Puvunga
Puvunga Indian Village Sites and Boundary Increase | |
Tongva | |
NRHP reference No. | 74000521 (original) 82000429 (increase) |
---|---|
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | January 21, 1974 |
Boundary increase | May 22, 1982 |
Puvunga (alternatively spelled Puvungna or Povuu'nga) is an ancient village and sacred site of the Tongva nation, the Indigenous people of the Los Angeles Basin, and the Acjachemen, the Indigenous people of Orange County. The site is now located within the California State University, Long Beach campus and surrounding areas.[1] The Tongva know Puvunga as the "place of emergence" and it is where they believe "their world and their lives began".[2] Puvunga is an important ceremonial site and is the terminus of an annual pilgrimage for the Tongva, Acjachemen, and Chumash.[1]
Before the arrival of European settlers, Puvunga extended far beyond the contemporary site that remains today.[1] Its presence was first uncovered in 1952, and then in 1974, at the designated location, when trenching was done for the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden.[clarification needed] The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.[1] In 1992, the university challenged its historic designation and threatened to forcefully build a strip mall on the site, which was blocked by direct action and intervention by the ACLU.[1] In 2019, dirt and trash were dumped on the site by the university.[3]
The site is located near the Japanese Garden along the banks of a now channelized
Etymology
Puvunga can mean "the place of the gathering" or "in the ball", depending on the source.[1]
Significance
The site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974 for its historical and cultural significance. It remains a ceremonial site for the Acjachemen, Tongva, and Chumash for intertribal gatherings. Puvunga also serves the endpoint of an annual pilgrimage that begins at the village site of Panhe, now located in San Onofre.[1]
The Tongva and Acjachemen remember the village as home to Wiyot, one of the First Beings who was their sacred leader.
Rare bird species have been identified on the site by the
History
Regional trading and ceremonial center
Puvunga once stood on a rounded knoll or small hill above the expansive wetlands (now known as the Los Cerritos Wetlands) of the San Gabriel River. The Pacific Ocean came up to the bluff of the village, though it has since been pushed several miles west by settlers and commercial development.[5]
Puvunga was a large village that extended far beyond the remaining area associated with the village. It was a regional trading and ceremonial center for the
Nearby coastal villages included: the very close settlement of Motuucheyngna (at modern-day Seal Beach),[8] now sometimes referred to in archaeological terms as Puvungna East;[7] Guashna (now at Playa Vista) located about twenty miles up the coast;[5] and the village of Lupukngna, located down the coastline at the mouth of the Santa Ana River.[2]
Colonization
Like many other Tongva villages in the greater Los Angeles Basin area, village life at Puvunga deteriorated immensely with the arrival of Spanish missionaries and soldiers.[10]
With the establishment of Mission San Gabriel in 1771,[9] many people from surrounding villages were brought to the mission for conversion and for their labor. They worked on the grounds of the mission in conditions that were recognized as slavery by third-party observers at the time.[11] Between 1785 and 1805, mission records noted numerous baptisms of villagers from Puvunga, indicating that the village was likely depleted shortly after.[10]
In 1822, Geronimo Boscana referred to the village as Pubuna and located it[clarification needed] within the Spanish land grant Rancho de los Nietos established in 1784, which was eight leagues northwest of Mission San Juan Capistrano.[12]
Many villagers likely died at the mission and
In 1844, Hugo Reid referred to the village as Pubugna and stated it could still be identified as existing at Rancho Los Alamitos, which was a subdivision of Rancho de los Nietos.[12]
Development and recognition
In June 1950, the City Council of
In 1955, it was noted by Helen Smith Giffen that there were "shell debris littering the fields below the Los Alamitos ranch house [which] bear witness to the fact that this was once the site of an Indian rancheria [Puvunga]." She noted that there was still a "wonderful spring" which flowed at the location.[16]
On the first official Earth Day celebration, organic gardens were established on the 22 acres (8.9 ha) of Puvunga that were still undeveloped and available to the public.[17] The garden site was used to grow various foods for personal consumption.[1]
In 1972, campus workmen uncovered portions of a burial at site LAn-235 on the western edge of campus. Funding for the 1973 excavation was provided by the City of Long Beach, Long Beach Historical Society, Rancho Los Alamitos Associates, and private donors. Tongva remnants unearthed included
These remains were placed in CSULB's archaeology lab.Archaeologists in 1974 wrote that the Tongva "abruptly abandoned the site in the early 1800s, only a year or so before the first white family took possession of the land".[18] That same year, LAn-235 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places to represent Puvungna "as a means of perpetuating the memory of these native peoples and their religion, and as an aid to the program of public education".[19] Two other sites were included in the National Register: the adjacent LAn-234 and LAn-306, located just east of campus on the grounds of the historic Rancho Los Alamitos.[1][20]
