Mall Site a Burial Ground, Indians Claim : Archeology: Whittier has agreed to hire an expert to examine the tract earmarked for a $20-million shopping center.

Whittier officials said they will ask an archeologist to examine the site of a proposed $20-million shopping center to see whether it contains an Indian burial ground.

An archeological find in the vicinity of the abandoned Southern Pacific train depot could stall and even endanger a commercial project that the city has planned for 12 years and floated $7 million in bonds to help finance.

Lobbying by two Indians prompted the city’s move. The 16-acre triangular site, about a mile east of the San Gabriel River Freeway, is the likely location of an Indian burial ground and should rest undisturbed, said Jimi Castillo and Lupe Lopez, cousins-in-law who trace their ancestry to Southern California tribes.

After initial surprise and skepticism, the city is taking the issue seriously and has invited an Irvine environmental firm, LSA Associates, to bid on an archeological study of the area.

The specter of further delays comes just as the shopping center cleared two major hurdles. At its Tuesday meeting, the city’s Redevelopment Agency approved the building and landscaping design.

Next, agency members unanimously approved a proposal that will settle, for the time being, the issue of what to do with the 100-year-old depot on the site. The station, a national historic landmark, will be moved to a Penn Street lot owned by the Union Pacific Railroad. Leasing the land will cost the city $700 a year; moving the depot will cost $34,730. Many preservationists who lobbied to save the depot have said they accept the plan.

Hank Cunningham, the city’s assistant city manager for community development, said he hopes the city can also resolve the burial ground issue.

“There is no indication of any historic or archeological artifacts on the site,” he said. “And we base that on two previous evaluations.”

Twice, the UCLA Archeological Information Center surveyed its archival collection of published accounts and records and found no mention of a village or burial ground at the depot site. Whittier commissioned the first study when it targeted the Whittier Boulevard area for redevelopment in 1978. The second study was part of a street-widening project near the Whittier Quad shopping area earlier this year.

“Usually, a large archeological site doesn’t escape the eyes of archeologists and researchers,” said Brian Glenn, the center’s acting coordinator.

“We have not documented any remains at that location. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. It simply means that whatever documentation is available is not on file at our office.”

Glenn noted that the depot vicinity had been a highly developed commercial and residential area for years and that an earlier site could have been destroyed without proper documentation before preservation became an issue.

“We have more names of villages than we have places located,” he said. “A great number of villages are probably fully destroyed under Los Angeles. But there’s also an excellent chance that some sites are preserved.”

Lopez, 53 and a Gabrielino Indian who lives in South Whittier, said she has documentary evidence supporting her belief that one such Indian burial ground lies under or near the depot.

Lopez turned to page 210 of a 1978 edition of “Chinigchinich,” a book little known outside of Indian and archeological circles.

The title refers to the name of a prophet figure for the local tribes, anthropology consultant Chester King said.

The book’s author was missionary Geronimo Boscana. More than 150 years ago, Father Boscana, writing in Spanish, recorded his observations of the “beliefs, usages, customs and extravagancies” of local Indians. His notes were translated into English and published in 1846.

Later, ethnographer John Harrington, starting about 1913, annotated Boscana’s work. One such note refers to an Indian burial ground:

“In the vicinity of the Southern Pacific junction tower, which stands in the western angle of the crossing of the Whittier spur of the Southern Pacific with the Santa Fe Railway, there is another Indian graveyard. A Mr. Cooper tried to make a cesspool there and found the ground full of Indian bones.”

Lopez and Castillo believe that Whittier’s depot is what the text calls the Southern Pacific junction tower.

Whittier officials, based on UCLA research, disagreed, placing the possible burial ground south of Whittier, in the northern part of Santa Fe Springs. That section of Santa Fe Springs contains a few houses, a sandwich stand and industrial buildings.

Don Powell, city manager of Santa Fe Springs, said he cannot recall construction in that area that would have required deep excavation.

Castillo, like Lopez, places little faith in expert opinion.

Whittier officials “kept telling me they would go ahead with the development,” Castillo said. “I decided to come forward and protect my ancestors’ burial sites. According to our faith, the development would disturb the spirits of our ancestors, which in turn would disturb the spirits of the living.”

Castillo, 47, an unemployed cabinetmaker, said he only recently began studying his Indian heritage after a lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse that he said wrecked his marriage and separated him from his family.

“Since I’ve been sober,” the Whittier native said, “I’ve been getting back into my culture and everything.”

He recently entered the depot site, he said, to conduct a religious ceremony that involved burning sweet grass and sage. “I felt a spiritual belonging, almost a feeling of being at home. I looked behind my left boot, and there lying on the ground was a tail feather of a red-tailed hawk, which I believe was a sign.”

Some city officials have privately expressed skepticism about the burial ground, wondering whether the issue represented a last-ditch effort by activists who opposed moving the depot or disliked the shopping center project.

Castillo acknowledged sympathy with residents who want the depot to stay put: “I am for preserving history. I would prefer to see the depot refurbished where it sits, and perhaps plant some green grass around it, and put in walkways and trees.”

Archeologist Jeanette McKenna, a supporter of Castillo’s efforts, has also opposed moving the depot and approving the shopping center.

“I don’t think the (shopping center) design reflects the community of Whittier,” she said. “It doesn’t reflect a small Quaker town. It’s more designed for an open area of Orange County, with lots of stucco and blank wall space.”

Representatives of the developer, Encino-based Urbatec, could not be reached for comment.

If remains are found, the first person with jurisdiction is the county coroner, who would make sure that the corpse is not recent. The coroner would then contact the Native American Heritage Commission in Sacramento, which would search for what it terms “the most likely descendants.”

There are about five such designated Gabrielino descendants in Los Angeles County. Castillo is one of up to 3,000 identified Gabrielinos in Southern California who do not yet have that designation.

Gabrielino Indians got their name from their close association with the San Gabriel Mission. Their most direct ancestors may have migrated here up to 3,000 years ago, said anthropological consultant King, whose dissertation work was on local tribes.

Before the mission era in the late 1700s, he said, there was about one Indian village per six square miles in the Los Angeles Basin. Communities ranged from 15 to 300 people.

He also estimates that there was a stable population of 3,000 Gabrielino Indians until diseases imported by colonists decimated them.

The missionaries turned the Indians, who were hunter/gatherers, into farmers and cattle herders, King said, adding that Indians were pressed to leave behind native cultural practices and abandon villages and burial grounds.

Lopez said: “Rather than be known as Indians, which at the time was lower than dirt, they became Mexican or Spanish.”

Until recently, there was not much respect for Indian burial grounds either, said Larry Myers, the executive secretary of the state’s Native American Heritage Commission.

“Indian burial grounds were not treated the same as other burial grounds. There’s been a tremendous amount of desecration,” he said, not only by developers but by museums that have collected Indian bones.

Under current law, it is a felony to willfully destroy Indian remains in a burial site. Most often, descendants reach a compromise with a developer to relocate the bones, bury them deeper at the site or build around them.