Sacred History: Researching and Preserving Native Cultural Resources

Southern California , particularly the Inland Empire , continues to expand. Year after year, new housing developments, commercial centers, and industrial parks spring up in our open space. While this expansion brings new economic opportunities to the area, it also precipitates the degradation and loss of Native sacred sites.
These sacred sites are important to our local Indian tribes. They are ceremonial places used by several generations of their people. They are villages once inhabited by their grandparents and great-grandparents. They are cemeteries and burial sites, and in many cases memories of the dead are still cherished by living relatives. They are bound to these sites through blood and cultural affinity.
The loss of sacred sites is a cause of concern for non-Indians as well. The historical legacy of local Indian communities envelops the region, making all of us inheritors of that legacy. Native ancestors are long-time contributors to our local history and Southern California heritage. We all have a responsibility to preserve their voices.
Our projects have this purpose:
Through research we fully come to understand the historical and cultural significance of a site. We then take action to preserve the site's integrity through the tide of development.
At St. Boniface and Sherman Indian Schools , the purpose is to honor those buried in the neglected cemeteries, and help their descendants see the restoration of that honor.
It is our hope that these pages will be a resource for people who want to see some possible avenues and challenges involved with restoring and protecting burial and ceremonial grounds.

Contrary to the belief of some developers, historians do not go around patently calling for the preservation of everything that is old. While age is an important factor in rendering a site or building historic, it is not the only factor. Historians also look at a number of elements to determine whether an old site or building has historic value. A number of questions should be answered, such as:

• What was the site's main purpose?

• Who lived at or otherwise used this site?

• Is the site representative of a social movement or architectural style?

Answering these sorts of questions involves performing a substantial amount of research. Historians can find out some of this information from government records; local, state, and federal. Other resources that often prove very helpful include newspaper articles, the papers of people once associated with the site, and artifacts at the site itself. In some cases, a Historian will talk to people who have a history with the site. Researching the history of a site is very important to determine its historic value, and in turn, the value of preserving it.

St. Boniface School serves as an excellent illustration for researching historic value. As a Historian, I sorted out the site's historic significance through several avenues of research. I read through newspapers and Catholic Church archives to understand the school's origins and purpose. I found people who had attended St. Boniface, and their memories demonstrated the impact the school had on local and regional history. Through examining the history of Native people in the 19th and 20th centuries, I fit St. Boniface into two major themes in U.S. And California history: the rise of Federally-funded Indian Boarding Schools at the turn of the century, and Catholic missionary efforts among Indians in the southwest since the 16th century.
This research led me to believe that the school's site would have been an excellent site to preserve and maintain for public education. Sadly, the City of Banning saw only a structural safety hazard when they demolished the site in 1974. Sometimes the toughest thing to accept is that the historic site you've researched has lost it's historic integrity, or nobody is willing to pay for its restoration.

Links:
The St. Boniface Cemetery Project
The Importance of Research and Preservation-Resources