2012 Kule Loklo Big Time

Kule Loklo’s annual Big Time festival will be celebrated on Saturday, July 21.  This is the 32nd year that this popular Bay Area event has been held.  It features dancing by two California Indian dance groups, the Intertribal Pomo group and Dry Creek Pomo dancers, and there will be vendors skills demonstrations.  The event is free and is suitable for the whole family.  It does however require a .4 mile walk from the parking area to Kule Loklo.

Kule Loklo Big Time - Pomo dancer July 2011

Kule Loklo Big Time - Pomo dancer July 2011

Kule Loklo is a replica Coast Miwok Indian village in Point Reyes National Seashore.  Originally constructed in the 1970s, it includes redwood bark village structures and two semi-subterranean structures, a sweat house and a roundhouse.  The roundhouse is used by Native people for traditional ceremonial purposes, so entrance is restricted, but you are allowed to look inside this unique building and get a sense of what life was like in this area before Europeans changed it forever.

You can learn more about Kule Loklo at the website of the Kule Loklo volunteers, www.kuleloklo.com, and you can learn more about the Big Time and get directions on the National Park website http://www.nps.gov/pore/planyourvisit/events_bigtime.htm.

MAPOM plans California Indian classes jointly with College Of Marin

MAPOM has offered California Indian Skills classes at Kule Loklo in Point Reyes National Seashore for many years.  More recently, MAPOM has also held classes at Olompali State Park (Novato, CA) and jointly with the Point Reyes National Seashore Association (PRNSA). Currently MAPOM is working out details of a new series of MAPOM classes that will be offered jointly with the College of Marin, including a certificate for completion. The following classes are currently planned:

  • Overview of California Indian culture and history
  • California Indian Baskets
  • Weaving a Pomo Style Coiled Willow and Sedge Basket
  • Introductory Flintnapping
  • Indigenous Cultural Practices
  • Introduction to Paleo Technology
  • Petroglyphs and Introduction to Miwok Cultural History
  • Present State of Tribal Affairs and the Certificate of Completion Ceremony

Registration for Summer classes will be after May 14 and for Fall classes after August 6. Please do not contact College of Marin yet.  When more information is available, it will be posted on MAPOM’s Skills Classes page mapom.com/skillsclasses.html.

 

Sylvia Thalman (1927-2012)

We have lost a giant.  Sylvia Thalman, co-founder of MAPOM and active board member since the 1970s, died in January.  Yesterday, a large throng of family, friends, Native Americans, and admirers gathered at Tiburon’s Corinthian Yacht Club to celebrate her life.

Sylvia Thalman at the Kule Loklo Big Time in 2008
Sylvia Thalman at the 2008 Kule Loklo Big Time

Back in the 1960s, long before there was any public interest in Native America, Sylvia worked with other non-Indians in Marin to learn the history of the Coast Miwoks who once were the guardians of the land that is now Marin and southern Sonoma Counties.  She was a co-founder of the Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin (MAPOM) and was active as a director until her stroke last year.

In the 1970s, she and others in MAPOM worked with the National Park Service to create Kule Loklo, intended to honor the Coast Miwoks, who at the time were thought by non-Indians to be an extinct people.  She also quietly worked at researching the genealogy of the Coast Miwoks, meticulously combing through Mission, genealogy, and public records.

At yesterday’s service, Greg Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (Coast Miwoks), spoke of when his people were trying to regain the Federal tribal recognition that had been taken from them decades earlier, they found that Sylvia’s quiet but dedicated research provided them the documentation they needed to regain Federal tribal recognition.  In honor of Sylvia’s work, the tribe made her an honorary elder, and she was awarded the Bay Area’s Jefferson Award for public servce.

Julia and Lucy Parker, who’ve long taught MAPOM basketmaking classes at Kule Loklo, sang two Yosemite Miwok songs with Lucy’s son and spoke of their long friendship with Sylvia.  Other speakers included MAPOM president Ralph Shanks and his wife Lisa, John Golda of the National Park Service, Pat Rapp, and members of Sylvia’s family.

No one can ever replace Sylvia, but the work she began continues in the activities of MAPOM, in Kule Loklo, in the Indian Skills classes that MAPOM has long offered, and most importantly, in the victory of the Coast Miwok people in regaining their tribal recognition.

Sylvia, we’ll miss you forever.