Well Enough to Dream:
Wildfire, traditional ecological knowledge, art, and the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation
by Cara Goger, Executive Director, Mariposa Arts Council
with Clay Muwin River, Managing Director, American Indian Council of Mariposa County and Miwumati Healing Center
This piece explores the partnership work being done by the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation and the Mariposa County Arts Council to address wildfire mitigation strategies and representation of the Southern Sierra Miwuk — two deeply linked issues currently reframing Mariposa’s community dialogue about wildfire management practices, historical narratives, and the connection between place and identity.
DREAMS & VISIONS
“Dreams are the visions of our spiritual leaders,” my colleague Clay River shared, when I mentioned our work together would be featured in a publication titled DREAM, “and, right now, those visions center on the desire to restore conditions that provide Native Elders with what they need to educate tribal youth.”
River is the managing director of the American Indian Council of Mariposa County and Miwumati Healing Center, which is governed by and serves the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, the Native people of Yosemite and Mariposa County (located in California’s Central Sierra region). Like so many other tribal nations, the Southern Sierra Miwuk have experienced the traumatic oppression of forced removal from Yosemite, violent discrimination, erasure, an ongoing fight for federal recognition, and loss of the Indigenous landscape as a result of nonNative land management practices. Furthermore, these non-Native land management practices introduced aggressive, invasive plant species that choked out traditional First foods, medicines and cultural materials critical to the tribe’s physical, social, and emotional well-being.
Today, Southern Sierra Miwuk Elders and culture keepers psychologically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and environmentally suffer the wounds of these transgressions. Healing these wounds requires acknowledging and validating this trauma and creating a re-indigenized big picture for the community. This is the necessary first step to restoring a natural, cultural, and social environment that provides Native Elders what they need to educate tribal youth and preserve the Southern Sierra Miwuk people.
With this in mind, it may seem gauche to ask what role art and art organizations can play in this? Maybe we should give the experience of the Southern Sierra Miwuk a beat to sink in before talking about art projects and creative programming for this community. While this article explores the partnership and creative placemaking work between the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation and the Mariposa Arts Council, I need to be clear, this work is only happening because of the courage, bravery, and future-facing vision of the tribe, their ability to see a contemporary, re-indigenized landscape and build bridges with non-Native communities and organizations.
FORGING THE VISION
The bridge building between the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation and the Mariposa Arts Council was born out of a critical need to develop community wildfire mitigation strategies in Mariposa County. As is the case with so many communities in California, Mariposa’s recent wildfire history is grim. Most recently, in 2017, the Detwiler Fire consumed more than 80,000 acres over four and a half weeks, required the mandatory evacuation of almost all Mariposa County residents, destroyed one hundred and thirty-one structures and burned to the northwestern border of the township of Mariposa. In 2018, the Ferguson Fire blazed through almost 100,000 acres in over the course of five and a half weeks, caused nineteen injuries and two fatalities and cost nearly $300 million in damages and suppression efforts.
The Mariposa County Community Wildland Fire Protection Plan estimates that approximately seventy percent of the communities within the county are exposed to high or very high risk from wildfires, due largely to a countywide accumulation of hazardous fuels created by invasive plant species. The town of Mariposa, the county’s seat and only incorporated city, is precariously located in a very high-risk wildfire zone. Running the entire western border of town is Mariposa Creek, a riparian landscape overrun with invasive hazardous fuels. Mariposa Creek is a place of significance to the Southern Sierra Miwuk.
In 2018, the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, the Mariposa County Planning Department, the Sierra Foothill Conservancy Land Trust, and the Mariposa Arts Council began discussing the possibility of removing invasive overgrowth along Mariposa Creek. The idea on the table was restoring the plant diversity of the native riparian environment using traditional ecological knowledge, a land management strategy that utilizes traditional practices to respond to the unique relational composition of specific ecological sites. TEK practices would eliminate the hazardous fuel load and re-indigenize Mariposa Creek by creating the conditions needed to return traditional First foods, medicines and cultural materials to the landscape and the Southern Sierra Miwuk people. Taking this one step further, the TEK would be paired with site-specific artistic interventions and cultural programs centering the Southern Sierra Miwuk. In this, our aim was to:
- Engage established environmental and Native artists committed to exploring the connection between Indigenous practices, Native landscapes, and community health outcomes
- Commission public artworks contextualized within the selected landscapes and able to physically support the TEK being used
- Create space for private and public cultural practices
- Highlight the contemporary relevance of Southern Sierra Miwuk traditions
- Reframe community narratives around regional tribal experiences
While the goals were clear, figuring out how to get there was a bit muddy. The time and financial lift for each partner would be heavy, and the order of operations scattershot and contingent on a few Hail Marys. Several significant pieces of privately held land along the creek needed to be acquired; county contracts and policies re-examined, developed, and approved; more partners engaged; significant funding secured; and so on. Steadying this unwieldy process were three recently developed county master plans: the Mariposa Creek Parkway Master Plan (2019), the Mariposa County Creative Placemaking Master Plan (to be adopted 2021), and the Mariposa County Recreation and Resiliency Master Plan (to be adopted 2021). These plans codified the big-picture goals of the project into county policy, connected the work being done by each partner, introduced the project to the larger community, and wove the tribe into several county planning initiatives.
OUR ART TEACHES
In September 2020, the Creative Placemaking Master Plan stakeholder engagement process provided the first opportunity to publicly introduce art to the project. Supported by Atlas Lab Inc. and Smart Growth America, the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, Mariposa County Planning Department, and the Mariposa Arts Council installed a demonstration public art piece along Mariposa Creek. The installation explores the Southern Sierra Miwuk tradition of basketmaking, a practice that relies on the native plants that should be growing along this riparian corridor. The piece, entitled Ah-Lo’-Mah’ (“basket” in Miwuk), connects Mariposa’s physical environment and cultural narratives to a sense of place, while inviting the public to share ideas about their relationship to identity and place specific to Mariposa County via an online survey.
