LEMOORE, Calif. —
When Leo Sisco was growing up on his tribe’s reservation, he heard elders’ stories about the great lake that once sustained their people, and how it was drained and taken away from them.
This year, Sisco has been witnessing a remarkable transformation as Tulare Lake has reappeared on low-lying farmland near the reservation.
The chairman of the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yokut Tribe has been noticing the water is attracting many birds, and he has been coming regularly to the lakeshore to offer prayers and look out over the water, which stretches to the horizon.
“I am very happy the lake is back,” Sisco said. “It makes me swell with pride to know that, in this lifetime, I get to experience it. My daughters, my grandson get to experience the lake, and the stories that we heard when we were kids, for us it comes to fruition.”
Robert Jeff, vice chairman of the Santa Rosa Rancheria tribal council, uses sage in a cleansing ritual by the shore of Tulare Lake in preparation for a celebration of the lake’s rebirth.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Pa’ashi, they call it, the life-giving lake that once provided for their ancestors.
The water that has streamed in from the rain and snow this year has for the first time allowed many Tachi people to see the ancestral lake they consider sacred — the center of their creation story, a natural wonder that was obliterated long ago to become lucrative farmland in the southern San Joaquin Valley.
Sisco and other Indigenous leaders say they believe Tulare Lake should be allowed to remain rather than being drained once again to reestablish agriculture, as was done so many times before, including after floods in 1969, 1983 and 1997. They say allowing it to stay would improve life in the valley by providing water storage and allowing the area’s original ecosystem to take root again.
Instead of damming and diverting all the water upstream, they say, restoring flows through the basin would heal the area’s broken relationship to water and bring back a flourishing natural asset in the heart of the valley. They’ve suggested the lake could become the center of a new park.
For now, members of the Tachi Yokut Tribe say the lake’s return offers a chance to experience a part of their identity that they had only heard about in stories and songs passed down from generations ago.
“From a spiritual standpoint, we love seeing the water out there. We love seeing the habitat, seeing the birds,” Sisco said. “We’re very hopeful that it stays.”
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Robert Jeff, vice chairman of the Santa Rosa Rancheria tribal council, holds a traditional clapper stick at the edge of Tulare Lake.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
On a recent afternoon, dozens of people stood at the lake’s edge holding baskets, rattles and freshly sprouted branches of riparian plants.
They lit a bundle of sage, and the smoke drifted over the group.
“As Native people, there has been something missing in our spirit. There’s been something missing in our souls. And what you see behind us now is Pa’ashi has reawakened,” said Robert Jeff, the tribe’s vice chairman. “At the same time, it’s reawakened a lot of spirits.”
Addressing the group, Jeff spoke of the lake’s history: how all the tribes of the area depended on its abundant resources, how they gathered by the lake, and how they once traveled across its waters in boats made of tules.
“This was everything to us,” Jeff said. And now that the lake has reappeared, he said, the tribe feels grateful and wants to help neighboring communities understand the significance and join in supporting its return.
“We’re here to show that it does have meaning, it does have purpose,” Jeff said.
A boat made of tule reeds gets launched during a ceremony celebrating the rebirth of Tulare Lake near Stratford, Calif.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The participants in the ceremony included not only Tachi members but others from nearby tribes.
Standing on the sloping bank of a levee, the group said a prayer.
“This is the people’s lake!” Jeff shouted. “This belongs to all of us.”
Men, women and children laid offerings of plants in the water and sprinkled seeds along the shore.
“Let yourself feel what’s happening. Open up. Because something big’s happening right now,” Jeff told them. “Connect yourself with the water. Touch the water. Touch the mud.”
Some leaned down, put their hands in the water and wetted their necks and hair.
Several men held clapper sticks made of elderberry wood and began tapping a rhythm.
They raised their voices in unison, singing in Tachi to give thanks and welcome the lake’s return.
Ma ko-to na-na ha pana ha-ha ya
Tro-khay-lay ma-ha na-na …
(You, the one, come to me.
Eagle, you and me
Circle, circle around me again. Circle, circle around me again.
Eagle, you and me, come to me.)
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Yokut people from throughout the San Joaquin Valley made offerings at the water’s edge during a ceremony welcoming the return of Tulare Lake.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
During the winter, as heavy rains and snow swept across California, rivers that had dwindled during the drought swelled with runoff and flowed full from the Sierra Nevada into the valley, spilling from channels and gushing through broken levees onto farmland.
As the floodwaters inundated fields that had produced tomatoes and cotton, workers evacuated tractors, pumps and sprinkler pipes.
By mid-March, the lake had reclaimed more than 10,000 acres. It continued growing, inundating dairies, pistachio orchards and farmhouses. It rose beside levees that protect the city of Corcoran and its giant prison complex.
The lake has now grown to cover more than 113,000 acres, an area nearly as large as Lake Tahoe.
Members of the Tachi Yokut Tribe said they feel for those who are coping with losses, and don’t want to see people displaced by the water. But they also view the lake’s return alongside their history, including how Native people were decimated and displaced by colonizers, and how they
