Saving Our Stories
The California I CAN California Indian Archives Project 2020 Survey
California tribal cultural heritage—conveyed by storytellers, elders, family members, researchers, community guests, and others—supports tribal identity, language, and the surrounding ecosystems. This knowledge has been passed on in various ways—sometimes directly person to person, and at other times through written records, audio and video recordings, photographs, and other media.
While many existing formal archives keep documents, language recordings, cultural items such as baskets, and other archival materials secure and accessible, additional sources of tribal knowledge, often those in private hands, are in danger of being lost. Images and labels in family albums crack and fall away as the photos age. Ink on old letters fades until it is impossible to read and papers turn to dust. Cassette and video tapes of elders singing and recounting tribal history may disintegrate in storage lockers while waiting for transcription. Sketches, journals, and other items of cultural legacy are scattered when their original makers walk on. Ultimately these items may be forgotten or lost altogether.
In April 2019, the California Institute for Community, Art, and Nature (California I CAN), convened a meeting to discuss what might be done to help preserve these and other archives before it was too late. The meeting was initiated by California I CAN founder and Director Malcolm Margolin and co- hosted by Mark Johnson, professor of Fine Arts at San Francisco State University, who for many years curated exhibitions, wrote books, and worked to promote Native California artists.
Among those who attended were Jennifer Bates (Mewuk), Basketweaver and California Indian Market Coordinator; Anne Bown-Crawford, Executive Director of the California Arts Council; Dr. Ira Jacknis, Research Anthropologist, UC Berkeley’s Hearst Museum; and Rick West, the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC and more recently Executive Director of the Autry Museum in Los Angeles.
California I CAN was charged with reaching out to determine the extent and nature of individual archives and what is needed to support them. As a result, we have developed a simple online survey of 12 questions. The survey was influenced by the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums surveys and by the recommendations of California Indian members, tribal archivists, museum staff, and others who helped us refine the questions. We appreciate their assistance, but any omissions or errors are ours.