(Re)riteing the Land: Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, Amah Mutsun Land Trust, and Indigenous Resurgence in California

Abstract

Land and land access is returning to Indigenous peoples across the world. This article theorizes ways that two California tribal organizations, Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and Amah Mutsun Land Trust, are revitalizing cultural practices through renewed access to land. Defying narratives of “extinction” as nonrecognized California tribes, the work of these organizations is not simply about cultural or political resurgence, however, but also about the creative restoration of sacred practices that situate the communities in a robust web of relations, both seen and unseen. Building on Cutcha Risling Baldy’s theory of “(re)riteing,” this article examines how ceremony is a central part of land-based resurgence for these organizations. The author shows that returning to land after multiple waves of colonization and dispossession means “(re)riteing” the land through ceremonies, songs, and prayers. These practices root tribal members in ancestral ways of relating to their territory. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper argues that this “(re)riteing” is a vital example of what Laura Harjo describes as “Indigenous futurity praxis.” Taken together, Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and Amah Mutsun Land Trust suggest that Indigenous land-based resurgence is both political and cultural, epistemological and cosmological, part of global movements toward dynamic Indigenous futures.