Four highly accomplished Ohlone cultural practitioners join with three of Berkeley’s most knowledgeable scholars and historians to discuss “Native Berkeley: Ancient Wisdom for Troubled Times,” 2 PM Sun., Dec. 4, 2016, at the North Berkeley Senior Center, MLK at Hearst. The event is sponsored by BPFP partner group Friends of Ohlone Park (FOOP).
- Vincent Medina of Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival will tell stories and discuss his work in bringing back language and culture of the Chochenyo Ohlone, who inhabited the Berkeley area. Quirina Luna-Geary will talk about her revival of the Mutsun Ohlone language and Native dance traditions and regalia. Linda Yamane, Rumsien Ohlone, will discuss revival of traditional Native arts she has mastered, from basketry to boat building.
- Corrina Gould, executive director of People Organizing for Change, will discuss efforts to block construction on the parking lot opposite Spenger’s Fish Grotto, once the site of a a village and shellmound thousands of years old. Kent Lightfoot, archeologist and Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, will discuss that ancient settlement.
- Malcolm Margolin, author of The Ohlone Way and other books, will give an overview of 12,000 years of human habitation of the Berkeley area, and Richard Schwartz, historian and author of several books on local history, will show slides of mortar holes, petroglyphs, shell beads, and other signs of the Native American past.More info and tickets at Brown Paper Tickets. Tickets are $8 – $10, with no one turned away for lack of funds. But seats are limited; advance purchase is strongly recommended. For other queries email berkeleyfoop@gmail.com.