Self-determination is relational: Why Indigenous land back efforts can’t happen in isolation
By Mahina Kaomea
Deep in the valley of Makaliʻi in Maunawili, Hawaiʻi, there are bubbling springs that feed an entire watershed, the most fertile soil on the island of Oʻahu, and trees home to an abundance of native birds. [1]
However, five years ago, this ʻāina (land) was planned to be rezoned and split into gentlemen’s estates, its precious soil, water, and cultural resources bulldozed, and the largely open area and modest farmworker homes replaced with expansive, high-end housing developments. Many Native Hawaiians in my community, including the non-profit Hawaiian culture-based organization Kauluakalana, which I have been a part of since high school, spoke out strongly against this plan, mobilizing our neighbors, signing petitions, and testifying at city council meetings.
And we were successful. Construction was halted, and our non-profit, in partnership with another Native Hawaiian-led organization and the Trust for Public Lands, purchased the land from the developer to protect this ʻāina into perpetuity, forever safeguarding it against development and ensuring that our children and grandchildren can continue to cultivate relationships with this place.
For many Native peoples, settler colonization has manifested itself in genocide, forced removal, and terminal narratives that perpetuate a false sense of Indigenous disappearance. [2] Because of these attempts to sever the relationships between Indigenous peoples and their lands, land return (through land trusts, cultural access easements, or transfer of fee simple deeds [3]) has been a crucial step towards decolonization for many Indigenous peoples.
However, land back efforts cannot happen in isolation. If our goal is true decolonization, as we work towards restoring our relationship with the land, we must also restore the numerous other, equally significant, relationships that have been severed through settler colonialism. Looking to guidance from Native groups who have preceded us in envisioning and bringing Indigenous land trusts to life, what lessons might we learn about the restoration of relationships that is made possible by Indigenous land trusts?
In this article, I outline three key relational lessons I have learned from other Native land trusts, which I hope to apply to our organization’s future restoration efforts: 1) the importance of re-establishing inter-tribal solidarities, 2) reawakening traditional ceremonies, and 3) rebuilding relationships with settler allies.
Re-establishing Inter-tribal Solidarities: A Lesson from the Sinkyone Wilderness Council
Sinkyone people come from the land between the Pacific Ocean and the Eel River, in what is now called Humbolt and Mendocino. In the mid-1800s, the Sinkyone people experienced significant genocide and forced removal, with any survivors absorbed into various neighboring tribes.
However, in 1997, a landowner’s lack of compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act opened the way for these many tribes to come back to traditional Sinkyone land. The land was temporarily purchased by the Trust for Public Lands and then transferred to the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council. This newly formed group of seven federally recognized tribes together raised more than $1.4 million to purchase the land, and their inter-tribal members are now reconnecting with each other through the work of ecological and cultural restoration.
In sharing the story of how these various tribes banded together to reestablish tribal control over ancestral Sinkyone land, the ISWC “hopes to encourage other indigenous communities around the world to undertake similar efforts so that they also can regain the stewardship and management of culturally important areas of their ancestral homelands.” [4]
For me, this story of intertribal collaboration serves as a reminder that our organization, Kauluakalana, was only able to raise enough money to buy back the land at Makaliʻi because of our partnership with another Native Hawaiian culture-based organization called Hoʻokuaʻāina. This inspiring story of inter-tribal collaboration reminds us of the importance of such relationships, and that our organizations will need to rely on each other as neighbors for generations to come, our many hands working together as we embark on the formidable task of restoring these ravaged ecosystems to abundance.
Reawakening Ceremonies for Healing: A Lesson from Tuluwat Island
Tuluwat Island is a small island in the middle of Humbolt Bay. It is home to the Wiyot people, who conducted their World Renewal Ceremony on the island each spring. However, this tradition was disrupted in 1860, when a death squad of white settlers massacred the Wiyot people in the midst of this ceremony.
