Drowned Histories:
Submerged Place in the
Bradley L. Garrett
Now what we need is a great big dam,
to throw a lot o’ water out across that land,
People could work and stuff would grow,
And you could wave goodbye to the old skid row.
- Woody Guthrie (1998),
Introduction
During the course of
research for my Masters thesis on the physical effects of dam construction on
archaeological remains, I was put into contact with a Native American tribe in
Essentially, I found myself challenged by the notion that I could be doing archaeology as anthropology, a phrase I had heard used but never that I had never intellectually disassembled. Archaeology as anthropology seemed a theoretical tenant almost universally accepted by academics who seemed as confused as me about how this was actually done practically.[1] I was puzzled by the realization that despite having a degree in anthropology, I did not know how to be an anthropologist. While I had come to terms with the fact that my work was about material culture, I did not understand how these things were related to the present. I did not understand how I was to give agency to ‘other’ groups who laid claim to ‘archaeology’ which I saw as the domain of academics. In an effort to understand, I contacted the Winnemem Wintu and asked to interview the spiritual leader of the tribe. What took place was a 30 minute interview which shifted my orientation and goals as an archaeologist.
The short time I spent talking with the Winnemem Wintu about traditional sites now underneath Lake Shasta, hearing the stories of their losses and hearing about the adaptation of cultural traditions inspired me to become more emotionally engaged with my work and encouraged me to strive to achieve a more informed, inclusive archaeological praxis. The stories of Winnemem Wintu widened my optics so that I could finally see that archaeology is as much about the present as it is about the past (Holtorf 2005).
Recent anthropologists
have experimented with new ways of telling stories about landscapes of the past
in the present (Colwell-Chanthaphonh 2006). Perhaps the best way is to reach
toward this goal is from a multiplicity of angles to give voice to the myriad
stakeholders in the complex, ongoing struggle for land and resources that is
taking place in the
This article, then, attempts to amplify the voice to the Winnemem Wintu, an underrepresented group whose contemporary connection to a landscape has been completely transformed through the politics of resource management.
Reciprocal Archaeology and the Middle Path
Desires to do something personally meaningful in our work sometimes collide with our goals as archaeologists to provide accurate and significant information about material meaning and cultural history leaves many of us feeling unsure about our role as custodians of the material past. But highlighting dichotomies and taking extreme positions only heightens debate that weakens our arguments. What is needed at this point is a middle path that “simultaneously embraces multivocality and seeks an objective understanding of the world” (Colwell-Chanthaphonh and Ferguson 2006). Doing more informed archaeology does not necessarily exclude a journey toward scientific rationalism, but instead informs that journey with cultural supplements.
This approach requires that we widen perspective and extend open invitation to multiple meanings without dictating that we accept every interpretation offered. This approach also suggests that we focus far less on artefacts and sites and begin to contemplate broad cultural meaning, significance and attachment. Broader context is “based on landscapes or ecosystems rather than artificially-defined impact zones derived from narrow project based criteria and artificially bounded cultural resources” (Downer and Roberts 1993). Relatively recent moves in federal legislation, such as the addition of traditional cultural property significance assessments (Parker and King 1992), and increased discussion in landscape archaeology (Stoffle et al 1997) seem to reinforce desires to more inclusive work. What I would argue is that these actions would actually propel into the era of anthropological archaeology that processualism promised to usher.
Likewise, many groups throughout the world, recognizing the way archaeology has been used to shape political and nationalistic agendas (Trigger 1995) are now calling for what T.J. Ferguson has called reciprocal archaeology (Ferguson 2003). Reciprocal archaeology is a cultural informed praxis which reinforces community agency and encourages contemporary connections and cultural continuity. Reciprocal archaeology addresses the contemporary needs of local groups whose interests in places many times intersect with the interests of archaeologists. Archaeological sites and the material within them are living, breathing entities and act as teachers to impart sacred knowledge handed down from the past (Basso 1996). These concepts are, and always should have been, central to archaeology’s pursuit of historical significance and historical storytelling.
While archaeologists may focus on the material (when delineated from the immaterial), we cannot allow ourselves to be constrained by strict notions of archaeological significance. Informed, reciprocal archaeology as anthropology will recognize that “not all traditional cultural places have archaeological attributes” yet these places may be, or have been, of significance to cultural groups.
While these arguments may sound good in theory, implementing a more informed archaeological praxis, especially when constrained by factors such as time (the dominate factor in private industry) and programmatic requirements (a primary factor in the federal sector) remains a difficult juggling act. This research seeks to implement this sort of work practically. It begins, as all stories about our past should, by setting the scene.
