00:00.00 archpodnet So. 00:00.00 Alan I get there on an archaeology podcast land this is your host Dr Alan Garfinkel founder and president the California Rock art foundation and this is episode one ten of your rock art podcast. The only rock art podcast in the world and we're we're blessed and honored. To have woolly pink on board native California indian ah former executive director of the native American Heritage Commission and responsible for some critical legislation regarding burials for native americans in California. And many many ah elements of his advocacy role for much of his life willie. Are you there? Well god bless you we yeah where are you located in California right now. 00:43.35 William I am here Allan. 00:51.32 William I currently live on the pechanga reservation. My grandmother is some pechanga even though I'm enrolled at Paula but I resided on pechanga. 01:02.00 Alan Um, what particular ethnic group Do you or groups. Do you hail from? um, you tracing your ah it's cuppeno. Ah and and those are. 01:06.87 William You Knowag you and you like yeah my grandmother was Lu I Knew my grandfather was capagna. 01:19.58 Alan Talk kick in the anthropological linguistic realm are they so they're you to us tech and yeah, yeah, fascinating. So the way we ought to get this started. Willie is I I asked the million dollar question 01:22.65 William Yes, they are Analto you who has taken as well. 01:37.76 Alan Ah, how did you get involved in this advocacy role. Um and working in the realm that you do in terms of trying to preserve protect and enhance or educate the heritage values of Native californians. 01:55.34 William Um, well if that's ah coming home from Vietnam just one of the things that I started delving into and trying to meet with various elders throughout Southern California but probably the main driver for me was chain penn who is the founder of Malukee Museum and she would send me to different people to talk with them and then also to go and speak before the county on trying to protect various types of sites and and then also we traveled together to meet with the energy commission to oppose at that time was the palaverdi nuclear power. Project and so I just started getting familiar with things she herself was on the heritage commission later and then she asked me when Steve Rios had resigned if I would apply for the executive secretary so she really was the. Driving force behind me because I would meet with her at least once a week where we would sit and talk for hours. She was a great genealogist and stuff and then ah very familiar with so many different things because she had opportunity where various people would visit the museum she knew lol bean of course Kathy Sabo and you know some of the other elders from around that area that. 02:50.28 Alan Wow. 03:06.46 William Who shared a lot of information across the board. 03:09.37 Alan Was Janeth an ethnologist or what was her particular specialization. She was a quote that ok there you go Thank you? Ah, that was that was what she hailed from all right? So I didn't I didn't. 03:12.20 William She was a Koian I Guess that. 03:21.14 William Yes. 03:25.22 Alan I didn't know her I knew the name but I didn't know what her ah association was so I apologized for my naive day. You know I I don't think I'm extremely familiar with a lot of the associations and activities that were done in the Kuya world. So. You can brief me on kind of the history of how this all got going and you know where you've been where you're at and where you want to go from here. 03:51.96 William Well, it wasn't you know the main thing was not wanting to see it end. It was you know we were at that turning point you know we were at the tail end of the relocation program where we were being outnumbered by plain Indians that were coming in because of the bureau of Indian affair program. We were. 04:09.67 Alan Um, oh ah, oh man. Yeah. 04:09.78 William Population between sixty seventy thousand and they relocated 150000 indians from the great plains so we were outnumbered and all of a sudden we were overcultureed. You know we were outcultured and so when we'd have events ah Dennis Banks who used to live next to my brother would actually watch him. And his group physically push the bird singers off stage 1 time up in Sacramento during the first Sacramento indian days and so you know it was that type of thing where I saw it become even more and more important. Um that we moved to preserve California culture California indian culture. 04:34.40 Alan Wow! how. 04:45.89 Alan and I and I I I think I've seen some of that and you know experienced some of that. Um I tried to help ridgecrest the city of ridgecrest and the welcome center do what they call their annual. Petrolyph festival and they want and they wanted the whole festival to be focused on native american heritage values and resources the city of the petroglyphs. The city of rock Art Rock drawings um and of course the reason being is. They're sitting on the largest concentration of rock drawings in the western hemisphere and they had a very very very hard time somehow connecting with and dispensing anything that looked authentically California indian. 05:40.56 William Yeah, that was I mean we had a situation where there was a float designed for the rose parade that was representative of a California indian and all the plane indians called in and complained about it because it didn't it wasn't representing indian people but it was. 05:41.41 Alan So um. 05:57.36 William To the contrary was California California near all the way you know. 06:00.19 Alan Right? right? So so I I think I I think I have at least you know a distant sense of what we're talking about here. Um, what have what have you accomplished? What have you done to sort of deal with that issue and. Trying to bring an authentic resonance to California indian culture and bringing it to a general public or to even the native people themselves. 06:28.69 William Well it was you know when I was executive secretary well prior to that I was also the member on the advisory committee for the California desert conservation area advisory committee so committee member I was appointed by Cecil Andras and 06:41.15 Alan Um, yeah, um. 06:45.90 William Had an opportunity to really work between the Owes Valley and Colorado River and working to preserve sacred sites and such and also it connected people as well to my going door to door in a sense where I would talk to somebody when they knew my mother from Sherman or. 06:47.68 Alan Okay. 07:02.52 William You know I was relaying messages from another person so it kind of created a network and a lot of those people began communicating with themselves and you find out that there was a certain fear amongst them in terms of wanting to speak about their culture and so I think that wall started to come down. When they started talking with each other you know so well individuals you know that that thing you know we try to state that this is a tribal matter where actually it's more of an individual matter and it gets a little confusing especially when the tribes step in. 07:21.52 Alan Even the different tribes started talking to 1 another individuals. Okay. 07:40.50 William And try to dominate what is culture ah when the tribal leadership itself has never really participated in the culture and but that's changing now too. We've seen ah a great influx of of tribal leaders who are also traditionalists as well and it's a little confusing for some people but they are representing both sides now we're in. 07:45.99 Alan Right. 07:59.86 William I would say seventy s eighty s that would there was just the opposite. 08:03.30 Alan So you so you think the direction things are going right now. There's there's tribal leaders who are individuals who have a ah sense of the heritage values and the traditional cultural values of particular groups. 08:14.60 William Yeah, much more. Yeah much more so than they did back then well because we were most every single tribe in California was under economic strife and so the focus was on trying to turn things around and provide a basic economy for a lot of the reservations and of course that changed with the advent of gaming. 08:31.99 Alan Yeah. 08:34.27 William You know and gaming came in and um, it really changed the framework of how tribes operate. So then now that today is including an awful lot of cultural events and you begin to realize how expensive it was or is to maintain cultural events. You know. 08:51.75 Alan I'm sure. No no so what? what did they did people think about you know where they're at right now and where they've been and where they're headed um, is there. 08:52.82 William And we just didn't have that part of the economy. 09:09.51 Alan Is there optimism pessimism I'm sure it's I'm sure it's very checkered because even though we have gaming and we have tribes that are doing well I was would you say that most or many of the groups in California not federally recognized. Not to do not have gaming and and Mace may have challenging circumstances correct or no. 09:36.74 William Well, they do. But then that's the curious part of the whole thing is because those tribes that are without um, rely upon their culture I'll give an example grindstone rancheria you know they they have the oldest continuously used roundhouse in the state of California you know, but. 09:44.30 Alan Yeah, yeah. 09:49.75 Alan Right? Well so it's so. 09:52.47 William At the same time they're the poorest tribe in the state of California you know so.