How the Timbisha Shoshone Got their Land Back

Timbisha Shoshone signage welcoming visitors to their village near the Furnace Creek resort, Death Valley National Park. | Photo: Kim Stringfellow.

The Mojave Project is an experimental transmedia documentary by Kim Stringfellow exploring the physical, geological and cultural landscape of the Mojave Desert. The Mojave Project reconsiders and establishes multiple ways in which to interpret this unique and complex landscape, through association and connection of seemingly unrelated sites, themes, and subjects thus creating a speculative and immersive experience for its audience.

In our religion we don't practice within four walls. Our religion is written in all these mountains and in the valleys, in the waters, in the wildlife -- everything that belongs to the Creator. So, we're in church everyday. That's what we say.

-- Pauline Esteves, 92, Timbisha Shoshone elder, November 2015

It is no secret that many Native Americans were displaced and in some cases removed outright from ancestral lands during the founding of some of America's most prized national parks. Death Valley National Park is no exception. When President Herbert Hoover established, through executive order, two million acres of Death Valley and the surrounding region as Death Valley National Monument (DVNM) on February 11, 1933, it was done so under the presumption that this uninhabited wilderness had no permanent residents.

Scattered prospecting and mining activities had occurred within the proposed monument boundaries during the mid to late 19th century onward, but only Pacific Coast Borax Company managed to have any lasting commercial presence here. After relocating their borate operations to more economically productive areas elsewhere in the Mojave Desert, company brass successfully lobbied the federal government to create the monument -- which conveniently supported their foray into the hospitality tourism business while making use of the existing but now obsolete borax shipping rail line. Instead of hauling borax, the trains would convey adventuresome tourists into Death Valley to stay at their swank, newly constructed Furnace Creek Inn, built in 1927. Outside of this development, along with the nearby Harmony Borax Works and a handful of other private inholdings and mining claims, Death Valley was considered vacant and thus ideal for national monument status. This determination discounted the fact that an aboriginal people -- the Timbisha Shoshone -- did indeed occupy this valley, especially the area at Furnace Creek and had done so for an eternity.1

Timbisha Shoshone dwellings at Furnace Creek Ranch, 1930s. | Photo: Burton Frasher, Sr. Neg. No. 4759/Death Valley National Park Archives.

T mpisa (timbisha) is the Shoshone name of red-ochre earth sourced by the Old Ones from the Black Hills overlooking the popular Furnace Creek recreational area. This medicinal material is smudged onto faces and used in homes to strengthen their spirituality. At times t mpisa was provided to other Shoshone bands that traveled to the valley in order to obtain it because of its powerful healing properties. 2 The Timbisha have in fact resided in Death Valley -- a contemporary place name that many Timbisha loathe -- for thousands of years. Vast physical artifacts affirming their occupation can be found throughout its borders, including the often overlooked Grinding Rock at the Furnace Creek Inn's lower parking lot with foot deep holes on its surface that were created from the continuous grinding of mesquite beans into flour over time.

The decision by the federal government in the 1930s to exclude the Timbisha from the monument was a conscious one. After all, the Timbisha had no treaty rights because they were not officially recognized as a tribal entity with no sovereign land base to call home, rendering any bargaining power that the Timbisha may have had as nil. Rather than admit that the Timbisha had a long and enduring presence here, federal officials simply chose to pretend that the Indians did not exist in Death Valley to allow the proposed national monument to proceed as planned.

Grinding Rock, an ancient Timbisha mesquite grinding site pictured in the foreground at Furnace Creek Inns lower parking lot. In recent years part of the remaining artifact washed away during a flash flood. No sign or marker designates this historical site. | Photo: Kim Stringfellow.

T pipp h is the Timbisha name for their ancestral homeland. T pipp h encompasses the valley floor, playas, dunes, springs, meadows and mountains -- every landform and ecology within the borders of today's national park and the surrounding region. Although anthropologists believe that their Uto-Aztecan ancestors migrated into the region more than one thousand years ago, the Timbisha state that they have been here from time immemorial.

Both Timbisha oral traditions and archeological findings recognize that traditional Timbisha people moved seasonally between semi-permanent villages throughout greater Death Valley. At these encampments they made use or harvested a variety of plant and animal resources when seasonally available. Winter villages were located in four different areas within Death Valley proper, but also within the Panamint and Saline Valleys plus other locations. In the current vicinity of Furnace Creek, families lived in conical brush houses among three to ten related family groups near native mesquite groves that are still present in the valley. This location was ideal as meticulously managed groves provided ample cover for small game to be tracked and hunted plus the mesquite's beans provided an important winter food source.

As the valley floor became unbearably hot during the summer months, family groups traveled to cooler mountainous elevations and camps at Wildrose Canyon where pi on nuts, seeds, roots and berries w

LINK:	https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/timbisha-shoshone-tribe-recognitio...
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