Historical Framework – Submerging the Past
Major impacts of dam construction in the Western United States occurred during the Great Depression that began in the 1920s and peaked in the 1930s, leading to the beginning of the Big Dam Era[2] which thrived in the modern period (1910-1980) (Anderson, et al. 2006). This period in United States history was spawned by the desire President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alleviate the social pressures of a weak U.S. economy.
In the United States between 1929 and 1933, unemployment soared from approximately 3% to over 25%. As a response, in 1933, Roosevelt stepped into office and implemented the ‘New Deal’, a radical change in government administration and policy which fuelled the creation of millions of jobs across the country (Parrish 1992: 347-351). Many of these jobs constituted the beginning of contract archaeology and this time period was arguably the beginning of the modern Cultural Resource Management movement. Under the New Public Works Administration:
There was no means test. Any guy could just walk into a county office – they were set up all over the country – and get a job... Within a period of sixty days, four million people were put to work [Terkel 1985: 256].
As a result, hundreds of large scale public works projects were undertaken by crews of largely unskilled workers during this period (Figure 1). As a result, a great deal of land was excavated that uncovered a rich underground material legacy only hinted at by previous work. The Roosevelt administration’s philosophy was that ‘people should be put to work immediately, even though it might be done inefficiently’ (Terkel 1986: 256).
The Big Dam Era had begun. Both big and small farmers, today consumed by multinational agribusinesses, became accustomed to the new wealth of water and power resources captured by large scale dams during the depression era and into World War II. Radical waterway manipulation became an integral part of North American Manifest Destiny, displacing thousands of small communities along the banks of rivers and flooding countless cultural landscapes – both ancient and contemporaneous.
This large-scale dam building process was fuelled by abundant labour supply during the Great Depression and the assembly line efficiency inspired by Eli Whitney (Guelzo 2006) and later refined by Henry Ford, and was carried over into the utopianistic period of consumer modernity that dominated North American culture until the 1980s. The Big Dam Era marked the rise of hyper-capitalism, a system in which nationalistic unity took precedence over local community and tradition.
With only the antiquities act to protect the cultural resources which were becoming more widely excavated with the help of new construction technology, government powers passed the Historic Sites Act of 1935, the National Trust for Historic Preservation Act, the Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act of 1960, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, and finally, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 to try and conserve and protect national heritage during the course of large scale development. Unfortunately, despite efforts to the contrary, relatively little land in the United States was ever preserved, the nature of cultural resource management become one of mitigation rather than preservation. Hundreds of archaeological sites were scientifically ‘recorded’ and relegated to the watery depths of massive reservoirs.
As a result, collective memory of the numerous submerged landscapes began to fade. Historic town such as the one depicted in the film Northfork (Fish forthcoming) and ancient Native American landscapes such as Kettle falls on the Columbia River all disappeared beneath the floodwaters (Figure 2). A recent Exhibit in Los Angeles by the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) which undertook research on submerged towns contends that ‘no nationwide survey of the cultural resources these sacrificed towns represent seems to exist’ (CLUI 2005). Characteristic of CRM work undertaken since the dramantic increase of land development in the United Stats, archaeological reports on submerged landscapes largely populate mountains of grey literature in federal land offices.
Dams as Assimilative Process
In the spirit of salvage archaeology, the role of the archaeologist in these contexts was (and is) to collect and record ‘data’ about what may never be seen or experienced again. As a result, inundation of cultural sites has been studied in the past mainly in terms of physical impacts (Adivasio 1980, Carrell 1976, Foster 1977, Fredrickson 1977, Lenihan et al 1977, Lenihan et al 1981a, Lenihan 1981b). Intentional inundation may be recognized by most archaeologists as having a significant impact on archaeological data and access to land, but until recently has not been widely addressed in terms of socio-cultural impacts.
New directions in cultural resource management (CRM) in the United States and cultural heritage management (CHM) elsewhere in the world where people are engaged in reciprocal archaeology suggest that loss of archaeological sites goes far beyond physical and mechanical impacts. Better definitions for the term CRM have been suggested by authors such as Thomas F. King, who sees a CRM philosophy which does not embody ‘the social institutions, beliefs and lifeways that give each [archaeological] system its unique identity’ as entirely problematic (King 2002: 6). In the United States, the topic is inexorably intertwined with the politics of cultural resource management, in which cultural sites are deemed ‘resources’ and weighed (in terms of utilitarian and monetary value) against contending ‘resources’ such as water, minerals and grazing areas.