In 1979, a reburial of an individual disinterred in 1972 occurred. After this reburial, campus workers erected a small engraved wooden sign at the site, which read "Gabrieleno Indians once inhabited this site, Puvunga, the birthplace of Chungicnish, law-giver and god."[1]
More than a dozen archaeological sites, spread over an area of about 500 acres (2.0 km2) on and near the campus, have been identified as Puvungna village sites. A shopping center and apartments at 7th Street and
Threats and disturbance
Despite its known cultural importance, in 1992, the university attempted to challenge Puvunga's designation as a historic site to construct a strip mall over the remaining grounds of Puvunga as well as over a nearby organic community garden that had been established on the first Earth Day. When gardeners organized to prevent a parking lot development intended for the strip mall site, campus officials ignored them. They moved forward with development, claiming that "no cultural resources" were on site.[19]
In response, the Tongva and others organized to stop the development and save the site from destruction. They initiated protests and filed a lawsuit that temporarily stalled any construction.[19] The university's sudden hostile attitude toward the preservation of the site has been credited to a change in the university's leadership and the recent decline in California state support for public education,[1] which had pushed universities to find economic revenue sources "to replace state support for higher education that [had] drastically eroded in the last two decades".[5]
As a result,
A short film of the event titled Sacred Lands, White Man's Laws was made available in 1994.[19]
In 1995, Robert Maxson became President of the University. He pledged to abandon all plans of commercial development on the land and to preserve it, maintaining the open space, as long as he was President. He kept his promise until he left office in 2006.[21]
A burial site in the greater Puvunga area was disturbed in the construction of the neighborhood of Hellman Ranch in the adjacent city of Seal Beach. The site is sometimes archaeologically referred to as Puvungna East or as the village of Motuucheyngna, because of its proximity to Puvugna and in acknowledgment of the large area the village once comprised. About 35 bodies were disturbed in the development of Hellman Ranch, along with numerous artifacts of the Tongva.[7]
In 2019, CSULB received backlash after dumping dirt and trash on the site.[3] Local self-identified Indigenous groups, such as the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians (Acjachemen Nation), were not consulted in regard to the dumping. This resulted in a legal challenge by the tribe which halted the dumping in October 2019. The legal proceedings were stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chairman of the tribe Matias Belardes commented on how the dumping reflected a shift in attitude from the university since the 1992 lawsuit:[22]
We’ve had a decent relationship since then [the 1992 strip mall incident] .... [We] find it disrespectful and disheartening. Ever since that lawsuit, it was thought that there would be a better understanding of what that site means to us. Somewhere along the way, there’s been a disconnect. Now we’re back to square one after all these positive things from the original lawsuit all those years ago. We thought we were past it already. It shouldn’t have come to this. The university should know the site's significance, what it means to the tribes, and what you can and can’t do on the property.[22]
In response, six departments at CSULB are developing film and educational resources to teach the campus community about the significance of the site in an attempt to prevent future damage.[23]
In August 2020, the California Office of Historical Preservation criticized the university for damaging the site.[24] The following January, the university's president issued a message[25] claiming that rumors of development on the site of Puvungna were untrue, but a report released three months later showed that the university did have plans of building another parking lot on the site.[26] The same month, a number of organizations and tribal nations sent governor Gavin Newson a letter requesting that he restore Puvungna.[17] In August 2021, the Native American Heritage Commission started a formal investigation on the topic.[17] One month later, a settlement was reached prohibiting the development of the land and allowing tribal nations to use Puvungna for their traditional activities.[27] Under the terms of the settlement, removing the construction debris is not the University's responsibility.[28]
See also
- Genga – Former Tongva and Acjachemen village in Orange County, California
- Puhú – Historical native American village in California, US
- Yaanga – Former Tongva village in Los Angeles, California
- Population of Native California
- Native Americans in the United States
References
- ^ )
- ^ a b c Greene, Sean; Curwen, Thomas (May 9, 2019). "Mapping the Tongva villages of L.A.'s past". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 19, 2019.
