designed to provide a model curriculum for a culturally
sensitive site monitor training program. This program seeks
to fuse the interests of sovereign Indian peoples protecting
their cultural patrimony with the scientific expertise of
professional anthropologists and archaeologists within a student-centered
educational program. The prime objective was to create a tribally
focused, academically validated site monitor certification
program. While seeking to educate Native Americans to speak
“archaeologese”, the instructors also learned
to view an objectifying discipline from the side of the traditional
“objects.” This paper tells the story of this
journey to the other side for the students as well as the
instructors.
My name is Teresa Lorden, I’m a graduate student in
the Anthropology Department at UC Riverside, and I have had
the honor and pleasure for the past year to be a part of this
groundbreaking program. During the summer of 2001, I was introduced
to Gary DuBois, the director of Cultural Resources for the
Pechanga Reservation. Working through Joel Martin, the Costo
Chair in Native American Studies at UC Riverside, I did some
research for Pechanga, locating various historic photographs,
artwork, and recordings. Over the course of these meetings,
the current Pechanga site monitor training program was discussed.
Gary mentioned that it would be desirable for the monitors
to receive some kind of commendation and accreditation for
the time spent in their training program, which had been developing
over the past several years. Joel Martin went back to UCR
Extension, and with the help of Shelley Lisker and Leanna
Mojado, the groundwork was laid for the development of this
program. Joel Martin recruited me to further develop and teach
the course, and I in turn recruited Jim McPherson to help,
since I’m not an archaeologist.
While seeking to educate Native Americans to speak “archaeologese”,
the instructors also learned to view an objectifying discipline
from the side of the traditional “objects.”
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The mandate from Gary was to teach archaeology and anthropology
to the site monitors, along the guidelines published by the
Native American Heritage Commission. But not just archaeology
and anthropology from the Western academic standpoint, he
wanted it to be culturally sensitive to the worldview of the
Luiseño site monitors. We had a directive from UCR
Extension to make the course academically sound, so that it
could be accredited. A third leg to this stool was added by
the UCR Anthropology Department, to make sure the course content
was at the level of a university course, that would meet the
standards of the discipline. A fourth mandate was to build
a research and educational relationship in furtherance of
the Costos’ vision for a Center for California Native
Nations at UCR. The Costo Endowment and the Costo Chair provided
strong institutional and intellectual support for this initiative.
Another piece added by Gary was that he wanted to course to
be a model that could be utilized by other Native Americans,
not just Pechanga. So we had to develop general components,
that basically do not change, and then culturally specific
components, that could be modified depending on the tribe
taking the course.
Not being Native Americans ourselves, Jim and I had quite
a task ahead of us. Sure, we had been well prepared throughout
our education to teach standard ethnology and archaeology,
but make it culturally sensitive for Native Americans? That
was a whole other ball of wax. As we prepared for and taught
the class, we tried to keep at the forefront of our thoughts,
who our audience is, to be aware of their worldview and how
it is relevant to the subject being discussed. And we incorporated
a lot of open discussion in the class to deal with the contrast
of academic vs. Native worldview.
We did lots of research over the next several months, seeing
what other programs were in existence throughout the country
for Native Americans, getting feedback from Cultural Resource
Management people on what they felt was important for Native
American site monitors to know, and reading a huge amount
of literature on areas of conflict and cooperation between
Native Americans and archaeologists. The summarizing ethos
of the project for Jim and I was that knowledge is power.
We felt it was important for our students to understand the
worldview of the archaeologists, so that they might better
be able to defend and inform the archaeologists and developers
of their worldview.
Our course description reads as follows: An overview of the
goals and purposes of the Pechanga Cultural Resource Committee
and Cultural Resource companies as applied to federal, state,
and local laws that regulate the preservation of prehistoric
and historic archaeological materials. Explores the integration
of the goals and purposes of Native Americans and archaeologists,
while discussing the concerns of both communities. Deals with
the basic methods and procedures used by archaeologists to
identify prehistoric and historic artifacts as well as practices
involved in the curation of these artifacts. Also includes
an introduction to the local ethnohistory, ethnobotany, geology,
and geomorphology. The major theme, reinforced throughout
the course is that of the sacred trust given to site monitors,
to preserve and protect Native American Cultural Resources.
They are the first and last defense in the field of Tribal
Cultural Resource Management.
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| Chia: páa$al |
As it stands now, the course consists of the following topics:
What is Cultural Resource Management?; Overview of Site Monitor
role, duties, and laws; Expectations, a day in the life of
Site Monitor; Archaeologists’ concerns and involvement;
Areas of concern, conflict, and cooperation between Native
Americans and archaeologists; Professionalism; Worldviews:
Anthropological Academic worldview (overview of four-fields,
Cultural Anthropology, Physical Anthropology, Archaeology,
Linguistics); Old World vs. New World Archaeology; Science
and archaeology; Data collection; Analysis; Propositions,
hypothesis, and theory; Peopling of the Americas and proposed
migration routes; Luiseño worldview and creation story;
Luiseño knowledge/power/sacredness of “things”;
Laws governing the protection of prehistoric and historic
artifacts: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act, California Environmental Quality Act, Compliance/Phases
in archaeological investigation, Record search, Surveys, Testing
and Evaluation, Mitigation, Preservation, Data Collection,
Using information centers; Peopling of the Americas and proposed
migration routes; Chronology: “Native American”
time – cyclical vs. lineal; Local chronology; Age dating
archaeological materials; Local ethnobotany and ethnozoology;
Geology, in order to understand the basic rock types and local
lithic material resources; Artifact Classification in order
to recognize attributes used to classify artifacts; Luiseño
cultural view of artifacts; Rock Art; Luiseño landmarks;
Archaeological field methods: Field Survey, Unit layout and
preparation, Excavation and screening, Record keeping; Historic
archaeology; Luiseño ethnohistory; Mapping, in order
to read and draw field site maps, and locate sites on topographic
maps; Luiseño ethnography: territory, settlement patterns,
ownership and property, social and political organization/life
cycle, religion and ritual/cosmology.
Other important components of the course were field trips,
hands-on exercises, reading assignments, quizzes, a glossary
of archaeological terms, and simulated field experiences.
Also, an extremely important component was the daily Luiseño
vocabulary. Since archaeologists and anthropologists sometimes
speak a language all their own, we felt it was important for
the monitors to understand that language, but also to have
some language of their own to throw back at the archaeologists.
So everyday we introduced Luiseño vocabulary related
to the artifacts, ethnobotany, geography, etc.
And then, we followed all this up with a final exam, with
a written as well as a field component. After all this intensive
work, bombarding our students for 6-7 hours a day with more
than enough data to fill 2-3 quarter classes in the UC system,
I’m proud to say that they passed the exam with flying
colors. Our first certificate class all received A’s
on their final exam. They were committed, always came to class
well prepared for the day’s activities, participated
in discussions, and asked challenging questions.
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