We filmed the annual pilgrimage of the Winnemem Wintu to their healing spring on Mt. Shasta this past weekend. Everyone was overjoyed to see the spring bubbling and flowing into Panther Meadows, which is carpeted with wildflowers. As the glaciers in the rest of the world continue to melt, the glaciers on Mt. Shasta are actually growing, leading Winnemem leader Caleen Sisk-Franco to smile and say, “We must be doing something right.”

Caleen feels the spring dried up last fall due to water bottling plants at the base of Mt. Shasta which are sucking huge quantities of pure water from aquifers and are diminishing the artesian pressure that for countless generations has kept Panther Spring alive and well.

Good news this week on that front: After California Attorney General Jerry Brown threatened to sue Nestlé for an inadequate Environmental Impact Report analysis of their plans to bottle water in the town of McCloud, Nestlé cancelled their contract for the huge operation (extracting 200 million gallons per year). Local activists opposed Nestlé for years, but Jerry Brown wanted to know the climate change impacts of producing 3.1 billion plastic water bottles. Thanks, Jerry.

More good news: AJR 39 passed the State Senate on Tuesday by a vote of 24-10. The joint resolution from the California Legislature urges the U.S. Congress to correct mistaken U.S. policy and restore federal recognition to the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. The journey to justice is long and hard, but it continues — and if Panther Spring is our guide, more tears will flow before we turn things around.

Congratulations to the Winnemem, and thanks to Assemblyman Jared Huffman of Marin for sponsoring the resolution, and to Debbie Davis, Amy Vanderwarker and all the folks at the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water for your hard work getting the votes lined up to pass AJR 39. On to Washington!

In their continuing struggle to regain federal recognition as a tribe, the Winnemem Wintu have been lobbying for a state resolution sponsored by Assemblyman Jared Huffman of Marin. Assembly Joint Resolution 39 (AJR 39) urges the federal government to investigate the Winnemem’s history and treaty claims and encourages the U.S. Congress to restore federal recognition to the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.

On April 21, the California Assembly passed AJR 39 by a vote of 46-29 with 4 not voting. The resolution now goes to the State Senate.

You can watch a new three-minute film clip of the Winnemem testimony to the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization, titled A Long Journey To Justice. For a blog report on the Winnemem’s experience in Sacramento see the January 9 post below.

In their endless struggle to regain federal recognition, the Winnemem Wintu traveled to Sacramento today to lobby for passage of a non-binding resolution — AJR 39 (Assembly Joint Resolution 39) — which would urge the U.S. Congress to look into their situation and take corrective action. We filmed the Winnemem’s day in the halls of power to document the energy it takes to fight for recognition and to illustrate the bizarre process the Winnemem endure as they patiently tell their story over and over and over again in search of political support and justice.

Sponsored by California Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D, Marin County), the resolution ran into predictable Republican opposition at a hearing of the Committee on Governmental Organization. Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries from Lake Elsinore said, “I guess the 800 pound gorilla that hasn’t been mentioned by anybody here so far is the concern that there are supporters of your effort whose goal it is to either tear down or stop the continued existence of Shasta Dam. That would appear to be some of the groups that are endorsing this effort. I totally respect your rights as native people to fight over the use of your historical lands. I do not like the idea of other people using your tribe as pawns in a game that has to deal with statewide water issues.” Others accused the Winnemem of seeking a casino. With tribal leader Caleen Sisk-Franco sitting behind him, Headman Mark Franco handled all the questions carefully and with characteristic humor.

The key moment came when African American Assemblyman Mike Davis turned the tide with an offer of solidarity: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere… Errors occur all the time and I think it should be our honor to move this motion in the right direction.” AJR 39 passed the committee by a vote of 11 to 1, with 2 not voting. It now goes to the floor of the Assembly, and then on to the State Senate.

