{"id":149434,"date":"2026-01-26T01:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149434\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T01:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:27:08","slug":"administrative-erasure-wintu-people-say-proposed-california-reforms-would-threaten-their-homelands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149434\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Administrative erasure\u2019: Wintu people say proposed California reforms would threaten their homelands"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published<\/a> by Shasta Scout and shared through the Institute for Nonprofit News\u2019 Rural News Network<\/a>. ICT is a member of INN and the network.<\/p>\n

Marc Dadigan
Shasta Scout<\/a><\/p>\n

As a Wintu cultural monitor, Shawna Wilson says she always carries her hard hat, clipboard, and tribal ID card in her vehicle because she never knows when she might have to step into her role and stop a construction project.<\/p>\n

California law<\/a> requires that state and local agencies contact the appropriate tribes when they\u2019re planning development projects within their ancestral territories. After a consultation process, agencies often broker agreements with tribes to place cultural monitors like Wilson on construction sites<\/a> to prevent damage to ancestral village sites, sacred places, cemeteries and other cultural resources.<\/p>\n

However, the system doesn\u2019t always work as intended. Even though agencies should consult with tribes long before breaking ground<\/a>, Wilson says she often learns about construction projects in her Wintu homelands, which includes the Redding area, when she happens to drive past them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be difficult to navigate when you\u2019re dealing with foremen who don\u2019t want to listen or slow down their work,\u201d said Wilson, a member of the Wintu Tribe of Northern California. \u201cBut it\u2019s important we speak up for our lands and ancestors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes her tribe is left in the dark simply due to poor communication, but Wilson said sometimes public officials falsely believe they don\u2019t have to consult with her tribe because the Wintu are federally unrecognized.<\/p>\n

Wilson and several California tribal leaders say excluding non-recognized tribes, which violates state law, could soon become encoded into California regulations, much to their alarm. A state commission <\/a>is currently evaluating a proposal that would remove unrecognized tribes, including the Wintu, from an important list agencies use to determine which tribes to consult.<\/p>\n

The public comment<\/a> period on the draft regulations will end on Tuesday, Jan. 26.<\/p>\n

Known as the tribal contact list, it\u2019s been curated by the tribal-led Native American Heritage Commission for 50 years. The list is a valuable resource for public officials because it can be challenging to know which tribe is culturally affiliated to a given place, given the sheer diversity of tribes in California and the sometimes overlapping nature of tribal territorial boundaries.<\/p>\n

For non-recognized tribes \u2014\u00a0 many of whom suffer from their exclusion from federal Indian funding and legal protections as well as the lack of a\u00a0land base \u2014 the list is a lifeline, one of the few legal avenues they have to advocate for their place-based ways of life, they say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to make the exclusion and silencing we experience now more permanent.\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n

For this story, Shasta Scout interviewed seven representatives of non-recognized tribes from throughout the state. They all say their removal from the list could leave their territories extremely vulnerable to cultural and environmental destruction. In many cases, tribal representatives said, the nearest recognized tribe that would be consulted for any given project may be some distance away and may also lack the experience and capacity to advocate for homelands that are not their own.<\/p>\n

