Learning about the Ohlone Native American Culture (Monterey and San Benito Counties in California) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
When my daughter Florence began her studies at the Waldorf
Charter School in Pacific Grove, California, the students were studying the
culture of the Ohlone Native Americans.
The Ohlone live on California’s Central Coast from Big Sur
up to San Francisco. (The Ohlone are
also called Costanoan further down the coast by Carmel and Big Sur.)
The children were weaving baskets as an art project. Parents were asked to help their children
complete this art project at home, because basket weaving is very hard to do.
The thin branches you need to weave are straight and
stiff. You have to gently bend the
branches until they are pliable enough to be woven in and out and be pushed
down around a central knot. I thought
this was a cute craft and put it up as artwork on my office wall for years.
Florence learned in school that the Ohlone cooked with
tightly woven baskets by placing rocks that had been heated in fire in baskets
full of water. The Ohlone also placed
baskets on their baskets on their backs to pick berries and gather nuts,
seafood such as oysters and crab, and birds’ eggs.
When we drove home, I told Florence that this kind of food
collection was called foraging.
“Foraging is not as reliable as farming as a way to obtain
food,” I told Florence.
“If the weather is bad, for example, the supply of berries
and nuts might disappear,” I explained to Florence.
“That vegetable garden your school has is not an example of
foraging. You plant seeds in it, and if
you have enough water and sunlight, you can have a pretty sure supply of food,”
I said. We had personal chefs in the
school, who used vegetables from this garden to make the children vegetable
soup and bread on Wednesdays.
The children continued learning about the Ohlone by going on
a weeklong camping trip to Point Reyes and the Tomales Bay outside San
Francisco.
There are many species of wildlife there, but the children
spent most of their time hiking among the wildflowers. Their teacher showed
them which of the wildflowers could be eaten.
I knew there were several things Florence and I could visit
in Monterey County and San Benito County about the Ohlone after reading The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San
Francisco – Monterey Bay by Malcolm Margolin.
It is hard to arrange field trips for an entire class, which
is why we took the big class trips together, but went on smaller trips with
just our family.
The first place we went in Monterey County was the Elkhorn
Slough. Sloughs are almost as endangered
as the wildlife they harbor. Sloughs
connect ocean water with fresh water and extend far inland.
Elkhorn Slough has hiking trails, kayaking, and sightseeing
boats. It is home to egrets, sea otters,
crab, fish, and hundreds of birds, which fly south over Elkhorn Slough in
winter. Other birds nest in the Slough
and have nest high up in the trees.
There are several hiking trails in Elkhorn Slough. The first time we went there, I took my
family to see the Ohlone Middens (graves), which face the sea and are
inaccessible.
The Ohlone descendents refuse to have the graves opened or
moved to a museum. Most people do not
know what they are, so they remain unmolested.
Florence loved learning a Monterey secret that she could not tell anyone
else. The Elkhorn Slough itself
represents the ecosystem that the Ohlone had to use for food.
The second place we went to for an understanding of Ohlone
history was the Carmel Mission by our home. I told Florence that the Spanish
founded the California Missions, which go all along the California coastline.
They are supposed be one day’s walk away from one another
and usually grew wine and vegetables. I
told Florence that the Ohlone continued foraging and hunting, but worked on
Spanish lands at the missions as well.
From Carmel Mission, we spent about 50 minutes going north
to the mission at San Juan Bautista. I
told Florence that the Ohlone worked on Spanish mission lands here, too.
The interesting thing about the San Juan Bautista Mission is
that it runs along the San Andreas Fault, which is why it has had to be rebuilt
a few times. We walked along the San
Andreas Fault path to the cemetery outside town.
One side of the fault is twelve feet high and the other side sits below it. I told Florence that if there were an earthquake that we would be down in the brush below quickly. She started flailing her arms and screaming, “Earthquake!!”
“Run for cover!” I shouted, and we both tore down the path
to the cemetery.
When we reached the cemetery, I told her that Anne-Marie
Sayers, who maintains the Ohlone tribal lands, said many Ohlone Native
Americans took Spanish names to avoid discrimination in Spanish America.
I told Florence that many of the graves we saw contained the
remains of Ohlone not Spanish people.
The Ohlone were choosing to reveal their ancestry at this point in
history, because people in California had become more accepting of people of
different ethnicities.
A few years later when I was working as a freelance writer
for the Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000), I covered an Ohlone storytelling festival.
My family went twice to the Ohlone Tribal Lands and checked
out the sweat lodges and sacred waterfalls.
We learned that Coyote is the trickster character in Ohlone
myth and resembles Anansi the Spider in African mythology.
Coyote causes trouble, but the tribal elders eventually
convince him to come back to the village and have fun in the community.
I thought this was a very good tale for California, because
almost all of our tribal elders have been coyotes in their youth.
By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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