Sacred Land Film Project

Maps tell stories, and control of the printing press allowed colonial powers to tell their own stories for centuries. The Winnemem Wintu Tribe was taken off the map in California's history books and is still unrecognized by the U.S. government. 🗺

In 2011, Eli Moore and Catalina Garzon of the Pacific Institute and Miho Kim of the Data Center led a mapping workshop with the Winnemem Wintu to continue a long process of documenting sacred sites in the Winnemem's traditional cultural territory.

🎥 We filmed the workshop to include as a scene in our Standing on Sacred Ground documentary series, and here's a clip from the scene we shot.

All over the world, Indigenous communities are incorporating mapping into their communication and outreach strategies, as they craft the stories they want to tell to the outside world about their struggles to protect their land, culture, language and sacred sites. Mapping figures into five of our eight stories: in Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, Russia's Altai Republic, the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, and in northern California. 🌎

As Winnemem leader Caleen Sisk says, "We need to create evidence to convince the Forest Service that this is a historic cultural district containing a network of sacred sites that all work together. Different places teach us different things and have different purposes. But we need them all."

➡To watch the full clip, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVoFBq2USJQ

🔗 If you enjoy this clip, please consider making a donation to support our work: https://sacredland.org/donate/

Hopi elder Thomas Banyacya (1909-1999) was selected as spokesman for traditional leaders in 1948, after atom bombs triggered Hopi awareness that the prophesied "gourd full of ashes" had finally been unleashed.

We worked with Thomas from 1977 through 1999 and were fortunate to film him at Chaco Canyon, in Washington D.C., and at sacred pilgrimage sites around the Four Corners area. His humor, good spirit and wisdom will long be remembered.

In June 2011, Santa Clara elder José Lucero and Onondaga Chief Oren Lyons organized a memorial gathering to celebrate Thomas at the foot of Navajo Mountain and they asked us to put together a short film remembrance of the revered Hopi Messenger. This short clip is from that film, which we released publicly in September 2017, with the permission of Thomas's family.

🎥 In this segment, Thomas Banyacya explains the Hopi belief that Native people are not supposed to join the U.S. military to bomb other countries and destroy life, because Native people's mission is to take care of all land and life.

➡ To watch the full film, click here and subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3igP8udqfaw