Hereditary Chief Caleen Sisk said her tribe, the Winnemem Wintu, is the only one qualified to advocate for their ancestral homelands of the McCloud River watershed, where they have been working with government agencies to protect sacred sites, revitalize ceremonies and restore the river\u2019s ecology for decades. For example, the tribe has spent more than 20 years resisting the Bureau of Reclamation\u2019s raise of Shasta Dam<\/a> and since 2022 have been working with state and federal agencies to restore salmon to the McCloud<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In part because of the Winnemem Wintu\u2019s advocacy for their river, the State Assembly passed a joint resolution in 2009<\/a> urging the federal government to recognize the tribe. Sisk said she doubted the Redding Rancheria, the closest recognized tribe that has Wintu members, would have the resources or knowledge to work on the river.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t have the right to speak up for our sacred sites, who is going to do that? Other tribes don\u2019t know where the sacred sites are or know how to protect the river,\u201d Sisk said.\u00a0 \u201c[The proposed regulations] would be opening up thousands of acres of land that will have no one to protect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cultural monitor Wilson echoed Sisk\u2019s concern that the Rancheria could become the one stop shop for Redding-area tribal consultations when they \u201cdon\u2019t represent the full Wintu history or all of the Wintu voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Redding Rancheria Chairman Jack Potter noted that his tribe has regularly written letters for the other Wintu tribes, supporting their cases for recognition and their inherent Indigenous rights. He added that Redding Rancheria tribal members can empathize with unrecognized tribes\u2019 struggles today because Congress terminated them as a tribe in 1959<\/a>, and it wasn\u2019t until 1983 that the courts restored their sovereign status with the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were also without a voice at one time. We honor and respect the entire Wintu country because if we don\u2019t respect all Wintu people ourselves, how can we expect other people to?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Non-recognized tribes call proposal \u201cadministrative erasure\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the proposed regulations, the current list would be discarded, and only federally recognized tribes, such as the Redding Rancheria, would stay on the revised list. About 60 non-federally recognized tribes, including three Wintu tribes whose territories cover parts of Shasta County, would be forced to apply to the commission for consideration to be re-added to the list. The current draft of the regulations<\/a> indicates that would require extensive documentation and records, and tribal leaders say it would likely be a long and uphill battle to get added back to the list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When a tribe is federally recognized, it means that the United States has established a government-to-government relationship with a tribe as a sovereign nation, although U.S. law does place some constraints on tribes\u2019 ability to self-govern. Historically this relationship with the U.S. was established primarily by treaties and the establishment of reservations held in trust for tribes by the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Winnemem Wintu Hereditary Chief Caleen Sisk signs a co-management agreement with leaders from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on May 1, 2023, to co-steward McCloud River Salmon Restoration Projects. Credit: Photo by Jessica Abbe, courtesy of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe<\/p>\n

In California, it\u2019s well known that many historical and legitimate tribes lack federal recognition because of systemically oppressive actions by the state and federal governments\u2019. Numerous government studies<\/a> and academic analyses<\/a> have concluded that the lack of recognition is rooted in the state\u2019s complex history of unratified treaties<\/a>, the impacts of the Spanish Missions \u2014 which fragmented many tribal societies through enslavement and high death tolls \u2014 and the devastating state-led campaigns of genocide<\/a> and removals<\/a> that accompanied 19th century Euro-American settlement.<\/p>\n

In recent decades, being on the Bureau of Indian Affairs\u2019 official list of federally recognized tribes<\/a> has become a precondition for tribes to access federal funding and legal protections, such as receiving an eagle feather permit<\/a>, protection for ceremonies on public lands and many other rights specific to tribes, including the ability to operate gaming businesses.<\/p>\n

Tribal legal advisors and scholars told Shasta Scout the proposed changes to the contact list would undermine decades of established practice at the Native-led Heritage Commission. The commission was created in 1976 <\/a>to help tribes protect their cultural sites, and the group has historically been careful to be inclusive of both unrecognized and recognized tribes, they say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very transparent that these regulations are not about enabling California Indians to engage with our sacred places, to practice our religions or our traditional ecological knowledge. It\u2019s really about creating this discriminatory hierarchy among our tribes and prioritizing recognized tribes,\u201d said Olivia Chilcote, a tribal member of San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians and associate professor of American Indian Studies at San Diego State University.<\/p>\n

Native American Heritage Commissioners declined to answer questions about the proposed regulations for Shasta Scout noting that those regulations are still in draft form and haven\u2019t been finalized, according to an email from Gita Chandra, Communications and Special Projects Director for the California Natural Resources Agency.<\/p>\n

Regulations with unclear motivations and legality<\/p>\n

Claire Cummings, a legal advisor for the Winnemem Wintu, said the proposed regulations would violate the equal protection principle outlined in the state\u2019s constitution<\/a>. She said the regulations arbitrarily creates two separate classes of California Indians and would give the NAHC a new role of judging the legitimacy of different tribes. This is a role it is not legally entitled to wield, Cummings explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue here is sovereignty. The law clearly states that California must protect the sovereignty of unrecognized tribes, but now the NAHC is trying to put itself in the position of deciding who is and isn\u2019t worthy of sovereignty,\u201d said Cummings.<\/p>\n

