IN PERSON : Ablaze With the Desire to Preserve Juaneno Heritage

Of the many stories that David Belardes heard while growing up on the family ranch in San Juan Capistrano, the story of the “Rocks of Fire” seemed to promise an answer to the mystery of his people, the Juaneno Indians.

“My dad always told me the story of how he and his grandfather were out on the Belardes ranch. One night they woke up and this whole ridge was on fire. My grandfather said, ‘We’ll just watch it, to make sure it doesn’t come this way. We’ll go check it out in the morning.’ They went out in the morning but they didn’t find any blackened earth up there. My father told me the spirits were trying to tell them something, but he didn’t know what.”

Belardes, 48, grew up intrigued by the idea of a spiritual calling and in awe of the hundreds of Juaneno descendants who came to the ranch for three-day tribal gatherings during the 1950s. But it was not until several years after the death of his father in 1972 that he felt the tug of his ancestors, a call to help preserve the identity of his people.

New federal laws had created a process for Native American groups to apply for recognition as a tribe and Belardes was urged by a cousin to search for his father’s records. His father, Mattias Belardes, was born in 1885 and had been the town constable for many years. Belardes discovered that his father had kept meticulous records of the Juanenos and their history.

The “Rocks of Fire” story at last made sense to him: It was a call for recognition, a call that he would answer.

“I was looking through my dad’s old trunk and I started pulling out all these papers and photos and I thought, ‘My God, look at all this stuff,’ ” he said. “I knew it was time for me to do this. It was like the ancestors were taking me through this process. They put me here for a reason and there’s something I am supposed to do. I always tell people, I’m not going, they’re taking me.”

The Juanenos are Orange County’s indigenous people, dating back at least 9,000 years. But they often hid their identities during the county’s pioneer days, pretending to be Spanish or Mexican in order to survive, according to Belardes, tribal leader of the Juaneno Band of Mission Indians. Early settlers offered a bounty for Native American scalps.

“We were hiding out, which didn’t do us any good, but what are you going to do? When they came to town looking for Indians, we said, ‘We don’t have any. We’re all Mexicans.’ Indians didn’t have any rights until way after the 1920s. My grandfather homesteaded out in the national forest, but to do that you couldn’t say you were Indian. You had to say you were Spanish, Mexican or white.”

*

The Spaniards had enslaved the Juanenos during the 18th century and used them to build the mission, after which they were named. They were forbidden to speak their language, Acjachemen, or pray to their god, Chinigchinich, said Belardes.

Many Juanenos eventually married Latinos to blend into a culture that did not accept Native Americans, said Belardes, who has Spanish, Mexican and Native American ancestors.

More than 1,500 of the known 2,500 descendants of the Juanenos still live in Orange County, which is scattered with their ancient burial grounds, Belardes said. As tribal chairman and chief, Belardes presides over reburial ceremonies of his ancestors’ remains when burial sites cannot be spared from development.

“I’m the one they call on when they find one of the ancestors at a construction site,” he said. “The county early on enacted laws to preserve and protect sites, but we’ve had to compromise on a lot of the major projects. I’ve worked on the Newport Coast development, where two-thirds of the sites were preserved. And I was involved in Bolsa Chica, where we actually moved a 9,000-year-old burial ground in 1993. My part in that was seeing that the ancestors’ remains would never be disturbed again. We don’t divulge where any of these reburial areas are.”

The Juanenos are recognized by the state, but federal tribal recognition has proved elusive. They were at the top of the list of candidates for tribal status until a rival faction questioned Belardes’ leadership, causing federal officials to temporarily remove them from the list last May.

Belardes has since met with representatives of the federal government and is now confident the Juanenos will soon be returned to the list. Federal designation as a tribe would bring reservation land and the self-governing authority that he believes would fulfill his calling.

“I go forward with the feeling that the ancestors are taking me through this process,” Belardes said. “I don’t know where it’s going to go. Life has a lot of pitfalls, so we’ll just see what happens. I just try to do what I can do.

“If somebody remembers the Juanenos, or if my children and grandchildren remember who they are and where they came from, then my efforts have been worthwhile.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Profile: David Belardes

Age: 48

Residence: San Juan Capistrano

Education: Attended the Old Mission School in San Juan Capistrano; graduated from Capistrano Union High School

Occupation: Groundskeeper for Capistrano Unified School District

Family: Wife, Aurora, works at the Mission San Juan Capistrano; two grown sons

Childhood: Raised on family ranch, now a subdivision where two streets bear the family name

Activities: Helped establish Capistrano Indian Council and the Indian Education Program; became tribal leader of Juaneno Band of Mission Indians in 1989; has worked to preserve historic sites in San Juan Capistrano and Juaneno burial grounds throughout county; member of city’s Cultural Heritage Commission

On his heritage: “Most people think the Native Americans who lived here are all gone. They think the only way you can learn about us is by finding a book in the library. They don’t understand that we’re alive and well.”

Source: David Belardes; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times