The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe's
False Claims to Ramaytush Tribal Territory
The Mwekma Ohlone Tribe (MOT) claims the entire Bay Area as their tribal territory without clearly explaining the basis for their claims. As far as we can discern, the MOT assets that it is a previously federally recognized tribe with purported rights over and above other tribes of the San Francisco Bay Area. To be clear, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is not a previously federally recognized tribe according to the Department of the Interior. In addition, the MOT has internalized the colonial logics of federal recognition in order to,
- assert their supremacy over other Native peoples
- erase the ethnic identity of other Native peoples
- acquire the land and resources of other Native peoples
- undermine the sovereignty of other Native peoples
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe's Claim to Tribal Territory
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On their homepage the MOT make the following claim to their purported aboriginal homeland:
"The aboriginal homeland of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe includes the following counties: San Francisco, San Mateo, most of Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, and portions of Napa, Santa Cruz, Solano and San Joaquin. This large contiguous geographical area, which historically crosscuts aboriginal linguistic and tribal boundaries, fell under the sphere of influence of the aforementioned three missions between 1776 and 1836. The missionization policies deployed by the Catholic Church and militarily supported by the Hispanic Empire, brought many distantly related, and in some cases, already inter-married tribal groups together at the missions." (https://www.muwekma.org/) A tribe can only exercise sovereignty within the boundaries of its respective tribal territory. Tribal territorial boundaries are not coterminous with county boundaries! None of the members of the MOT are direct lineal descendants, for example, of the aboriginal peoples of Santa Cruz, of San Mateo, and of San Francisco counties. Further, county boundaries do not align with tribal territorial boundaries. So why do the MOT make this unsubstantiated claim? As stated above, the answer appears derive from their false claim to being a previously federally recognized tribe, which the MOT believes gives them rights to the lands of entire Bay Area and beyond. For the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, the only legitimate basis for determining tribal territory are the following:
[1] There are problems with this simple conception because a tribe comprised of members from multiple tribes cannot exercise sovereignty in the lands of another tribe. That act would constitute a violation of the other tribe's sovereignty. |
https://www.muwekma.org/maps.html
This is the current the map of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe (2022). The MOT of the East Bay claims the entire San Francisco Bay Area as their territory (right), in spite of their knowledge of other Native peoples who descend from tribes located in the area encompassed by the boundary, including the Tamien peoples in the South Bay and the Ramaytush peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula. The MOT's claim to the lands and resources of other Native peoples violates the sovereignty of the other tribes and constitutes an act of erasure.
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Part I. The Villages of Origin of the MOT Are Located Exclusively in the East Bay
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A. Villages of Origin
Documents from their own petition for federal recognition, including the map (right), locate the "aboriginal villages of origin" of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe in the East Bay. B. Chochenyo Language The "official" language of the Muwekma Tribe is the Chochenyo dialect of the san Francisco Bay Costanoan language. The Chochenyo language's boundaries are located in the East Bay. C. The Verona Band The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe claims to be the descendants of the Verona Band, which was formed sometime in the late 1800s in the East Bay. |
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Part II. The MOT Erases Other Bay Area Native Peoples
The acts of erasure committed by the MOT include the literal erasure of other tribal territories and therefore of tribal peoples of the San Francisco Bay Area. As you can see below, the MOT removed the Tamien and Ramaytush territories from their tribal territorial map in 2011.
Original Map, 2007Original: Randall Milliken, 2007.
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MOT Map 2, 2011Revised: Map of Muwekma Ohlone Tribal Territory
https://www.muwekma.org/historical-overview.html
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Part III. What are we to make of the MOT's map of their Ancestral Lands and Tribal Territory?
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https://www.muwekma.org/maps.html
As I have stated elsewhere, the MOT's map is a cartographic re-colonization of Native peoples by other Native peoples.
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The current map (left) of the MOT is not based on known territorial boundaries. It is not based on,
In other words, there is no discernable basis for the drawing of the map--it conforms to no known territorial boundaries. It appears that the map is based on other criteria that derive from the MOT's supremacist disposition. Since the MOT claims to have rights over and above other Bay Area tribes, the MOT claims all the land north of the other tribe, the Amah Mutsun, whom they believe shares the same status. In other words, the MOT believes it is the only legitimate tribe in the entire Bay Area. Often the MOT will use mission affiliation as a basis for claiming the entire Bay Area, but mission affiliation is not a legitimate basis for making claims to another tribe's territory. Only when the MOT puts its rationale in writing will we know exactly on what bases it makes claims to the ancestral lands of the Ramaytush peoples. In the end, however, it does not matter. The MOT is not indigenous to the San Francisco Peninsula; therefore, the San Francisco Peninsula is not their aboriginal tribal territory. |