Where We Belong: Chemehuevi and Caxcan Preservation of Sacred Mountains

by Daisy Ocampo Diaz

This comparative work dispels the harmful myth that Native people are unfit stewards of their sacred places. This work establishes Indigenous preservation practices as sustaining approaches to the caretaking of the land that embody ecological sustainability, spiritual landscapes, and community well-being.

The author brings together the history and experiences of the Chemehuevi people and their ties with Mamapukaib, or the Old Woman Mountains in the East Mojave Desert, and the Caxcan people and their relationship with Tlachialoyantepec, or Cerro de las Ventanas, in Zacatecas, Mexico. Through a trans-Indigenous approach, Daisy Ocampo weaves historical methodologies (oral histories, archival research, ethnography) with Native studies and historic preservation to reveal why Native communities are the most knowledgeable and transformational caretakers of their sacred places.

This work transcends national borders to reveal how settler structures are sustained through time and space in the Americas. Challenging these structures, traditions such as the Chemehuevi Salt Songs and Caxcan Xuchitl Dance provide both an old and a fresh look at how Indigenous people are reimagining worlds that promote Indigenous-to-Indigenous futures through preservation.

Ultimately, the stories of these two peoples and places in North America illuminate Indigenous sovereignty within the field of public history, which is closely tied to governmental policies, museums, archives, and agencies involved in historic preservation.

Genres: Grad School

296 pages, Paperback

Published June 13, 2023

Reviews

[Guadalupe Espitia · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional read on the history of public history narratives. A look into how land dispossession and a decentering of Indigenous land preservation practices impacts the Chemehuevis of Southwest U.S.A. and Caxcans of the southern Zacatecas region in Mexico. The Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (MX) and U.S. land stewardship organizations in the U.S. are due for a reconstruction of what stories public lands paint when certain narratives are centered (settler nation-state) over histories much more in profound relation to the land (indigenous).

[Kylie Miller · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, this book was a particular slog because I had to try to binge it in a day or two. So that just emphasized the aspects of it that I did not like.

First of all, writing style wise, it was getting so tiresome the ways that she referred to other scholars in like every paragraph. It broke up her stories and argument in a very stilted way that just felt like she was trying to show off that she had read other literature.

Content wise, I definitely agree with Indigenous sovereignty and input in historical and spiritual sites. However, I feel like Ocampo was blurring the line between creation stories and "history," and didn't seem to offer much other than creation stories and cultural traditions as to how Indigenous groups can contribute to spaces of public history.

This is probably too harsh of a rating but I was very frustrated reading it so here we are.

[a · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a reconnecting caxcan and I liked that this book taught me some new things about our creation story and explains some of ocampo's personal examples of the stories and aspects she grew up around, however I felt it was very very repetitive. I wish it taught me a bit more. I was often lost in the narration as well.