To many, submerged cultural sites are now a closed book, a historic period now overlooked and forgotten. But increasingly, local communities wish to re-experience these ‘lost’ places. Memories of submerged landscapes intrigue people as they stand on the banks of newly created ‘lakes’ and remember what once was. And, in spite of the continual pains associated with this loss and transition, local communities continue to be threatened by the arid west’s insatiable need for water.
Archaeologists today need to be aware of these lingering effects, and must overcome the naive assumption that culture can be salvaged; sometimes mitigation is not an option. To local communities, heritage, history, archaeology, anthropology, and economics of everyday existence are all part of the same system in which people exist. For this reason, and contrary to much of the work done during the course of reservoir salvage archaeology, it would be entirely negligent to talk about how cultural material is affected by inundation without talking about how people are affected.
Indigenous populations are often one of the most heavily impacted groups in the case of dam construction (WCD 2001: 110-111) Indigenous cultural identity in Native North America is intimately connected with landscape (McLeod 2001), as cultural geographers such as Denis Cosgrove (1984) and Barbara Bender (1993) have long noted. Material culture is a primary component of the cultural landscape and ‘archaeology, as a privileged form of expertise, occupies a role in the governance and regulation of identity’ (Smith 2004: 3) through interpretation of material cultural remains and control of landscapes.
It has been a long held policy of the United States to force assimilation by removing people from these landscapes, leaving a ‘gap’ in self-perception, which can then be injected with ‘Christian’ and ‘American’ ideologies. It is not a far stretch to realize that dam construction, while providing resources for the ‘greater good’, conveniently removes indigenous people from their traditional landscapes, continuing the process of assimilation that began with the initial Spanish incursions into North America.
In many respects, dam-induced resettlement will not necessarily destroy “local cultures” as much as it appropriates them and restructures them in terms of values and goals often originating from far beyond the local context. Such a process involves the reduction of local culture, society and economy from all their varied expressions to a narrow set of institutions and activities that make them compatible with the purposes of the larger society (Canclini 1993 [referenced in Oliver Smith 2006]).
Archaeologists are increasingly beginning to recognize the impact disattachment from landscape has on cultural traditions. This may be due to an increase in discussion between archaeologist and local groups. Historic experience has encouraged more local groups to enlist archaeologists in their fight against cultural oppression, using federal legislation and a tool for activism. In this case study, the Winnemem Wintu challenge historic disenfranchisement by continuing cultural practice despite loss of access to memorial landscape. The Winnemem people have chosen to protest the construction of Shasta Dam precisely by practicing the cultural traditions that the United States government tried purge from their culture.
United States Government Relations with the Winnemem Wintu
Great nations, like great men, keep their word
– United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black (1937-1971)
About 10 kilometres north of Redding, California, a small 42 acre parcel of land is privately owned by the great niece and successor of the late great Native American spiritual and tribal leader of the Winnemem Wintu, Florence Curl Jones. This land is the site of Kerikmet Village, the only contemporary ‘property’ of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
As a consequence of the historical land grab initiated against the tribe (a story heard all too often in Native North America), there is some confusion over the extent of traditional Winnemem landscapes. This is compounded by the fact that majority of the tribe’s traditional cultural places now lay under Shasta Reservoir. The land the tribe occupies today is only a small reminder of the area that the Winnemem Wintu once cared for. Today, the tribe continues to utilize remaining accessible traditional cultural places, many of which are held by various private and federal government organizations including the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Reclamation.
The Winnemem Wintu, despite having 125 surviving tribal members, do not hold promised reservation land. The United States federal government has, up to now, refused to recognize the Winnemem Wintu as a tribe despite the fact that the government has negotiated treaties with tribal leaders in the past. According to present day tribal leaders, the promise of recognition as a tribe has been used as a bargaining chip by the government to keep the Winnemem from voicing concerns about government policy (Sisk-Franco 2005).
Many battles have been fought by the Wintu to retain their traditional lands, including a fight against the construction of the Shasta dam in Redding California in 1938 which ended in the submergence of a number of cultural areas sacred to the Winnemem. The Winnemem Wintu are victims of a legacy of modernity, the inheritors of a history submerged by California’s insatiable thirst and growing population. The plight of the Wintu is a difficult story to tell, but is an important component of Western industrial cultural legacies.