However, perhaps more important than the stakeholder engagement aspect of the piece was the fact that the installation’s design and creation was guided by tribal Elder Sandy Chapman, who worked with a multigenerational group of Southern Sierra Miwuk women, teaching them how to create the baskets to be embedded in the piece.
“The Southern Sierra Miwuk have always been here. It’s a good time to make ourselves more seen and heard.”
Tara Fouch-Moore
tribal member
Of that process, tribal member Tara Fouch-Moore shared, “Gathering with a group of other Native women — some family, some women I had only just met — we each labored on our individual baskets, connected in our common goal. It was incredibly healing just to chat about family, the tribe, the weather, and the fires. By the end of it, we all were much more connected to each other. I’m excited to include my own daughters so we can learn the ways of our ancestors together. That legacy depends on the involvement of many generations, after all. The Southern Sierra Miwuk have always been here. It’s a good time to make ourselves more seen and heard.”
“Our art teaches” is something I’ve heard River say on many occasions, and Ah-Lo’-Mah’ bore witness to that both within the tribal community, as Chapman passed down the traditional practice of basketmaking, and with the community at large, making the connection between the environmental and cultural importance of restoring native riparian plants to Mariposa Creek.
WHAT WE CREATE WILL OUTLIVE US
Along with this initial first step, 2020 brought some big wins. Sierra Foothill Conservancy successfully brokered the acquisition of all land identified for TEK implementation along Mariposa Creek. The Mariposa County Planning Department built the foundation for the funding and policy work needed to contract with local Southern Sierra Miwuk TEK practitioners. And the Mariposa Arts Council was awarded the California Arts Council’s Innovations + Intersections grant to develop and deliver a number of site-specific artistic interventions and cultural programs to support the TEK.
With these pieces in place, the tribe and the Mariposa Arts Council are ready to go. We are currently in conversations to identify specific environmental and Native artists and cultural keepers who will be most impactful to support the re-indigenization of the physical environment, recognize and validate the trauma the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation has experienced, and amplify Indigenous voices and practices in contemporary community dialogues, policies, and projects. We are working with a three-year timeframe and excited to share where this work takes us, so stay tuned.
“Through traditional ecological knowledge and cultural art practices we can teach, revitalize, practice, and preserve our culture.”
Clay Muwin River
Managing Director
American Indian Council of Mariposa County & Miuwati Healing Center
In closing and to bring it full circle, when I asked River to pull the connecting threads they see running through the big goals of this project, they responded, “Our dream as Native Americans is the same dream our ancestors had, to have plentiful foods and sustainable wellness. Our dream has always been to protect the land and the water that made us so we are then well enough to care for the land in return. All things are connected in the sacred hoop of life. Our Elders have a vision that is always seven generations ahead, sustainability at the core of our cultural ways. Through traditional ecological knowledge and cultural art practices we can teach, revitalize, practice, and preserve our culture.
“We care for the plants and weave baskets with intention because what we create will outlive us. What we create and leave behind will be what the next generation learns from, not just words, but a practice, and a knowing that, in order to make a basket, you also need to be a caretaker of plants and a caretaker of yourself — all things connected in the sacred hoop of life. A Miwuk spiritual leader said to me recently, ‘Imagine what your people could dream up, if they were well enough to dream.’”
The Mariposa Arts Council is a California Arts Council Innovations + Intersections grantee, linking art and public health through installations along the Mariposa Creek Parkway to address wildfire prevention strategies and representation of the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation. The Mariposa Arts Council is also a CAC State-Local Partner.
ABOUT CARA GOGER
Cara Goger joined the Mariposa County Arts Council in 2012 as Executive Director and oversees the entire organization and its staff. Ms. Goger holds a graduate degree in Political Science/International Relations and, before taking the helm at the Mariposa County Arts Council, worked for eight years with the AjA Project, providing photography-based educational programming to youth affected by war and displacement, and the Museum of Photographic Arts, serving as the primary artist-in-residency for the museum’s senior programming and lead instructor for the School in the Park’s 5th grade program. Ms. Goger brings several years of experience at engaging a variety of audiences with the careful study and exploration of art, with particular attention to projects that facilitate community engagement and creative placemaking.
Learn more at www.mariposaartscouncil.org.
ABOUT CLAY MUWIN RIVER
Clay Muwin River is the Managing Director for the Southern Sierra Miwuk nonprofit American Indian Council of Mariposa County and Miwumati Healing Center. River has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Native Youth Education and a Master of Arts degree in Indigenous Education & Curriculum from Goddard College in Vermont.
River has a wide-ranging background on issues that directly impact Native Americans and works directly with tribal governments, tribal consortia, federal agencies, and national and regional organizations impacting Indian country. River’s experience areas include cultural arts revitalization, Native education, curriculum, program development and implementation, social services, Native wellness and community health, environmental protection and restoration, management and leadership, grant writing, and positions held on cultural arts steering committees and boards.
Learn more at www.southernsierramiwuknation.org.
DREAM is California’s newest arts and culture magazine, published by the California Arts Council, the state’s arts agency.
The annual publication features voices and stories from across the state, sharing a glimpse into the depth of impact of creativity and cultural expression in a region as large and diverse as California. The premier issue explores what it means to dream, introducing artists and culture bearers from communities throughout the state.
Visit www.arts.ca.gov/dream for more information.
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