Secure in their isolated valley until the arrival of the white man, the Native Americans of Lake County and their ancestors lived for more than 12,000 years in this temperate Eden of abundance. The anthropologist who labeled them all by one name was mistaken though; the Pomo were actually 72 independent villages, or tribelets, that spoke at least seven distinct and mutually unintelligible languages. Theirs was a culture without war, without tyranny, without greed--until the Gold Rush. Like native plant seeds, they have blown and been carried and have taken root again and again. Though their history far predates the camera, the artifacts, stories, and historical images collected from this region and its inhabitants can portray, in part, their joy and pain and their powerful ability to change and endure.

A world-renowned Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman, Mabel McKay expressed her genius through her celebrated baskets, her Dreams, her cures, and the stories with which she kept her culture alive. She spent her life teaching others how the spirit speaks through the Dream, how the spirit heals, and how the spirit demands to be heard. Greg Sarris weaves together stories from Mabel McKay's life with an account of how he tried, and she resisted, telling her story straight—the white people's way. Sarris, an Indian of mixed-blood heritage, finds his own story in his search for Mabel McKay's. Beautifully narrated, Weaving the Dream initiates the reader into Pomo culture and demonstrates how a woman who worked most of her life in a cannery could become a great healer and an artist whose baskets were collected by the Smithsonian. Hearing Mabel McKay's life story, we see that distinctions between material and spiritual and between mundane and magical disappear. What remains is a timeless way of healing, of making art, and of being in the world. Sarris’s new preface, written expressly for this edition, meditates on Mabel McKay’s enduring legacy and the continued importance of her teachings.

“A Native American rejoinder to Richard White and Jesse Amble White’s California Exposures.”—Kirkus Reviews Rewriting the history of California as Indigenous. Before there was such a thing as “California,” there were the People and the Land. Manifest Destiny, the Gold Rush, and settler colonial society drew maps, displaced Indigenous People, and reshaped the land, but they did not make California. Rather, the lives and legacies of the people native to the land shaped the creation of California. We Are the Land is the first and most comprehensive text of its kind, centering the long history of California around the lives and legacies of the Indigenous people who shaped it. Beginning with the ethnogenesis of California Indians, We Are the Land recounts the centrality of the Native presence from before European colonization through statehood—paying particularly close attention to the persistence and activism of California Indians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The book deftly contextualizes the first encounters with Europeans, Spanish missions, Mexican secularization, the devastation of the Gold Rush and statehood, genocide, efforts to reclaim land, and the organization and activism for sovereignty that built today’s casino economy. A text designed to fill the glaring need for an accessible overview of California Indian history, We Are the Land will be a core resource in a variety of classroom settings, as well as for casual readers and policymakers interested in a history that centers the native experience.

"Exploring the Berryessa Region tells the story of a landscape, just west of Sacramento and north of San Francisco, born through plate tectonic forces. The Berryessa Region anchors the southern end of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and holds geologic wonders including subduction zones, thrust faults, ophiolites, turbidites, mud volcanoes, and pull apart basins. These features nurture world-renowned biological diversity which, over time, has fostered a rich history of human cultures--including Native Americans. Today recreational opportunities draw new visitors with hiking, camping, birding, botanizing, horse riding, boating, and managed off-highway vehicle use. Regional ecosystem services include water, forests, and ranchlands. Full of rich details, this book helps visitors explore this fascinating region by car and discover how regional diversity developed. Readers can use the mile by mile descriptions as a field guide to explore these geological, ecological, and historical features for themselves."--Back cover.

LAKE COUNTY HISTORYThis is a compelling story that begins a couple of million years ago, when Mt. Konocti and Clear Lake were formed. Read about the coming of the First Americans, the discovery of Clear Lake, along with the life and times of early Lake County settlers. Did you know that Black Bart spent time in Lake County? Have you heard of the mysterious Odham rocks? It's all here, with many stories unique to Lake County.

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Pomo Indian basketry ranks as a world-class art, and no more interesting collection exists than that created by Elsie Allen and her mother, Annie Burke, presented here in full-color.

Created by the California Research Bureau at the request of Senator John L. Burton, this Web-site is a PDF document on early California laws and policies related to the Indians of the state and focuses on the years 1850-1861. Visitors are invited to explore such topics as loss of lands and cultures, the governors and the militia, reports on the Mendocino War, absence of legal rights, and vagrancy and punishment.

The slopes of a cooled volcano, Mount Konocti, reflect in the waters of Clear Lake, the oldest lake in North America. Home to Pomo Indians for millennia, the region's first immigrants settled near Kelseyville. Mendocino and Napa Counties vied for ownership of Clear Lake, but disputes ended when a new county formed in 1861. The serene, natural landscape, plentiful mineral hot springs, and remote location attracted thousands of visitors to large resorts like Bartlett, Harbin, and Seigler Springs. Prizefighters came from all over the nation, including Gentleman Jim Corbett and John L. Sullivan, who trained at separate local resorts for their 1892 title bout. Tourists and residents traveled in style on the steamer, City of Lakeport. Lake County towns like Lakeport, Lower Lake, Kelseyville, Upper Lake, and Middletown based their economy on agriculture and orchard crops as well as tourism and recreation, but this ancient lake remained and remains at the heart of all.

Describes the culture, government, arts, and religion of the Pomo people of northern California.