Traditional Wintu society was broken up into nine different bands which in total numbered over 20,000 people at the time of Euro-American contact, 1848 (Fullwood 2002). The Wintu have fought to retain their culture since the genocidal California gold rush era of the mid-1800s. Indian extermination policies were encouraged by the United States Government, who paid out over $924,259 between 1850 and 1859 for the mercenary killing of Indian people (Norton 1979: 76). Murder and disease killed off over 90% of the Winnemem Wintu people – from 14,000 people in the 1850s to an estimated 395 by the 1930s (Franco and Sisk-Franco 2002: 4). Due to this population atrophy, the Winnemem Wintu have never been formally recognized as a Native American Tribe by the United States Government. Despite this, the federal government included the Winnemem Wintu under the Dawes Act of 1887 (Forbes 1969: 90) and has negotiated with the tribe as a group on a number of occasions, and irony recognized by tribal leaders.
Today, less than 2000 people claim Wintu ancestry. Of these, the Winnemem Wintu have 125 active tribal members. The Winnemem Wintu have lived on this river for over 1000 years, utilising the area for living, subsistence, and ritual (Cummings 2004).
In 1851, the Winnemem Wintu signed a treaty with the US Government at Readings Ranch in California ceding all of their remaining lands in exchange for a 25 square mile reservation. No reservation was ever established, but the lands were taken from the Winnemem regardless. After years of battle, the Winnemem were given land allotments along the McCloud River, on a small fraction of their traditional territory. This small victory was to be short-lived as the Indian Land Acquisition Act was signed into law in 1941, which states that tribal lands would be confiscated in return for fair compensation in order to initiate development of the world’s largest reservoir in the heart of traditional Winnemem land.
In 1938, construction of the Shasta Dam and the state’s largest man-made lake began at the confluence of the Pit, McCloud, and Sacramento Rivers. This construction submerged hundreds of cultural sites, including an entire gold rush era mining town called Kennett (Figure 3).
Traditional Winnemem territory lies north of the proposed dam, in an area which early ethnographers described as ‘particularly favorable to aboriginal habitation’ (Bois 1935: 6). Recognizing this threat to their traditional land, the area which was supposed to be their ‘reservation’, the Winnemem were forced to relocate to privately bought land near Redding, California, the village called Kerikmet (Franco and Sisk-Franco 2002). The Winnemem have lived out the last 40 years here in peace, keeping their traditions alive and occasionally being forced to stand up as custodians for land that they no longer occupy, land largely owned by government agencies.
Many government agencies fail to see that their actions and gestures reinforce a perception of the Winnemem being timelessly nomadic and landless. One example stems from the choice of words, when referring for instance to Shasta Reservoir as a ‘lake’ gives it an illusion of permanence which clouds public understanding of flooded landscapes and make the Winnemem appear to be asking practice traditions in area which have always been underwater!
The Construction of Shasta Dam - Words from the Winnemem
Archaeological survey on the vacated Winnemem lands was undertaken by C.E. Smith and W.D. Weymouth (1952), two archaeologists from the University of California Berkeley. Archaeological survey maps of the area made prior to site inundation show that at least 37 sites of ‘archaeological significance’ are impounded under the floodwaters of Lake Shasta (Figure 4), including 183 human burials. This report, while beneficial in terms of archaeological recordation, failed to record pertinent ethnographic information regarding site locations and significance. When I asked Caleen Sisk-Franco, spiritual leader of the Winnemem, about whether she felt archaeologists had done an accurate job recording archaeological sites before the floodwaters, she responded by saying that:
I am not quite sure what they mean by ‘archaeological’ sites. We have sites that probably an archaeologist would stumble right on past because it doesn’t have mortar holes, it doesn’t have hand tools, it doesn’t have a lithic scatter. It may just be a big rock. There were several of these sites which were fishing places, salmon fishing places which were submerged.[3]
It is likely, of course, that many more than 37 culturally significant sites were submerged, though many may not have had particularly significant ‘archaeological’ values. Smith and Weymouth (1952) concluded that ‘…almost the entire habitable terrain once occupied by [the] Wintu tribe has been inundated’ (Smith and Weymouth 1952: 2).
The dam was built despite objections, and much of the Winnemem’s history and traditional spaces were submerged by the fluid path of progress just after World War II, severely altering tribal ties to landscape and tribal identity. According to Caleen, the United States Forest Service continues to tell the Winnemem that they can practice their ceremonies without these places (Sisk-Franco 2005). Caleen’s response is that ‘these sites are the heart of the tribe’ and that they cannot practice without them. The spiritual leader goes on to talk about two important sites: puberty rock and sacred pools at the foot of the Two Sister Mountain, both areas necessary for coming of age ceremonies. Caleen says that:
…even just destroying those two sites is like saying that I think the pope can do without his cross and chalice. We will just flood those things. You can still have your traditions, you just can’t have those things.
