Chumash Indian Cemetery : Cost Rules Out All Plans for Preserving Burial Site

All four plans submitted by a consultant for the preservation of what might be an extensive Chumash Indian burial site have been ruled out as too expensive or ineffective, a Ventura County official said Friday.

As a result, the official said, he will recommend Tuesday that the Board of Supervisors reject all four plans and instead investigate the possibility of removing and reburying the Indian remains.

The official, Gerald Nowak, the county deputy director for public works, said he reached his conclusion Friday after meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers, federal and state agencies concerned with preservation of historical sites and three Chumash Indian groups. The government agencies told him that they would not put up the $1 million to $5 million required to preserve the burial ground.

The graves were found this summer by a team of archeologists from California State University, Northridge who were digging in Calleguas Creek, a usually dry natural creek bed near Point Mugu.

16 Skeletons Unearthed

The team stopped work Aug. 4 after unearthing 16 skeletons.

CSUN archeologist Mark Raab said he thought there could be dozens and possibly hundreds more. He speculated that the site could be the primary cemetery for a Chumash provincial capital that flourished from the 3rd Century to the 18th Century.

The Chumash contend that removing Indian bones from graves violates sacred tradition.

A Mississippi waterway research firm hired to study the problem produced four plans for protecting the burial site.

Nowak said the least expensive of these, costing $3,000 to $5,000, would merely cover the 16 skeletons already found. That approach was rejected as inadequate to protect the entire burial ground.

A plan to cover the entire 5,000-square-foot site at a cost estimated at $1 million, was considered too expensive, he said.

The other options--building a dam to slow winter floods and rerouting the channel--were even more expensive, costing up to $5 million.

Nowak said the Indian representatives at the meeting were not pleased with his decision to recommend moving the Indian remains but that they reserved their final opinion until later.