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Fieldtrips
Indian Rock
Spring
2003
Hidden Meadows
Fall
2003
The Glens
Fall 2003
Legend Rock
Fall
2003
Camp Pendleton
Spring
2002
Gathering Juncus
Spring 2002
Field Tripping
Spring
2002
PDF version: fast connection
Waterfall
Fall 2003
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Hidden Meadows
Text by Deborah Small
Images by David Fleischman and Deborah Small
lost meadows
In the Luiseño language, there were no words for “mitigation,”
no phrase for “environmental impact report.” Mitigation
is the acknowledgement that harm has been done, and that reparations
are in order. Some things, however, cannot be mitigated. Reparations
are not always enough.
Mark Mojado, spiritual advisor and cultural leader for the San Luis
Rey Band of Luiseño Indians, works as an archaeological monitor
to salvage culturally significant Luiseño sites, features,
and artifacts. Mark has been working for over a year at Hidden Meadows
in North County, San Diego. There, coastal sage scrub and oak woodlands,
two of southern California’s most endangered plant communities,
are being demolished by a large-scale development of tract housing.
In April 2003, we accompanied Mark on a field trip to Hidden Meadows.
metate_mortero
Mark is a knowledgeable and astute observer with an eye for detail,
able to read soil, shells, mosses, lichens, rocks, features and
artifacts. He shows us signs of long-standing human habitation everywhere:
mortars, or deep grinding holes where women ground acorns with large
cylindrical stones called pestles—and metates, the shallower
basins used to grind buckwheat, chia, and white and black sage seeds
with round circular stones called manos.
Mark also points out where they found cremation remains on the site.
He estimates that this site was occupied for 2,000 to 3,000 years.
We photograph the mortar holes filled with rainwater, fallen oak
leaves, and our reflections.
all my relations
Mark is eager to help us understand the complexities of his job.
He interacts with a broad range of people, some sympathetic and
supportive, others insensitive or even hostile to the idea of indigenous
cultural preservation.
Clearly, Mark is very willing to work with people. Equally clear
is the line he will not allow them to cross. When a developer at
Hidden Meadows informs Mark that it will be necessary to dynamite
a giant rock full of ancient mortars and metates, Mark asks him:
“Do you know how many stories were told here, how many ancient
songs were sung? Do you know how many women ground acorn and chia
seeds here? Do you know how many families were nurtured from this
rock? We thank the rock for being here, and we always treat it with
respect. The rock has a spirit that takes care of us.”
For Mark, not only the rock, but everything at the site—the
oaks, chamise, Indian lettuce, gooseberries, and wild peonies—is
endowed with intelligence, vitality, and spirit.
For the developer, the rock is merely an obstacle, an economic liability
diminishing profit margins. His connection to the land is obviously
attenuated, an indication of a larger and profound disassociation
and estrangement.
ancestors
Mark relates that an elder once told him that when you first encounter
an ancient site, you don’t immediately look for shells, pottery
shards, mano fragments, or metates buried in the earth. What you
do first is to sit down, look around, figure out where the sun rises
and sets. Listen to the voice of the wind in the trees. Observe
where the stream flows. Try to understand why the ancestors would
have chosen this particular place for their village site.
So we sit and listen for the rhythmic sounds of manos grinding chia
seeds in the metates. We imagine the percussive pounding of pestles
grinding acorns in the mortars.
And then we just listen.
artifacts
“They call to me,” Mark tells us. “The artifacts
want to be preserved.”
I ask him if it the spirits of the ancestors that call him. “Yes,”
he replies. “But it is also the artifacts. They want to be
found. They want to be salvaged.”
tishmal_hummingbird
When Mark speaks, his deeply felt attachment to the land is evident.
He’s not afraid to show his affinity for the willow he uses
to build his sweats, the yerba mansa whose root he uses to make
a tea for his friend with cancer, the white sage he uses in ceremonies,
or the golden eagle whose feathers he ties on his ceremonial staff.
