The Village of Mapipinga

The Village of Mapipinga. Native Peoples of Vasquez Rocks. , From where you stand to as far as your eyes can see is the cherished homeland of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians. While the influence of their ancestors may not seem immediately visible, the landscape that you see before you was carefully tended by generations of Tribal families. The trails you walk today likely served as footpaths across the village for thousands of years. The native plants were respectfully harvested. The animals were carefully hunted. The air around you held laughs, stories, lessons, and songs, and the water flowing beneath your feet nourished countless generations from time immemorial and continues to do so. , , Village of Mapipinga , Before European contact, local Native villages were sovereign and operated within a community network of other villages that held their own territories and participated in farreaching trade, kinship, and ceremonial practices. This area is located within the village of Mapipinga and was home to over 200 people at one time. Depending on the season, the ancestors received their source of energy from plants like Yucca stalks and acoms, and small animals like rabbits and squirrels, which were stored on site and cooked in rock-lined fire pits. , , Spanish Mission Period , On September 8th, 1797, the 17th Spanish mission Mission San Fernando Rey de España, was established in the San Fernando Valley, roughly 16 miles south of where you stand. The mission became an enforcement site of cultural genocide, relying upon the manual labor of enslaved Native Americans for agricultural output. From 1802 to 1816, the Tataviam living here were forcibly marched to the mission. The once thriving Mapipinga lay empty for the first time in over 1,300 years. Once baptized, the Tataviam were renamed to Fernandeño. , , Post-Mission Period: Mexican and American Rule , Despite Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, mission secularization of 1833, and the U.S. gaining control of California in 1848, little reprieve came to the Tataviam, now Fernandeños. They survived foreign-brought disease, a state and federally sponsored extermination, and exercised their governance without a land base. By 1845, Fernandeño leaders successfully negotiated for 18,000 acres of village Indian reservations under the Mexican regime, but later spent decades in American courts to protect those rights. By 1900, the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians were landless non-US citizen refugees on their own ancestral lands. , , Activism and Cultural Preservation Into the Contemporary Era , Of the thousands of Fernandeños enslaved at Mission San Fernando, less than 5 families survived to see the 20th Century. The Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians continued to organize in the privacy of their family homes to avoid persecution. By the 1970s, Fernandeño leader Rudy Ortega Sr. reinvigorated the Tribe's historic petitions for land to the U.S. government. , , photo captions: , Figure 1. Fernandeño Tataviam Tribal Territory. , , Figure 2. Fernandeño Tataviam Tribal Citizen Sally Ortega stands in front of the Mission San Fermando (c. 1918). , , Figure 3. Fernandeño Tataviam Tribal Leader Antonio Maria Ortega, father of Sally Ortega in Figure 2, seated with his grandchildren in San Fernando, CA just 70 years after appearing in Los Angeles Superior Court to protect the last remaining acres of his villages (ca. 1940s). , , Figure 4. In 1996, the Fernandeño Tataviam held its first organized pow-wow here at Mapipinga (Vasquez Rocks). Once more, the wind through the rocks carried the voices, songs, stories, and joy of Tataviam descendants. Excerpts from the Los Angeles Times June 2, 1996. , , Figure 5. Fernandeño Tataviam Tribal Citizens present cultural dances to schools in the local area. Tribal President Rudy Ortega Sr, grandson of Antonio Maria Ortega in Figure 3, stands in the back while his son, Rudy Ortega Jr leads the dance (ca. 1980s). , , Figure 6. As of 2024, the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians consists of approximately 900 enrolled citizens from three lineages that descend from the villages in the San Fernando, Simi, Antelope, and Santa Clarita Valleys. , , Figure 7. Ferandeño Tatavium elected President Rudy Ortega Jr (second from right), son of Rudy Ortega Sr in Figure 5, leads a welcome song with Tribal Citizens at Mapipinga, 2023. , , , Despite intensive and long-term settler colonization, the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians continues to exercise its governance and establish entities that uplift the Native community in Los Angeles County. Every single part of the landscape was and continues to be of great importance to the Tribe, including the site of Mapipinga, and we celebrate and honor the past, continuing legacy, and future of this remarkable place.