‘Trail of Truth:’ Muwekma Ohlone Tribe demands return of artifacts, remains as cross-country protest winds through the Bay Area

At stake, tribal leaders said, is the return of tens of thousands of their ancestors and other sacred artifacts at UC Berkeley.

BERKELEY — More than a dozen members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe rallied at UC Berkeley in traditional regalia Tuesday, dancing, chanting and praying on a patch of grass outside the museum where tens of thousands of Native American remains and burial artifacts have been stored since the 1870s.

The protest was part of the tribe’s “Trail of Truth,” a three-month horseback trek from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., that began on Sunday when tribal members rode en masse over the Golden Gate bridge. The cross-country ride is aimed at spurring lawmakers to recognize the Muwekma Ohlone as a legitimate tribe — a move that would bestow its 614 members powers of sovereign self-government, access to financial benefits and other federal protections.

Joey Iyolopixtli Torres, the tribe’s cultural bearer and faith keeper, proclaimed that they could not leave the Bay Area without saying a prayer to the ancestors that are still being “held captive” by UC Berkeley at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Tuesday’s rally was an important stop before heading to Sacramento to deliver their demands to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Torres said. They plan to ride to San Jose next week, hoping to bolster support for a resolution seeking federal recognition.

“That’s what you see right now — what we feel in our hearts and see in our children’s dreams,” Torres said. “To understand where we’re going, we have to know where we went. And the ancestors tell us these directions.”

At stake, tribal leaders said, is the return of tens of thousands of their ancestral remains and other sacred artifacts stored “in boxes in the museum’s basement.”

For decades, hobbyists, collectors and prominent academics, funded by wealthy benefactors or at the direction of major universities, took part in the desecration of Native American burial sites, looking for skulls, bones, baskets, beads and other artifacts to sell, display or use for teaching and research.

In the Bay Area, tens of thousands of remains and objects belonging to Native Americans ended up in collections held by UC Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, as well as San Francisco State, San Jose State, Stanford University, the Oakland Museum of California, the state parks system and and other colleges and museums. Some 10,000 remains are still in Bay Area institutions, the vast majority at UC Berkeley.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 required all federally funded museums, universities and government agencies to work with federally recognized tribes to return remains that belong to them. California enacted its own version of the act in 2001 to allow non-federally recognized tribes — many of which reside in the state — to also make repatriation claims. Earlier this year, the Biden administration attempted to update and strengthen these regulations to compel universities, museums and other esteemed institutions to address the practice of Native American grave looting.

However, institutional barriers still stand in the way of Muwekma Ohlone people realizing this goal, according to Tribal Chairwoman Charlene Nijmeh.

Nijmeh (pronounced “nij-may”) said her people are descendants of the Verona Band of Alameda County, which was federally recognized in the early 1900s, but had their recognition terminated in 1927.

UC Berkeley played a key role in this history, as the university’s first anthropology professor, Alfred L. Kroeber, encouraged excavations of Native American burial sites, and later declared the Muwekma Ohlone tribe extinct — which directly led to its losing federal recognition and land rights.

Even after the passage of the federal act in 1990, the campus was known to routinely deny requests to return remains, but it overhauled its compliance efforts starting in 2018, a spokesperson said — adding that Cal has not denied any repatriation claim in the past five years, and has overturned previous denials.

However, as of May 31, UC Berkeley has not yet repatriated 4,850 human remains and roughly 24,429 funerary objects, according to the University of California’s online database. The campus also continues to store another 4,482 human remains and 26,114 burial artifacts that have been submitted to the national registry, but have not yet been transferred to

But until the Muwekma are added to the list of federally acknowledged tribes — approved through a process established in 1978 — government agencies and publicly funded museums are not yet required to repatriate and return their artifacts.

The tribe attempted to achieve recognition through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but its request was denied in 2002. Challenges in district and appeals court were unsuccessful. No new tribe has received such recognition in the past five years.

Starting in 2022, Nijmeh and her allies attempted to wage the fight in Congress, asking representatives from the Bay Area to introduce a bill granting recognition to the tribe — efforts that were clouded by allegations of disinformation and anonymous news articles criticizing Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat who represents San Jose, and other members of Congress.

After lawmakers expressed reservations about gambling rights for the tribe, proposed limitations on gambling as a condition for federal recognition and questioned the tribe’s methods of advocacy, Nijmeh said elected leaders began actively obstructing efforts for federal recognition, going so far as to call Lofgren a “colonist.”

Nijmeh said now that they’ve exhausted all administrative processes and legal battles, the tribe is left with no other option than to physically appear before state and federal lawmakers with their plea to resolve historical injustices with federal recognition.

“Now, we’re standing up for the injustice of denial,” Nijmeh said in an interview Tuesday. “We are taking it on the road, and we’re getting support from relatives across the nation, as we walk and ride on horseback to D.C., where we will speak our truth. Truth is always uncomfortable, but it needs to be said.”

Staff reporters Luis Melecio-Zambrano and Martha Ross contributed to this story.