Mark’s deep sense of responsibility and compassion for species
other than his own is palpable as well. He tells us the story of
a hummingbird who came to him when he was doing a survey at the
site. The little iridescent hummer asked him, What’s happened
to all the wildflowers? Will I have to drink from a plastic flower?
mitigation zone
In any area designated for development, a certain number of acres
must be set aside for mitigation, the exact number designated by
law. A section of the oak woodlands has been set aside as open space
and will be spared as part of the mitigation measures.
A plastic orange fence around the open space demarcates it from
the rest of the development. Signs are posted at intervals along
the fence: SENSITIVE ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES. We climb the fence,
and Mark walks us through the mitigation area along a seasonal stream
lined with oak, cottonwood and willow trees. We carefully make our
way through the poison oak growing everywhere. We photograph the
white trumpet flowers of a datura, a sacred Luiseño plant
used in male puberty ceremonies. We note the native elderberry,
toyon, and buckwheat plants.
We stop to listen to the howling of coyotes. One of our group comments
that henever heard a coyote howl before.
Mitigation is from the Latin, mitigatio, meaning a soothing
or a calming. An environmental activist writes that we have mitigated
Southern California to the point where it is now designated the
“epicenter of extinction in North America.” Wandering
through the mitigation zone at Hidden Meadows, I wonder if it isn’t
the developer’s conscience that is being placated.
sacrifice zone
The greatest threat to biological diversity, as well as to ancient
Luiseño sites, is habitat destruction. Biologist Edmond O.
Wilson has described habitat destruction as one of the four horsemen
of the environmental apocalypse. In San Diego County, unbridled
horsemen ride roughshod as regions are irrevocably altered by the
seemingly relentless and accelerated frenzy of development.
The clearcutting of old growth forests in the Northwest has been
described as infinitely sad, a desecration. In San Diego county,
the landscraping of chaparral-covered hillsides or the
bulldozing of oak woodlands are also desecrations.
We leave the mitigation area, and Mark drives us to another part
of the development. He shows us an industrial oak grinder on the
perimeter of the site. Mutilated coast live oak and Engelmann oak
trunks lie piled next to the grinder waiting to be fed into its
insatiable red maw. The grinder can pulverize a majestic 200-year-old
oak in a matter of minutes or devour an oak woodland, one of southern
California’s most endangered plant communities, in a matter
of days.
Photographing the mutilated trunks, I think of wildlife biologist
Rachel Carson’s description of the “unthinking bludgeoning”
of the land.
The decimated oak woodlands and coastal sage scrub plant communities
at Hidden Meadows once provided critical habitat for countless resident
and migratory birds, as well as for coyotes, deer, woodrats, raccoons,
lizards, butterflies, and bees. We see a lone rabbit frozen near
the giant tracks of a Caterpillar. “What happened?”
the rabbit seems to be asking.
landscraping
Mark is fueled by frustration at the continuous diminution of the
natural world, as well as the on-going destruction of culturally
significant and sacred Luiseño sites. In the face of this,
what strikes us is his fierce devotion to Luiseño tradition
and culture, as well as his gentleness.
In The Island Within, anthropologist Richard Nelson writes
that what makes a place special is the way it buries itself inside
your heart. For the San Luis Rey Band, this region has been special
for thousands of years. Mark’s work helps to salvage artifacts
and features, to prevent irreplaceable information from being destroyed,
and to document, catalog, and recover what otherwise might be lost,
for the San Luis Rey Band and for all of us.
Mark’s work also prevents the complete obliteration of culturally
significant and sacred sites such as Hidden Meadows. A year ago
when Mark and the archeologists first located cremation remains,
all grading and construction surrounding the area were called to
an immediate halt.
CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act of 1973, recognizes
that burial grounds are profoundly important to the spiritual lives
of Luiseños today. Following CEQA regulations, the ancient
site will be left intact, capped with earth and surrounded with
a wrought-iron fence. Access will be prohibited. Native plants will
be allowed to grow over the site. Half of the giant rock with mortars
and metates will be spared. The other half will be pulverized for
use in a landfill. All around the ancient site, tract homes will
be built.
Some things cannot be mitigated. Reparations are not always enough.
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