Following the inundation of the majority of their traditional cultural property, the Winnemem quietly continued to fight for their rights, constantly defending their remaining lands from government control and development, including a ski lodge proposed by the United States Forest Service on the Winnemem’s most sacred landscape, Mount Shasta (McLeod 2001). But the Winnemem are a resilient and adaptive people. They began to modify their tradition ceremonies around the land that was left, and continued to educate children about the cultural spaces submerged under the lake.
After years of battles with the federal government, and a generation of self-discovery and reidentification, early in 2001 the Winnemem were advised by a fellow Native American tribe that the United States Bureau of Reclamation was holding meetings to discuss raising the Shasta Dam another 6 ½ to 200 feet, yet again to quench the thirst of arid California farmlands and thirsty, ever-expanding suburbs. The Winnemem, lacking the federal recognition that is needed to include them in the planning process, are excluded from the Environmental planning, despite a 1992 amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act (Advisory Council for Historic Preservation 1993: 3-4)which requires federal agencies to confer with tribes on preservation related activities and guidelines under the 1972 American Indian Religious Freedom Act (PL 95-341, 42 USC & 1996) which confirms the right of Native American Tribes to access traditional lands for freedom of worship and traditional practice.
Though the meeting was proposed as an open public discussion, the Winnemem were not invited or even advised that it was taking place despite the fact that the raising of the dam would submerge another ‘20 sacred sites, including a burial ground of 17 additional Winnemem and a rock where Winnemem girls pray as part of a puberty ritual’ (Murphy 2004) and a site where 42 Native peoples were massacred 150 years ago (Ritscher 2004). When the Winnemem arrived at the meeting and voiced their concern, and were quickly dismissed, a government official telling them that the tribe they would have their time to object in the final stages of the proposal. Caleen responded by stating ‘wouldn’t you want to save taxpayers a lot of money by identifying that these cultural sites and traditional properties of an active Tribe up front?’
The impact overview drafted by the Bureau of Reclamation in October 2005 for the proposed level increase does not even discuss cultural impacts of the construction.[4]
As a result, the Winnemem are willing to go to extreme measures to preserve their heritage. As University of New Mexico anthropologist Dr. Les Feld pointed out: ‘When those places get threatened or occupied or expropriated or somehow taken from them, that calls for preparation for conflict’ (cited in Melley 2004).
War Declared on Shasta Dam!
As a response to the government’s plan, the Winnemem, led by the tribal head man, Mark Franco, conducted a ritual War Dance, a Hu’p Chonas, against the dam (Figure 5). The last time this dance was conducted was in 1887, when the Winnemem danced against a fishery built along the McCloud River. A year after the last war dance, the fishery was swept away by a flood.
The dance is a performance of protest by the Winnemem, a call to the world to come to their aid against the continued loss of Winnemem sacred sites. During an interview with a local paper, Caleen stated that:
The war dance itself is a message, a message to the world that we can’t stand to put up with this again. We’ve already lost too many sacred sites to the lake. To lose more is like cutting the legs off all the tribal members [Ritscher 2004].
Many of the remaining members of the Winnemem Wintu are afraid that the inundation of these 17 sites will immeasurably disrupt the tribe’s cultural connections to landscape and irreparably alter their ability to conduct traditional ceremonies (Murphy 2004). Mr. Mulcahy, a Winnemem elder stated on the day of the war dance that ‘if [these sites] go under the water, it will be like somebody just came in and bulldozed the church down’ (Murphy 2004).
The war dance conducted by the Winnemem, led by Caleen Sisk-Franco and Mark Franco, lasted for four days, filled with dance, ritual, and fasting conducted around an ever burning flame.
New Landscapes & New Cultural Traditions
In July of 2006, the Winnemem Wintu held a puberty ceremony that has not been observed for 80 years. The construction of Shasta Lake submerged a sacred rock used for puberty ceremonies until the 1940’s - instantly severing a long-held cultural tradition (Ross 2006a).
The Winnemem continue to modify their cultural traditions to maintain their connection to their landscape and the past integrate their cultural traditions into a new social and cultural framework. For instance, the tradition of grinding herbs into puberty rock by the initiate had to be moved because the original rock is now underwater. In an effort to re-establish this timeless tradition, the Winnemem returned to the sacred space of the ceremony, now a public campground run by the United States forest Service. The Forest Service denied the Winnemem’s request to a full closure of the branch of the river being used for the rights, but agreed to a voluntary closure during the week-long ceremony, which respected by most boaters.
The ceremony was being held for Marine Sisk-Franco, daughter of the Head Man and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu. The ritual was interrupted by boaters who, according to reporter Kimberly Ross of the Redding Record Searchlight “yelled obscenities and made mocking gestures at the group… a women in a bikini raised her beer can and exposed herself, all just before the high point in Marine’s initiation’ (Ross 2006a).
