'A home for gathering:' KC Museum dedicates new Native American Education Center
Sep. 16—The Kern County Museum is all about preserving local history and making that history accessible to all who walk through its doors.
But on Saturday, the museum itself made history by opening its first permanent space dedicated to the history and culture of the Native peoples who lived for thousands of years in what we now call the southern San Joaquin Valley and the regions that surround it.
"Today we're dedicating a new home for our 80-year-old Native American education program," Museum Director Mike McCoy told dozens of guests gathered Saturday morning outside the doors of the new Owtsan House Native American Education Center.
"My friend Kitty (DeArmond), who's one of our historians here," McCoy continued, "told me she went back and looked and in 1950, 4,000 children came through our Yokuts education program. So that's how old this program is."
In fact, McCoy and several others at Saturday's event vividly remember taking the tour as schoolchildren.
Stephen Humphreys, who has served as commissioner on the city of Bakersfield's Historic Preservation Commission, and as a trustee for the Kern County Historical Society, said the dedication of the center significantly raises the museum's level of commitment to preserving, studying and sharing this often tragic history.
"After all we've done to Native Americans in this country," Humphreys said, helping them share their stories here in kern County is the least we can do.
"It's Mike's vision," he said of McCoy's efforts to make the center a reality. "This is all from him. If you didn't have a director who wants it, it never would have happened."
Julian Behill, who was born and raised in Bakersfield but currently lives in Visalia, is part of the Chalon tribe. Many Native Americans, he said, are torn between joining efforts like the Kern County Museum's and keeping their distance.
"With the historical traumas Native Americans have experienced, it's still hard to trust institutions ... So much has been taken in the name of education."
But Behill believes working together with the staff and leadership of the museum is the best way to move forward, and as he looked around at the new education center, he said he is hopeful.
"To have a place like this that feels welcoming is huge," he said, noting that several tribes were represented at Saturday's event, including Chumash, Tubatulabal, Kawaiisu, Yokuts and others.
"It definitely is a home for gathering," he said of the new center.
Outside under the shade of mature trees, Chumash elder and storyteller Alan Salazar shared history and stories with visitors.
"We are a federally non-recognized tribe," Salazar told the listeners. "I am a tribal member and on the elder council of the Fernandeno Tataviam Band of Mission Indians.
"We are currently under review, so we're at the stage the Tejon Tribe was at about 15 years ago."
Salazar remarked that the tribes in these and other parts of the American Southwest traded extensively with one another.
"When you go into the museum here, you'll see obsidian arrowheads. There's no obsidian anywhere close to Bakersfield," he said.
At the eastern edge of Kern County and beyond, you'll find obsidian, he said. It came to the valley through inter-tribal trade.
He also showed samples of tiny beads made by the coastal Chumash from abalone shells, beads that have been found as far away as New Mexico.
"For thousands of years we were hunters, gatherers and business people. We traded," he said.
Johnny Sartuche, who said he comes from Yokuts Valley, characterized what was happening at Saturday's gathering as "good," because it was done together, in cooperation between the museum and Native people who were invited to share their input and advice on the project.
"To me, it brings joy to my heart to see this, just knowing some of the past things that have happened in this state," Sartuche said.
"Learn from it," he said of the trauma of the past.
"Learn from it."
Reporter Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353.
