Trail Talks- Parks Pass Edition: The Husahkiw Landscape with Monique Sonoqui | Central

Join us for a very special edition of Trail Talks as Author, Documenter and Cultural Practitioner Monique Sonoquie offers a personal twenty-five year case study of the Husahkiw/WaterBear Mountain and Sacred Wind Caves, a significant Traditional Cultural Property in the territories of what is now grouped under the anthropological title Chumash.

Monique Sonoquie will discuss the Husahkiw landscape’s rich historic and cultural legacy, mostly misrepresented by anthropological agents. Indigenous peoples left virtually landless and invalidated by the violence of colonialism, experience endless dislocation from, and loss of, inherit obligation to their Ancestral Homelands when agency officials refuse to acknowledge Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Ancestral obligations in agency consultation and decision-making processes. The Coalition to Save Husahkiw was formed in 1999 after several Chumash community members began questioning the new 10 year permit to be granted the Winchester Gun Club on Hwy 154 and a Sacred Mountain to the Chumash, that houses multi-pigmented cave paintings, sacred geographical formations, Solstice Rocks, a naturally formed amphitheatre, and other Traditional Cultural Properties.

Monique Sonoquie (Tongva/Chumash/Yaqui/Zapotec/Irish). Cultural Practitioner and Presenter, Author, Videographer and Maori Romiromi Practitioner. Board member - Indigenous Youth Foundation & Native Women’s Health and Wellness Alliance. Monique promotes and provides Traditional Foods & Medicine events, has established gardens Tribal schools, creates culture and health book/videos with youth. She is the author of the children's book, The Beginning of the Chumash.

This program is part of our Parks Pass Grant programing, created with funding provided by the State of California, and administered by the California State Library.