Duluwat Island is Returned to the Wiyot Tribe in Historic Ceremony

Thadeus Greenson, in North Coast Journal of Politics, People & Art

Duluwat Island, seen from Woodley Island Marina, Eureka. Photo by Ellin Beltz.

As Thadeus Greenson reports in the North Coast Journal of Politics, People & Art, 21 October 2019, “Duluwat Island is being returned to the Wiyot people, for whom it is the physical and cultural center of the universe, a sacred piece of land with the power to bring balance to all else.”

“’Unanimous yes vote. Motion carries,’ said Eureka City Clerk Pam Powell, drawing a standing ovation from the hundreds of people who had filled the Adorni Center this morning to watch the city take the unprecedented step of returning 200 acres of land stolen generations ago to the Wiyot Tribe, which has called the North Coast home since time immemorial.”

Read the full article here.

Wiyot elders, tribal members and people holding candles around a fire pit at the last Wiyot Vigil in memory of the massacre-interrupted World Renewal Ceremony on 1860 on Duluwat. After years of environmental cleanup, the tribe announced that this would be the last annual vigil, because the World Renewal Ceremony would resume at the end of March 2014 for the first time in over 150 years. Photo by Ellin Beltz.

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