Donna Miranda-Begay is the tribal chairwoman for the Kern Valley Tubatulabal tribe. The decorative beadwork on the clapstick before her shows off some of the tribe's official colors: black for the ancestors, white for the youth, turquoise for Mother Earth, and burgundy-red for the people. Photo by Louis Medina

Samantha Riding Red Horse, whose Indian name was inspired by a spiritual dream she had as a girl, is a tribal council member of the Tubatulabals of Kern Valley. Here she shows a historical photo of her people in the tribal office in Mount Mesa. Photo by Louis Medina

By Louis Medina

In the Kern River Valley this month, the Tubatulabal tribe (pronounced too-bah-too-lah’-ball and meaning “piñon nut gatherers”) look back to a dark chapter in their history, even as they press forward in the hope of gaining federal recognition.

The Keyesville Massacre

On April 19, 1863, according to Kern Valley Tubatulabal tribal council member Samantha Riding Red Horse, the United States Union Army, on complaints of Indian attacks suffered by miners and ranchers from as far away as the Owens Valley, converged on Tillie Creek, near Keyesville and present-day Wofford Heights, where the Tubatulabals had a village.

There, the army found not just Tubatulabals, Riding Red Horse said, but also Paiutes and Shoshones from the Owens Valley who had come to seek advice from Tubatulabal tribal elders about how to handle ranchers and miners traveling through their country without permission.

“It was just a council meeting. The people didn’t want war.” The army, however, thought otherwise, she said. Between 35 and 40 Native Americans, many of them her tribal ancestors, were killed in the attack.

For the last few years, the tribe has been holding a closed remembrance ceremony on the weekend nearest the anniversary of the killing.

“That massacre did a lot to us,” Riding Red Horse said. “It took away a lot of the culture, the traditional ways and customs…When we go to the site (of the massacre) today, our people still cry.”

Drawing Strength from Tragedy

Small as the tribe was to begin with — fewer than 1,000, by most historical accounts — the loss of some three dozen mature and young men who knew the seasonal rhythms for harvesting in the valley and journeying to the mountains to gather nuts at different times of the year was detrimental to the tribe’s subsistence, Riding Red Horse said.

Widespread depression among the survivors carried from that generation to several future generations, she said.

The tribe has had to deal with the almost complete loss of the Tubatulabal language as well. Pakaanil or Pakanapul, as it is called, is considered moribund — meaning gravely endangered — by some. Others consider it extinct, as the last fluent speaker, James Vincent Andreas, died in 2008 at the age of 78, according to tribal office records.

However, there are some who are working feverishly to revive the language.

Katherine Gomez, who was born and raised in Bakersfield but still has family, including cousin Riding Red Horse, living in the Kern River Valley, is studying the Uto-Aztecan language. Gomez and some of her aunts and cousins have been taking classes for about a year from her uncle, Robert Gomez, who is also a tribal council member. Her uncle is not fluent, Gomez said, but he learned from the best: the late Andreas.

“Studying Pakaanil has definitely brought to light answers to questions about myself, emotions and a sort of stirring of the soul,” said Gomez, who works doing data entry and analysis for the Bakersfield Homeless Center.

“Learning and discovering the history of our tribe and ancestral ways is really awesome,” she said. “To know you come from a tribe such as ours, that your language is one of the most unique ever spoken, makes you realize how special you are and how vital it is to pass it on to future generations so they continue to feel the same pride you do.”

Tribal chairwoman Donna Miranda-Begay, who is spearheading the effort to get federal recognition for Kern County Tubatulabals, said preservation of the tribal language and history are key to proving to the U.S. government that the tribe has a significant cultural influence and presence in the area.

Other requirements for federal recognition, she said, which would grant the tribe more benefits and autonomy, include:

• Having an enrollment process in place for members, who must produce birth certificates and have the Bureau of Indian Affairs certify their degree of Indian blood through genealogical research; and
• Showing that the group has never petitioned for federal recognition in the past and that none of the petitioning members is already enrolled in another federally recognized tribe.

Currently, 283 individual member applications have been submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to the April issue of the tribe’s official newsletter.

According to Riding Red Horse, the Tubatulabals of Kern Valley traditionally inhabited the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Kern River Basin along both the north and south forks of the river before Lake Isabella was created by damming. In the summer, the tribe would move to higher elevations in  the mountains. This movement sometimes took the tribe as far north as Mount Whitney, as far east as Walker Pass, and as far west as the mouth of the Kern River Canyon. Today, most Toubatulabals of Kern Valley live in the south fork area of the Kern River.

Woman Power

Miranda-Begay, who retired as chief information officer for the California Conservation Corps before taking on her current tribal leadership role, said Riding Red Horse has been instrumental in the Tubatulabals’ federal recognition application process, which takes years. Riding Red Horse has been doing genealogical research for the tribe for about 15 years and is a living storehouse of information on Tubatulabal history, according to the tribal chairwoman. “She works as a volunteer 40 hours a week in tribal enrollment and genealogy,” she said.

But Miranda-Begay herself is a powerhouse, too: Besides leading her people, she writes grant proposals to secure funding for tribal programs; oversees water projects (“The Tubatulabals have aboriginal water rights” as concerns the Kern River, she said); and acts as a cultural liaison between the tribe and government agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, and private organizations such as utility companies.

“This land is our land,” she said, “so whatever layer of government there is, we’re trying to protect it.”

Although American Indian tribes traditionally were led by men in the past, out of more than 500 tribes in the U.S. that are currently federally recognized, 55 percent are led by tribal chairwomen, she said. This has included Wilma Pearl Mankiller, the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation, who died April 6.

Miranda-Begay said there are currently 110 federally recognized tribes in California and more than 50 that are seeking federal recognition.

Other nearby Native American tribes that support the Tubatulabals in their petition process for federal recognition, the women said, include the Morongo, Pechanga, Tule, Tachi and Yokuts.

To find out more about the Kern Valley Tubatulabals, contact the tribal office at 760-379-4590. The address is 12600 Mount Mesa Road, Suite B, Mount Mesa, CA 93240. A website, www.tubats.org, is currently under construction.

Louis Medina is a grant writer for the Bakersfield Homeless Center and on the board of directors for Bakersfield Express.