The Sept/Oct 2009 Issue of Native Peoples recently came out and in the issue there was a full page color ad for the upcoming film on PBS The National Parks; America's Best Idea, by noted film maker Ken Burns.

The full page ad in the magazine had a beautiful photo of Yosemite's El Capitan. Around the bottom was a trail and a floor mat with "Welcome Home" written on it. The words under it say "You own it. Let PBS and Ken Burns give you the grand tour. The national parks cover 84 million acres. And it all belongs to you. Now see the spectacular land as few ever have. Meet the people who fought to preserve it. And discover how, as Americans, we're not only connected to this land, but connected by it".

When we saw it we passed it around and we beamed with pride and we wait in anticipation for this film to come out on PBS. Then the anticipation quickly turned into an uneasy feeling. Like so many times before when we Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes were excited about something regarding our ancient homeland of Yosemite we were often disappointed. And would Ken Burns' movie also be one of those moments. A film that took him a long time to create and research. Did Burns know the truth or had he been deceived, deceived by the same Yosemite National Park Service that had replaced the original Indians of Yosemite, the Paiutes, with the scouts for the Mariposa Battalion who came later with the settlers, the Miwoks? Did Ken Burns know while filming in Yosemite there was an unseen battle by the original Indians of Yosemite, the Paiutes, trying to reclaim our rightful place in the history of Yosemite? Had Burns seen our plight in the many newspaper articles on line when doing his research on Yosemite? Had he read any of our cite sourced blogs about our people which proved what we were saying was true? The photos and books?

The full page ad in Native Peoples gave us some hope because of the big photo of El Capitan, which was also called Tutokanula. Even Yosemite National Park's Craig D. Bates wrote that the great rock was named after Lancisco Wilson's father, Tutokanula. Lancisco Wilson was a Paiute man who was one of the early leaders of the Indian people in Yosemite. He was the headman of Wahoga. Lancisco's grave is located in Yosemite Park's cemetery. (See photo in gallery) Surely when doing his research Ken Burns asked what El Capitan meant. It is Spanish for "The Captain" which we Paiutes called our leaders. Like Half Dome is called "Tissiack" which translated in Paiute means crying girl or "Tsia'yaka" and has no meaning in Miwok.

We wondered if Yosemite Park Service had told him that the original chief of Yosemite was Chief Tenaya, who was born at Mono Lake amongst the Paiute people and took 200 to 300 Indians from Mono Lake to Yosemite Valley to establish the Paiute colony of Ahwahnee. That when the leader of the Mariposa Battalion, Major James Savage, who could speak Miwok, noted that Tenaya spoke Paiute. That Savage could not communicate with Chief Tenaya because Tenaya could not speak Miwok. That in 1853, after the death of Tenaya at the hands of his cousins the Mono Paiutes, they took the majority of the survivors of Tenaya's original band back to Mono Lake where they were absorbed back into the Paiute population, and not to Mariposa.

We Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiute people, the descendents of the original Yosemite Valley Indians, can only wait to see how we are portrayed by Mr. Burns in the story of our homeland Yosemite Valley, or if we are completely left out like the Park has done for many years.