A Spirited Battle : Indians, Forest Service Clash Over U.S. Structures Built on Sacred Grounds

SOMES BAR, Calif. —  Karuk Indians insist that the spirits of their ancestors are forcing the U.S. Forest Service to abandon the tribe’s most sacred of religious sites--Kota-Mein, “the center of the world.” Forestry officials put the blame on a landslide.

Twenty years ago the Forest Service spent $1.5 million building the Klamath National Forest district headquarters on the historic Kota-Mein Indian burial and ceremonial grounds, despite warnings from Karuk medicine men.

Ever since, the Forest Service structures in this Siskiyou County hamlet 60 miles south of the Oregon border have been gradually pulling apart and moving off foundations. Floors, walls and ceilings have crumbled and cracked. Electric wires and pipes have snapped.

“Beginning next month, we are moving to a new location eight miles south of here at Orleans. It is no longer safe to stay here. This place is on a landslide that is continuously in motion,” said George Frey, 38, acting district ranger. “The land will be returned to its pristine state and given back to the Karuks for ceremonial purposes.”

Five-Acre Parcel

What the Karuks call “the center of the world” is the five-acre Forest Service parcel and the adjacent 500-foot-high natural pyramid at the confluence of the Klamath and Salmon rivers. It is a mysterious, magical setting deep in the woods amid a never-ending cacophony of rushing turbulent water spilling over Ishi Pishi Falls.

“For 10,000 years and more our people have lived along the Klamath River in this peaceful, isolated place,” said Paul Gary Beck, 37, tribal chairman of the Karuks. “We believe the world began at Kota-Mein, that Kota-Mein is the cradle of civilization and the Karuks were the first people on Earth.

“That is why we have been telling the Forest Service it must leave Kota-Mein. Thousands of our ancestors buried at Kota-Mein over the centuries have been telling the Forest Service in their own way to get the hell out of there. Why do you think that ground has never been still?”

Kota-Mein is but one aspect of an ongoing confrontation between the Karuks and the U.S. Forest Service.

Historically, the Karuks lived on 117 sites in the precipitous Klamath River canyon between Seiad Valley in the north and Bluff Creek in the south. The village sites are on what is now U.S. Forest Service land.

Three years ago, the Karuk tribal council told its members that it was time they moved back to the historic village sites along the river. “Our plan is to place at least two families at each site to serve as caretakers,” Beck said. “Who is better equipped to preserve and protect these historic places than descendants of the people who originally lived there?”

So far, seven families have moved back to the village sites, all on U.S. Forest Service land. The Forest Service considers the Indians squatters on federal property.

Warren Conrad, 44, former president of the American Indian Center in San Francisco, and his wife and family have been living in a trailer on one of the sites for three years.

“I was born on this piece of land, as were my ancestors going back 150 years; that I am able to document by court records,” insisted Conrad, who says he is five-eighths Karuk. “When I was 6, the government came and took my two brothers, two sisters and me to the Indian school at Chemawa, Ore. My father died when I was away at school. My mother had to leave this land to work in Yreka, but she never gave up the land, nor did my sisters or brothers.”

Title Contested

The government claims that Conrad does not have title to the land. Two years ago he was cited for trespassing. A hearing on the matter is still pending in U.S. District Court. In a countersuit, Conrad charges the Forest Service with depriving him of his rightful property.

But Forest Service official Frey contends: “The Karuks want the river back. They would like to see the Forest Service pull out and give huge chunks of the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forest to them for the establishment of a large reservation on their prehistoric lands.”

George Harper, U.S. Forest Service Happy Camp Tours district ranger the last eight years, adds: “There is no legal mechanism for us to negotiate, to even consider passing title or administrative control of those lands over to another entity. For the tribe or individuals from the tribe to gain title or control over the 117 historic village sites would require an act of Congress. It is out of our hands.”

Hudson Bay Co. trappers were the first to encounter the Karuk Indians when they penetrated this area in the 1820s. Gold miners came through in the 1850s. Nearly all the Karuks’ traditional tribal land was set aside as the Klamath and Six River National Forest by presidential proclamation in 1905. The Karuks remained isolated until a road finally was pushed through the river canyon in the 1920s.

“We were one of the last (aboriginal tribes) impacted by civilization in America,” said tribal chief Beck. “For that reason our ties to the past are much stronger than many Indian groups. The stories passed down through the centuries one generation to the next are still very real to us.

“We have acorn, mushroom and berry-gathering grounds in the woods on U.S. Forest Service land. We hunt deer, bear and wild birds there. We fish for salmon and steelhead in the old ways in the river. We show bow and arrows at our ceremonials. We still use the underground sweat house for purification and prayer.

“It isn’t that we are trying to take government land, to get something for nothing. The land has always belonged to us. It is part of our heritage. It has always been here for our people to use.”

Beck, a bearded 5-foot, 11-inch, 250-pound graduate of the College of the Redwoods, has, like most Karuks, less Indian blood than non-Indian blood in his veins. He is five-sixteenths Indian. But, he is a Karuk medicine man. Last March, Gov. George Deukmejian named Beck chairman of the California Native American Heritage Commission.

There are fewer than a dozen full-blooded Indians among the 1,500 Karuks living in Seiad Valley, Happy Camp, Clear Creek and Orleans--small towns along the Klamath. Another 1,000 Karuks live in Yreka and 1,500 more on the tribal rolls live out of the area.

It was only five years ago that the federal government recognized the Karuks as an Indian tribe. There is no Karuk reservation.

“They have been so isolated, they were overlooked,” Frey said. “There is a resurgence of pride in their heritage. They are asserting themselves for the first time.”

The Karuks last month moved into their new $250,000 tribal headquarters in Happy Camp, where more than half the population of 2,300 are Karuks. The tribal headquarters was built with grant money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Karuks live the old way more than do most American Indians. There are sacred grounds up and down the river where medicine men regularly perform elaborate ceremonies.

Only 10 of the Karuks are still fluent in the centuries-old native language.

“We were taught English in the government Indian schools and told to forget our Indian language so we could become like everybody else in America,” recalled Karuk medicine man Shan Davis, 66.

To make sure the Karuk language does not disappear, the language has been taught from kindergarten through 12th grade at the Happy Camp schools for the last 12 years.

Gladys Guy, 47, during a visit to a class at the high school, wrote the Karuk phrases on the blackboard: I-u-key (hello); hoot-kitch? (how are you?) and wood-a-yuv (I am fine). “I have been taking Karuk ever since fifth-grade so I can better learn the ways of my ancestors,” said Sandra Davis, 16, a junior who is five-eighths Karuk Indian.

Medicine man Davis, who dresses in otter hides and woodpecker scalps when he performs rituals, said the Karuks are at long last making headway:

“We are getting back Kota-Mein, the center of the world. We are beginning to reoccupy the historic village sites. Our young people are speaking our Karuk language again. These are the best of times in many years.”