Committee Chair Alberto Torrico said that just before the hearing started the committee received a letter from a tribal member that disputed Caleen and Mark’s roles as leaders of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. A woman who has been tossed out of several tribal groups, and who has been curiously associated with a Republican PR firm, Gorton and Moore, wrote in the letter: “Caleen and Mark want absolute control over traditional Winnemem Wintu lands and sacred sites to keep other Winnemem from having access to them…One of the strategies Caleen and Mark often use is to get guilty white Americans to support them financially and politically…They have stolen the history of all our people.”

The nasty letter attacking Caleen and Mark got me thinking about identity and history. I looked at some old photos from the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives and asked Mark and Caleen who the people in the photos were. Caleen replied, “That’s my great-great-grandfather, Charlie Pitt, also known as Theodore Charles. He was married to Judia Charles, Tunalulimet,” who according to anthropologist Peter Nabokov was “a noted medicine woman.” Mark added, “Charlie Pitt was disinterred when Shasta Dam flooded the McCloud River villages and he was reburied next to the big tree in the new cemetery.” Charlie Pitt was also the late Winnemem healer Florence Jones’s grandfather, and Florence probably handled the re-burial, moving her salmon-fishing ancestor to a site close to where she had also reburied her own parents, near where Florence now rests.

Caleen Sisk-Franco, Spiritual Leader and Tribal Chief of the Winnemem Wintu, discovered last week that the healing spring on Mt. Shasta that is the birthplace of both the Winnemem people and their ancestral river had dried up. Everyone asked why — Global warming? Cremation ashes that have been dumped in the spring by New Age visitors? Forest Service management practices? Water bottling plants sucking water out of the base of the mountain? Please watch our new four-minute film clip: The Spring at Panther Meadows. For the full, sad story — before watching the clip — you can read the November 10 posting below.

What do you do when a sacred spring goes dry? Perhaps you cry enough tears to fill it up. Maybe you get scared that this is a sign that the world is ending.

On the southern slope of Mt. Shasta, just below tree line, the Winnemem Wintu revere a bubbling spring that they consider to be their origin point as a people. Its waters flow down to become the Winnemem, the middle water, known by its conquerors as the McCloud River. Winnemem ancestors lived along this river for countless generations, until Shasta Dam flooded them out and stopped the salmon runs.

On Saturday, we hiked to Panther Meadows to visit the spring. When we filmed In the Light of Reverence, a visit from the Winnemem would be a joyous time, with people singing songs to the spring and bubbles viewed as personal greetings. This time, an ominous fog filled the meadow and a white rope surrounding the bone-dry spring seemed to form the outline of a coffin. Indeed, the spring seemed dead.

Where once white sand danced when water emerged from the mountain to touch the air, now a hard packed suface of dry, brown soil lay lifeless between rock walls that usually cradle clear, cold water. The Winnemem stared in disbelief. In tribal memory the spring has never gone dry. How could this be?

When the Giver of Life stops giving — this is a frightening moment.

Tribal leader Caleen Sisk-Franco tried to counsel her people to have hope, to pray, and to fight harder to protect their sacred places. But when she got down on her knees in the dry spring bed to try to call the water back, she could not hold back the tears.

Looking down on a spiritual leader who has become a good friend, my heart was breaking. It felt like all of our efforts have failed. Global warming. Dams. Water bottling factories. Vanishing salmon. A corrupt government refusing to honor promises or recognize indigenous people. Time passing and changes coming too slowly.

A visitor from the Altai Republic of Russia, Urmat Yntaev, got down on his knees and tried to rouse the waters with a deep throated chant. Winnemem women grieved and wailed at the loss of this friend, their mother. The teen age boys who danced the war dance on Shasta Dam cried as they tried to find the words to pray for the spring’s revival. My cameraman, Will Parrinello, after filming for two-and-a-half hours, finally had to stop after the light faded, and as the songs and prayers went on he finally was able to relax and experience the scene and tears came streaming down his face.

But all of the droplets offered by humans did not bring the water back. We can only hope that a wet winter of rain and snow, a change in human behavior and a growing indigenous movement to support each other’s struggles will set things in balance and bring Panther Spring back to life.