Caleen Sisk-Franco argues that the federal government has failed to respect the Tribe’s religious rights. Caleen was quoted as stating that it was ‘…ironic that it’s the Fourth of July, 2006 [American Independence Day] and we’re still begging around for our rights. We’re still not there yet’ (Sisk-Franco [quoted in Ross 2006b]).
Current actions by the United States Bureau of Reclamation serve to remind us today that the battle for indigenous rights is far from over. In fact, in the case of the Winnemem, it could be argued that it never began.
Dozens of Winnemem elders still lie in watery graves under Lake Shasta, subjected to not only the erosional processes of the water, but to the deposition of modern cultural material onto sacred sites from passing boats.
Caleen knows that the sites that are already submerged are being damaged. Not only is erosion taking places on the bank of the lake, but recreational activity is taking a heavy toll. Caleen observes that ‘when the water recedes, you can see the oil residue on the banks’.
When asked what she would like to see happen, Caleen simply states that
I would like to see the government deal with the Winnemem Wintu fairly and justly. Give us our like land to live on, promised under the 1937 Act of Congress. These camp sites and boat ramps out there on the lake could have been our like land to live on.
When asked about the possible deconstruction on the dam in the future, Caleen was hopeful, but concerned about how the Forest Service would protect their sacred sites. She pointed out that last summer, during a fifty percent drawdown at the dam, people in ‘houseboats were out there digging around’.
The Winnemem have fought a long battle for recognition, a battle which is far from over. The submergence of Winnemem sites along the McCloud River has severely altered their tribal identity, as it has in many other cases of archaeological submergence. Voices cry out from these reservoirs, asking for recognition of the fact that their people have suffered.
Caleen spoke about those sites which are now submerged and those which still may be submerged:
We already did this one time and I think that our people have suffered for that. The traditions of the Winnemem people go right back to the losses incurred by losing our territory. Everything we ever knew is underwater.
The Winnemem Wintu people visit their past with irony, but celebrate the present regardless. Their actions speak louder than archaeological interpretation and challenge us, as arbiters of the past, the bring histories to the present. While my experience with the Wintu and my research on dam construction from the perspective of an archaeologist was difficult and frustrating, I find their celebration in the face of opposition enlightening and brilliant.
[Recognize] that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently [Echo 1994: 67-68].
Though this article is committed to the local perspective of the Winnemem Wintu, it is an example of a national phenomenon. Submergence of sacred places, traditional cultural properties and landscapes of meaning has taken place on the Columbia River, at ‘Lake’ Powell in Arizona, even at Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park. And though these places are known to exist, and may have even had pre-submergence archaeological mitigation take place, we know little about their archaeological or cultural significance. I would like to suggest that the Winnemem are representatives for a multiplicity of cultural voices that demand recognition of their submerged histories and agency to voice their concerns in the present.
It would seem that the ‘Big Dam Era’ has not yet ended as some have suggested (McCully 2001), but that the tactics have simply changed. Rather than looking forward to the ‘end’ of the era, anthropologists may work to transmute cultural damming into a recrudescence of artefact and landscape with an eye toward revisitation. Embracing this part of our cultural history is important, as these legacies will be reflected in personal histories and stratigraphic profiles for years to come.
Practicing reciprocal archaeology sends us home with more than artefact bags and archaeological data. It also sends us with a genealogy of place (Cresswell 2004: 15) and a deeper sense of meaning. The nature of archaeology, it seems to me, is rapidly changing to finally give credit to its anthropological roots. When this work takes place, it forces us to revisit the past with a bitter taste in our mouths and to keep our sight focused on the future that we as archaeologist are helping to write.
Plights such as those of the Winnemem Wintu remind us this topic is relevant, timely and important.[5]
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend the deepest thanks to Charlotte Berta for having an open mind about discission the challenges that the Winnemem face with an outsider and for getting this article reviewed by the tribe. Caleen Sisk-Franco, the spiritual leader of the Winnemem, has been under enormous pressure with her role in the tribe and I am very grateful that she could take the time to speak with me for my research. Dr. Shelley Greer and Dr. Susan McIntyre-Tamwoy at James Cook University had influence over the thesis which encouraged this article – their comments and suggestions are evident throughout. Erika Stein helped me to make my thoughts coherent. Finally, as always, Adam R. Fish will always receive my deepest thanks for his support and constant challenge to my work.
