Published: March 30, 2024
Dear Friends,
I invite you to join a new trend of actions that are happening all over the United States. Different faith communities, businesses, land trusts, and other organizations are helping Native People return to their ancestral lands.
Here in Northern California, Friends are supporting the Nisenan tribe in their quest to return to traditional homelands that Friends have been holding in recent decades.
Please help by April 4, 2024.
Please join Friends in Northern California in helping the Nisenan meet a critical, fund-raising deadline on April 4 This is an opportunity for us as Quakers to experience right relations in action: the action of assisting the Nisenan in moving back onto a section of land that was once part of their homeland. This is a way we can help them say, "We are home again."
Click here to contribute to the Nisenan homeland return.
What will the Nisenan do once they are able to move back onto land that has been known recently as Sierra Friends Center? With the many buildings on the property, they intend to use the facility as an educational center for their traditional practices, traditions, language, and culture. They will provide housing for their Tribal Elders and many other Tribal Members. With the dining hall, they can hold community meals together. With the land, they can begin demonstrating their traditional ways of land management, which helped this area become a thriving, bountiful source of food for them before the gold rush. They will be able to function as an active village again. They are already using the village name “Yulica” for the property, which is the name of the village on this land before it was destroyed during the Gold Rush.
Here are some excellent resources for getting a sense of who the Nisenan are:
Click here to learn about their arts and culture center.
Click here to learn about CHIRP, the nonprofit that protects the tribe’s interests.
Click here to visit CHIRP’s YouTube channel.
from Dean Olson, Grass Valley Friends Meeting (3/27/2024)