Shellmound Victory Photo History
When a donor asked “What is the Sacred Land Film Project’s strategy for making a difference?” it set off a year-long quest to craft an answer.
Florence Jones, Top Doctor
Learn more about the remarkable life of Winnemem WIntu top doctor Florence Jones.
Making a Difference
When a donor asked “What is the Sacred Land Film Project’s strategy for making a difference?” it set off a year-long quest to craft an answer.
Ha’Kamwe’
Ha’Kamwe’ is a naturally occurring hot spring in the Big Sandy River basin where the Mojave and Sonoran deserts meet in what is now known as Arizona. Ha’Kamwe’ is a sacred healing place for the Hualapai Tribe. The important cultural and ecological site is threatened by a proposed lithium mine, as a subsidiary of the Australian company Hawkstone Mining Ltd. seeks permission to explore and drill on three sides of the spring, which would destroy cultural sites and block access to the oasis for desert wildlife.
Hope for Salmon
Winnemem celebrate the return of salmon to the McCloud River.
Thacker Pass
The largest known lithium deposit in the United States is in Thacker Pass, on the site of a collapsed super volcano in northern Nevada, 25 miles from the Oregon border. Thacker Pass is also known as Peehee Mu’huh in Paiute, meaning Rotten Moon because of its crescent shape and also to honor the ancestors who died there in two massacres. The site is sacred to at least 22 tribes. Lithium Americas, operating as Lithium Nevada Corporation (LNC), is planning a lithium mine on nine acres of public land.
Avi Kwa Ame
The 5,642-foot-high mountain known as Avi Kwa Ame in the Mojave language is the creation site for ten Yuman-speaking tribes including the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe. In response to more than a decade of efforts to protect the site, President Biden has designated 450,000 acres in Nevada as the “Avi Kwa Ame National Monument,” only the second monument to protect Native history.
Tomales Point
Tomales Point and Point Reyes, the Farallon Islands and the West Berkeley Shellmound, all in northern California’s Bay Area, are sacred places. Their entirety forms an immense ceremonial and mortuary complex for the Coast Miwok and Ohlone, indigenous to the San Francisco Bay Area. These coastal sites are evidence of early Polynesian settlement in the Americas.
A Letter to the Supreme Court
The California Supreme Court is deciding whether to take on the West Berkeley Shellmound case. Project Director Toby McLeod argues that they must!
Barbed Wire Imprisons Sacred Site
On the day the California Court of Appeal heard arguments over whether to uphold lower court protection of the West Berkeley Shellmound, landowners erected a six-foot chain link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. It was a gut punch.