Notes
Adovasio, J. M., J. Donahue, W. C. Johnson, J. P. Marwitt, R. C. Carlisle, J. D. Applegarth, P. T. Fitzgibbons and J. D. Yedlowski
1980. An inundation study of three sites in the Bluestone Reservoir, Summers County, West Virginia. In The final report of the national reservoir inundation study volume II, edited by D. J. Lenihan.
Advisory Council for Historic Preservation
1993. National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended. Washington D.C. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
Anderson, D. G., B. C. Keel, J. H. Jameson, J. F. Cobb and J. W. Joseph
2006. Reservoir construction in the Southeastern United States: the Richard B. Russell project as an example of exemplary heritage/resource management. In Damming the past: cultural heritage management and dams in global perspective Lexington Books, Lanham.
Basso, Keith
1996. Wisdom Sits in Places. Albuquerque, New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press.
Bender, Barbara
1993. Landscapes: Politics and Perspective. Berg Publishers. UK.
Binford, Lewis
1962. American Antiquity, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 217-225.
Bois, C. D.
1935. Wintu Ethnography. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.
Carrell, T., S. Rayl and D. Lenihan
1976. The Effects of Freshwater Inundation of Archaeological Sites through Reservoir Construction : Literature Search. On file at the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Cultural Resources Management Division, Archaeology, Washington.
Cosgrove, Denis E.
1984. Social Formations and Symbolic Landscape. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin.
Crewsswell, Tim
2004. Place: A Short Introduction. Blackwell Publishing. Malden, Massachusetts.
CLUI
2005. Immersed Remains Exhibit. Center for Land Use Interpretation, Los Angeles.
Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip
2006. Dreams at the Edge of the World and Other Evocations of O’Odham History in Archaeologies: The Journal of the World Archaeology Congress Vol. 2 No. 1 pp. 20-44.
Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip and T.J. Ferguson
2006. Memory Pieces and Footprints: Multivocality and the Meanings of Ancient Times and Ancestral Places among the Zuni and Hopi. American Anthropologist
March 2006, Vol. 108, No. 1, pp. 148-162.
Cummings, C. H.
2004. The Winnemem Wintu: Waging war on Shasta Dam. Earth First! Journal (November-December 2004).
Downer, A. S., & Roberts, A.
1993. Traditional Cultural Properties, Cultural Resources
Management, and Environmental Planning. CRM, 16(Special Issue), 12-14.
Echo, U.
1994. Reflections on the Name of the Rose. Minerva, London, United Kingdom.
Ferguson, T.J.
1996. Anthropological Archaeology Conducted by Tribes: Traditional Cultural Properties and Cultural Affiliation. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 2003, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 137-144.
Fish, Adam
Forthcoming. "Archaeofilms I: Excavating Representation in the American Southwest" accepted for publication in Moving Images, Museums, Heritage Sites: Archaeology and National Contentions. Altamira Press, Walnut Grove, CA.
Forbes, J. D.
1969. Native Americans of California and Nevada. Naturegraph Publishers, Happy Camp, California.
Foster, J. W., J. C. Bingham, C. Carter, K. Cooley-Reynolds and J. L. Kelly
1977. The effect of inundation on the Pedersen Site, CA:ELD:201 Folsom Lake, California. On file with California State Parks and Recreation Department.
Franco, M. and C. Sisk-Franco
2002. Winnemem Wintu position regarding Shasta Dam. Prepared for the Senate Selection Committee Hearings in Washington DC, June 4th, 2002, Washington D.C.
Fredrickson, D. A., J. L. Cox, V. D. Kaplan, S. M. Patterson and S. A. Stoddard
1977. The Effects of Freshwater Immersion on Cultural Resources of the Coyote Dam-Lake Mendocino Project Area, Ukiah, California.
Fullwood, J.
2002. 'Journey to justice' tells poignant tale of almost-forgotten California Tribe. Canku Ota. vol. Issue 64.
Gillespie, Susan D. and Deborah L. Nichols.
2003. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association (AP3A number 13). University of California Press. Berkeley, California.
Gosden, Chris
1999. Anthropology and Archaeology: A Changing Relationship. Routledge Press, Oxford UK.
Guelzo, A. C.
2006. The 'American system'. History of the United States part 1, 2nd edition. Audio class by The Teaching Company.
Guthry, Woodie
1998. Washington Talkin’ Blues. Columbia River Collection. Rounder Recordings.
Holtorf, Cornelius
2005. From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: Archaeology as Popular Culture. AltaMira
Press, Walnut Creek, CA.
King, T.
2002. Thinking about Cultural Resource Management: Essays from the Edge. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek , CA.
Lenihan, D.
1977. The Preliminary Report of the National Reservoir Inundation Study. On file at the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Southwest Cultural Resources Center, Santa Fe.