- ^ a b Jordan, Rachel (October 5, 2019). "CSULB under fire for dumping dirt, trash on sacred Native American grounds". Abc7 Los Angeles.
- ^ Woodbrige, Sally; Berner, Loretta; Young, Pamela. "Architectural Narrative: "Rancho Los Alamitos"" (PDF). Rancho los Alamitos: 2.
- ^ OCLC 780446639.
- ISBN 9780759121607.
- ^ a b c "Tribal Cultural Landscape" (PDF). Tribal Cultural Resources: 7. May 2020.
- OCLC 1226813397.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ a b Society, California Historical (1966). California Historical Society Quarterly. California Historical Society. pp. 21–23.
- ^ a b c d The Masterkey for Indian Lore and History. Southwest Museum. 1972. pp. 85–87.
- ISBN 9780804738804.
A clerk with the Jedediah Smith fur-trapping party spent considerable time observing his San Gabriel mission surroundings. He soon found himself unable to tolerate the site of the natives working in the nearby vineyards and fields. 'They are kept in great fear, and for the least offense they are corrected,' he confided in his diary. 'They are... complete slaves in every sense of the word.'
- ^ )
- ^ Guinn, James Miller (1907). History of the State of California and Biographical Record to Oakland and Environs: Also Containing Biographies of Well-known Citizens of the Past and Present (Digitized eBook). Historic Record Company. pp. 56–66.
- S2CID 161847670– via JSTOR.
- ^ "1949 - 1955". www.csulb.edu. March 6, 2018. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ Giffen, Helen Smith (1955). Casas & Courtyards: Historic Adobe Houses of California. Biobooks. p. 77.
- ^ a b c "History". Friends of Puvungna. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ a b c Getze, George. "PUVUNGNA PARTIALLY EXCAVATED: INDIAN HOLY VILLAGE UNCOVERED ARCHAEOLOGISTS BEGIN DIG ON INDIAN VILLAGE." Los Angeles Times (1923-1995), Apr 08, 1974, pp. 2-oc_a1.
- ^ a b c d e "Puvungna 1996". Peter Carr Peace Center News (home.csulb.edu). March 3, 1995. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
- ^ "National Register of Historical Places - CALIFORNIA (CA), Los Angeles County". www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com. Retrieved August 17, 2022.
- ^ "Welcome to Puvungna!". home.csulb.edu. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ a b Kazenoff, Tess; Gomez, Savannah (May 25, 2020). "CSULB dumping on Native American burial site". LBCC Viking News.
- OCLC 1200832053.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link - ^ Echeverry, Sebastian (October 3, 2020). "State conservation office chastises CSULB for dumping on Native American land". Long Beach Post News. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ "A Message about Puvungna". California State University Long Beach. January 13, 2021. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ^ March 23, Sammi Desch; Reply, 2021 at 8:35 am · (March 16, 2021). "Documents show CSULB had intentions of creating parking lot on Puvungna despite claims made by administration". Daily Forty-Niner. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Niebla, Crystal (September 16, 2021). "Tribal leaders, CSULB reach settlement over Puvungna, sacred indigenous land". Long Beach Post News. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved April 14, 2024.