Author Archives: Erik Gordon Bainbridge

About Erik Gordon Bainbridge

Erik Gordon Bainbridge is a MAPOM director and a Kule Loklo volunteer who also builds virtual worlds and teaches community education classes in Marin County.

Discovering Native People at Point Reyes

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Betty Goerke’s new book Discovering Native People at Point Reyes is now available from MAPOM for $13.00.

This engaging story of the Coast Miwok people has a twofold purpose: to explain the natural history, cultural lifeways, and history of native life at Point Reyes and Tomales Bay from the time of Francis Drake’s arrival to the acknowledgment of the tribe by the US Government in 2000; and to suggest nine specific walks in the area which have been meaningful destinations for tribal people for thousands of years.  It includes information and photographs never before published, and is illustrated with over 75 photographs, most of them in color.

Betty is a MAPOM co-founder and board member, a trustee of the Museum of the American Indian, and has taught anthropology and archeology at College of Marin for over 35 years.

You can order this and other publications on MAPOM’s publications page mapom.com/publications.html.

2012 Kule Loklo Big Time

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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

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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.