Lenihan, D., T. L. Carell, S. Fosberg, L. Murphy, S. L. Rahl and J. A. Ware
1981a. The Final Report of the National Reservoir Inundation Study Volume I. On file at the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Southwest Cultural Resources Center, Santa Fe.
1981b. The Final Report of the National Reservoir Inundation Study Volume II. On file at the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Southwest Cultural Resources Center, Santa Fe.
McCully, P.
2001. Silenced Rivers: the Ecology and Politics of Large Dams. Zed Books, London.
McLeod, C.
2000. In the Light of Reverence. Sacred Land Film Project of Earth Island Institute.
Melley, B.
2004. Indian tribe conducts first war dance since 1887 to stop expansion of California's Shasta Dam. San Francisco Gate. San Francisco, California.
Murphy, D. E.
2004. At War Against Dam, Tribe Turns to Old Ways. New York Times. New York, New York.
Norton, J.
1979. When Our Worlds Cried: Genocide in Northwestern California. The Indian Historian Press. San Francisco, California.
Oliver-Smith, A.
2006. Cultural heritage, dams and displacement: conflicting discourses. In Damming the past: cultural heritage management and dams in global perspective edited by S. Brandt and F. Hassan. Lexington Books, Lanham.
Parker, Patricia L., and Thomas F. King
1992. Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Traditional Cultural Properties. National Register Bulletin 38. Interagency Resource Division, National Park Service. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
Parrish, M. E.
1992. Anxious Decades. W.W. Norton, London.
Ritscher, A.
2004. Native Americans Fight Shasta Dam Expansion. In Socialist Action. San Francisco, California.
Ross, Kimberly
2006a. Right of Passage, Teen Girl Undergoes Tribal Coming of Age Ceremony. Redding Record Searchlight. Redding, CA.
2006b. Ceremony Needs Space, Public Asked to Respect Voluntary Closure in Forest. Redding Record Searchlight. Redding, CA.
Sisk-Franco, C.
2005. Interview with the International Centre for Archaeology Underwater. Redding, California.
Smith, C. E. and W. D. Weymouth
1952. Archaeology of the Shasta Dam area, California. University of California.
Smith, L.
2004. Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage. Routledge, London.
Stoffle, Richard W.,
David B. Halmo and Diane E. Austin
1997. Cultural Landscapes
and Traditional Cultural Properties: A Southern Paiute View of the Grand Canyon
and Colorado River in American
Indian Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 2 pp. 229-249.
Terkel, S.
1986. Hard times: An oral history of the Great Depression. New Press, New York.
Trigger, B.
1995. “Romanticism, Nationalism, and Archaeology,” in P.L. Kohl and C. Fawcett (eds.), Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
WCD
2001. Dams and Development: a New Framework for Decision Making World Commission on Dams. Earthscan Publication Ltd., London.
Willey, Phillips
1958. Method and Theory in American Archeology. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, Illinois.
[1] While the Processual movement in the United States purported to be practicing active anthropology in the United States, there were a number a obvious faults to their claim. First and foremost was that they tended to view history through a single, modern lens which colored everything in primarily functional terms. A second, and equally problematic claim, was that archaeologists, now deemed ‘expert’ scientists, had dominion over cultural identity. For discussion on this, see Binford (1962); Willey and Phillips (1958: 2) or for more recent discussions see Gosden (1999). There is also an excellent collection of essays in from various perspectives on the issue in Gillespie and Nichols (2003).
[2] The term “Big Dam Era” is somewhat liquid. While the term may imply that the era began with the construction of large scale dams, it is likely used more often historically to describe depression era public works projects – the most visible of which happen to be big dams. The term over time has shifted as we have become more dependant as a nation on the water and power that dams provide, leading to some confusion over the dates of the ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ of the era. In the interest of privileging ‘why’ over ‘when’ in regard to United States History, I will allow the term to remain liquid, with a fuzzy ‘beginning’ sometime during the Great Depression and a possible ‘end’ in some distant and unknown future.
[3]The references and quotes collected here from Caleen Sisk-Franco, unless otherwise noted, were gathered during an interview conducted by the author for the International Centre for Archaeology Underwater on the 8th of October 2006. Original transcripts of the interview can be found at the following address http://www.archaeologyunderwater.com/Interview%20with%20CSF.htm
[5] This article is more than a piece of anthropological research - it is a call to action. Please visit the Winnemem Wintu’s website: http://www.winnememwintu.us/ Here you can read more about their battle to save their culture, view their stories and contact leaders of the tribe to offer assistance if you wish.