This is a brief reportback from the recent Prayer Walk and Gathering to Protect the Ancestors at Glen Cove Sacred Site. The walk was co-sponsored by Vallejo Intertribal Council, SSP&RIT and the International Indian Treaty Council
On Wednesday September 30th 2009, we walked from the Greater Vallejo Recreation District offices to Glen Cove and held a prayer gathering to honor the ancestors as we seek protection for this area which has burials and sacred items dating back to 1,500 B.C.
We walked 3.8 miles to the Glen Cove sacred site where a prayer gathering was held.
Historically Glen Cove has been a traditional meeting place where services such as burials were performed for over one hundred local California Indian tribes. The sacred cove contains human remains, shell mounds, and other artifacts. Glen Cove continues to be a spiritually important area to the local Native Communities. The site was first documented in archaeological records in 1907 by an archaeologist from the University of California at Berkeley and, according to a 1988 report by Novato Archaeological Resource Service, is at least 3,500 years old. Many of the sacred items unearthed from the site in previous years remain illegally housed in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley which houses over 13,000 ancestral remains and over 200,000 sacred objects.
Proposed development – The Greater Vallejo Recreation District (GVRD) and the City of Vallejo are currently proposing to develop a park with trails and amendments that would desecrate this site. Preserving and protecting this sacred place in the way those who created it meant it to be is a legal right under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and is an essential part of Indigenous cultural survival.
Speakers urged the City of Vallejo and the GVRD to halt plans to develop and seek advice from the local Native Community about how to preserve this historic and sacred site. We are seeking support from local community members, and extending a special invitation to Religious and Spiritual Groups who are welcome to join in prayer with us as we walk for our ancestors.
Route info:
Here’s a Google map to 395 Amador St., where the Walk began.
Vehicle transport was provided for those unable to walk the entire distance. We entered Glen Cove from the foot of Whitesides Drive and S Regatta Drive.
Those unable to join the walk joined us with nourishment (healthy food and drinks/water) at our destination.