As Wiyot tribal member Cheryl Seidner reflects, “Our culture … got buried along with all those people who died on the island.” The island was transferred to settler ownership and turned into a toxic wasteland for scrap metal and hazardous liquids — extractive uses that were far from the ceremonies of renewal and healing that once took place there. [5]
However, just as the Wiyot people faced massacre during a time of ceremony, the return of the Wiyot people to Tuluwat island likewise was deeply connected with the return of ceremony to the island. This reawakening of ceremony began with a candlelight vigil Cheryl Seidner organized to honor those who died in the 1860 massacre. As the Wiyot tribe flocked to the island for the ceremony, they became aware of the island’s need for healing. The tribe purchased back 1.5 acres of land, and the city of Eureka later voted to return the rest of the island to the tribe. The tribe has since worked to heal the landscape of the island — and simultaneously heal themselves — not only through hazardous waste and invasive species removal but also through practicing their ceremonies on the island once more.
This story of Tuluwat Island speaks to the significance of restoring our relationships with our traditional ceremonies, which play an integral role in healing Native lands and people from the ravages of colonialism. The ʻāina of Makaliʻi that my community is working to restore has experienced its share of environmental and social harms and is currently littered with abandoned cars, dilapidated structures, and toxic waste. This lesson from Tuluwat Island reminds us that as we work towards physically healing the landscape, we must also move towards spiritually healing ourselves and our communities — by remembering and relearning the ceremonies that honor our akua (spirits) of water, land, and regrowth.
Rebuilding Relations with Settler Allies and Activating Them Towards Land Back: A Lesson from Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy
The ancestral lands of the Tongva people are located in what is now commonly known as Los Angeles, a bustling city against a desert backdrop. To restore a portion of these ancestral lands and their relationships to it, Gabrieleno Tongva community members worked to create a 501c(3) nonprofit, giving them the agency to formally acquire land, despite not being a federally recognized tribe. [6] The current owner argued that the nonprofit needed to have $60,000 in funds to demonstrate they had the financial resources to take on and maintain the property.
To overcome this hurdle, the Tongva community nonprofit partnered with Resource Generation, a collective of young settlers with wealth and class privilege who are actively working to redistribute wealth. Resource Generation provided financial support for legal assistance and consultation, and also helped the Tongva community members make connections with allied legal and financial networks.
This call for settler allyship originated from Tongva leaders themselves, who exclaimed, “We need help. We need resources, we need assistance, we need allies, we need supporters, we need collaborators who are going to work with us.” [7] While the space continues to be Tongva-led and Tongva-centered, it now also serves as a space where Resource Generation members and other settlers can think critically about restoring their own relationships to land and Indigenous peoples in ways that redistribute, rather than extract, wealth.
This story has striking parallels to our Native Hawaiian association’s work in reclaiming and restoring land at Makaliʻi, which is located in the beach-front town of Kailua that is increasingly being bought out by wealthy, white settlers from the U.S. As the Tongva leaders clearly articulated, in communities such as ours, it is crucial for us to (re)build relations with settler allies and mobilize them towards our goal of land back. To this end, our Kauluakalana non-profit has recently begun hosting neighborhood meetings and opening our programming to the larger community, so we can dream together of a liberated, decolonial, and sovereign future for Hawaiʻi that includes us all.
Conclusion
As these stories suggest, land back, or restoration of relationships between Native peoples and their homelands, is one crucial step towards self-determination. But it is just the beginning. Indigenous land back efforts can’t happen in isolation. Through these examples, we are reminded of the importance of restoring inter-tribal solidarities, reawakening healing ceremonies, and activating settlers in decolonization work.
If you are Indigenous, I urge you and your community to plug into the rich network of Native peoples working towards decolonization through Indigenous land trust models and to take inspiration from their beautiful visions for the future. And if you are a descendant of non-Indigenous ancestors, I urge you to think deeply about the role that you can play in supporting these visions of land back. In this work of imagining decolonial and sovereign futures, we all need each other.
[1] Kauluakalana, “Clean Water and Natural Lands Fund Application.”
[2] Wilcox, Pueblo Revolt and the Mythology of Conquest.
[3] Fred, “Restoring Tribal Access to Land: A Menu of Options to Reestablish Cultural Access Rights.”
[4] Rosales, “The InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness.”
[5] Griner, “Restoring a culture: One Indigenous leader’s fight for her people.”
[6] Heizer, The Eighteen Unratified Treaties of 1851–1852 Between the California Indians and the United States Government.
[7] Reynoso, “Creating the Space to Reimagine and Rematriate Beyond a Settler-Colonial Present.”
