"All of our basket material needs to be tended to in some way," says Gutteriez, an ecologist and member of the Wuksachi Band of Mono Indians. Its root stock remains intact after burning and will quickly resprout after spring rains. Ray Gutteriez then takes a lighter to burn the plant, which encourages new growth that produces the flexible, straight branches prized by weavers. It can take hundreds of branches to create just one piece. The group begins harvesting the long branches, which are used in traditional basket-weaving. "Sourberries," Goode says, spotting a bare-limbed, tangled bush. It's late winter, and Mariposa's oak woodlands are dry and largely dormant, which is when controlled burning is safest.
Ron Goode and Ray Gutteriez keep an eye on a burning sourberry bush.Īfter a blessing, the group grabs shovels and chainsaws before heading out into the brush.
"That's what makes it cultural burning, because we cultivate." "We don't put fire on the ground and not know how it's going to turn out," Ron Goode, tribal chairman of the North Fork Mono, tells the group. Now, with wildfires raging across Northern California, joining other record-breaking fires from recent years, government officials say tackling the fire problem will mean bringing back "good fire," much like California's tribes once did. But long before the vast blazes of recent years, Native American tribes held annual controlled burns that cleared out underbrush and encouraged new plant growth. For the next two days, the group would be carefully lighting fires in the surrounding hills.Īlso sprinkled throughout the crowd were officials from the state government, which a century ago had largely prohibited California's tribes from continuing their ancient practice of controlled burns.įire has always been part of California's landscape. Several wore bright yellow shirts made of flame-resistant fabric. Men and women from Native American tribes in Northern California stood in a circle, alongside university students and locals from around the town of Mariposa. On a cool February morning, around 60 people gathered in the Sierra Nevada foothills to take part in a ceremony that, for many decades, was banned.
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