Cummings as well as tribal leaders also said it\u2019s unclear why the NAHC is pursuing the regulation changes and that commissioners have not explained what problem they\u2019re trying to solve.<\/p>\n

\"\"Wintu cultural monitors help protect and preserve cultural items that may be disturbed by construction, such as arrowheads, mortars, pestles and other cultural items that belonged to their ancestors. Credit: Photo by Marc Dadigan\/Shasta Scout<\/p>\n

The proposed regulations do refer to problems with disputes over tribal boundaries as well as \u201csplinter\u201d tribes, and sets up a process by which the NAHC would evaluate these conflicts and the legitimacy of unrecognized tribes. However, unrecognized tribal leaders interviewed by Shasta Scout do not think NAHC is the appropriate body to be acting as a final judge on these disputes.<\/p>\n

Potter, chairman of the Redding Rancheria, said he believes the proposed changes to the contact list are designed to address what he calls \u201cboy scout clubs,\u201d or illegitimate groups who are staking claims to tribal lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s their intention to eliminate anyone. I think they\u2019re just trying to figure out how to deal with these imaginary groups who have ties to nothing and have legitimate tribes going around and around in the courts,\u201d Potter said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cummings said the law is clear that tribes have the power to put themselves on the list, and it\u2019s the NAHC\u2019s role simply to facilitate that rather than evaluate the legitimacy of other tribes. NAHC commissioners are politically appointed by the governor, and historically there has been a mixture of unrecognized and recognized commissioners. Today, there is only one unrecognized commissioner and five who are enrolled with recognized tribes.<\/p>\n

Tribal representatives are also concerned about commissioner ties to wealthy gaming tribes, some of whom were co-sponsors on a 2025 bil<\/a>l that similarly would have excluded unrecognized tribes from the state\u2019s environmental review process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really concerning for me that the NAHC would have this kind of discretionary authority to judge our tribal communities and it really raises serious questions about who has the ability, time and resources to review the documentation they\u2019re requesting,\u201d said Chilcote, the San Diego State professor.<\/p>\n

Chilcote also noted that the commission\u2019s proposed regulations create an evaluation process that is similar to a petition process the Bureau of Indian Affairs created in 1978. For decades that process had been criticized as highly political,<\/a> unnecessarily laborious<\/a> and discriminatory toward California tribes<\/a>, none of whom have been recognized through the process since 1983.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say (the commission) is going to decide who is the right tribe is antithetical to our cultures and the history of how our communities functioned,\u201d said Chilcote. \u201cThere were always shared territories, places that were sacred to many of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

A barrier to healing<\/p>\n

The proposed regulations come at a time when non-recognized tribes in California have made tremendous progress in cultural revitalization and healing some of the scars of the historical genocide and land dispossession.<\/p>\n

In recent years, many non-recognized tribes have restored land bases and re-engaged in traditional environmental stewardship, often with state partnerships. For instance, since 2023, the Winnemem Wintu have been co-managers with state and federal wildlife agencies on a historic project to restore salmon to the McCloud River where the fish have been absent for nearly 80 years.<\/p>\n

However, if they are removed from the contact list, non-recognized tribes fear these informal and formal partnerships may be undermined, and they may be excluded from funding streams such as the state\u2019s $101 million Tribal Nature-Based Solutions grant program<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an official acknowledgment<\/a> of California\u2019s role in the 19th century genocide, and initiated a Truth and Healing Council<\/a> to investigate reconciliation. Many tribal leaders are now wondering how their removal from the contact list fits into this vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no truth and healing for us if we can\u2019t protect our sacred sites, if we can\u2019t get back to the river and get back our salmon,\u201d said Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem Wintu. \u201cTaking us off the list is just another type of the same genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

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