Forest Service and Bureau of Reclamation Endanger Winnemen Wintu Ceremonies (Update)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Mark Franco (530) 510-0944
JULY 6th, 2006 Gary Mulcahy (916) 214-8493

US Forest Service and Bureau of Reclamation Endanger Religious Ceremonies
Winnemem Wintu Tribe Face Reduced Access to Sacred Sites

McCloud River, Siskiyou County – Most people cannot imagine having their religious ceremony interrupted by cars, campers, and boaters, but the Winnemem Wintu Tribe may face this problem when they host the upcoming Balas Chonas, or Puberty Ceremony. The US Forest Service and the US Bureau of Reclamation have failed to protect the religious rights of the Winnemem Wintu by refusing to provide safe, private access to the Tribe’s ancestral land and ceremonial sites. As a result, the entire Puberty Ceremony is endangered.

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe is hosting Balas Chonas for the first time in 85 years at the McCloud Bridge Campground, located on the McCloud River arm of the Shasta Lake Reservoir. The ceremony lasts for four days, from the eighth to the eleventh. It is a traditional rite of passage for young women in the Tribe. The final day of the ceremony, the eleventh, is a crucial day when the young woman passes into womanhood.

“What the government does not understand is that if we do not have full access to the river or the sacred sites, it puts the entire ceremony in danger, and we need our ceremonies and our sacred sites to live,” explained Caleen Sisk-Franco, spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “After months and months of being stonewalled, at the last minute the US Forest Service is finally implementing a voluntary closure, but the survival of our people is not voluntary for us.”

Balas Chonas, held at the former, sprawling Winnemem Wintu village site called Kaibai, is now owned and operated by the US Forest Service as the McCloud Bridge Campground. The US Forest Service refuses to provide private access to the campground and to close a 200 yard stretch of river. The Bureau of Reclamation has also denied the Winnemem Wintu access to one of the crucial pieces of their ceremony, Puberty Rock.

Due to the Bureau’s water management within the Shasta Lake Reservoir, the sacred site lies several feet beneath the river surface. Additionally, the Bureau is currently investigating the possibility of raising the Shasta Dam, which would further limit access to Winnemem sacred sites. As a result, the Winnemem face severe disruption of their ceremony by campers and boaters, they have been shut off from their sacred site, and could possibly be seeing their former village site for the last time if the dam raise is approved.

Siting public access, the US Forest Service has instituted a “voluntary closure” whereby the public will be merely asked to stay a “respectful distance” away. In reality, the US Forest Service no longer controls the campsite – they handed over management of the campground to the concessionaire, the Shasta Recreation Company. The Winnemem have been kept in the dark for months as to what small gestures the US Forest Service would take to aid the ceremony.

“This has been Winnemem Wintu land forever, and we should not have to negotiate how we will secure access to our lands and our religious sites,” said Mark Franco, Winnemem Wintu headman. “When you can’t even see your sacred site, religion is no longer free.”

In addition to the inundation of Puberty Rock, Children’s Rock, on the opposite bank of the river has already been damaged by the erratic rise and fall of the lake level to satisfy the recreating public and “contractual obligations” as stated by the Bureau of Reclamation. The vast majority of the Tribe’s village and ceremonial sites are under water. The Tribe deserves access to what remains of their land to hold this vital ceremony.

“The US Bureau of Reclamation hasn’t even fulfilled its obligations to the Tribe agreed to when this dam was built, obligations set out in government treaties. We are still waiting for compensation for the lands that we lost. And now the Bureau says they have to honor ‘contractual obligations’ when managing water here in the reservoir. What about our contracts, our rights?” asked Gary Mulcahy, Tribal Governmental Liaison for the Winnemem Wintu.

The US Bureau of Reclamation has consistently ignored the rights of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. In negotiations over the ceremony, the agency has cited the contracts it holds for water deliveries in the Central Valley and fish and wildlife regulations on water levels as reasons why it cannot expose Puberty Rock. The Bureau has not mentioned the religious rights of the Tribe nor the unfulfilled obligations the Bureau has to the Winnemem.

The Winnemem Wintu have struggled to conduct their ceremonies despite the failure of agencies to respect their historical land claims or religious rights. The Puberty Ceremony honors the coming of age for young women from the Tribe and sets the Tribal foundation of existence.

Fourteen year-old Waimem Sisk-Franco, the daughter of Winnemem leaders Caleen Sisk-Franco and Mark Franco, by tradition should undergo the ceremony this July. The ceremony is planned to correspond with lunar and seasonal cycles and lasts four days. It consists of the young woman camping on one side of the river for three nights, learning from older women who visit her there, grinding herbs and medicines at a sacred rock, known as Puberty Rock. On the fourth day, when the moon is full, the fourteen-year-old swims across the river and joins tribal dancers as a full-fledged woman.

“We have already paid in so many ways,” declared Sisk-Franco. “All we are asking is for four days of campground use. That does not seem like to much to ask for the survival of an entire people.”