Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California (review)

Sacred Sites is a big, ambitious book. Including the introductions, notes, and bibliography, it has more than 300 pages and almost 30 black-and-white images. Furthermore, it bears the imprimatur of a venerable poet (Gary Snyder) and Native scholar (Lowell Bean). But that's not all: it also tells the history of Southern California from the birth of the universe to the present.

Suntree splits this narrative into two parts, one called "Western Science" and the other "Indigenous Myths and Songs." The first part literally begins before "The Big Bang" and ends with the most recent Ice Age (5). Along the way, she frequently juxtaposes the ancient past with the present: "Long-necked llamas and native camels (stroll down Wilshire Boulevard)" (115). Here and throughout the book, Suntree exhibits a strong regional devotion, often remarking that events occur "right here" (119).

The second part essentially narrates the same story, though from a very different perspective, via the songs and stories of Natives in Southern California. These narratives, which likely will be new to many readers, introduce Wiyot, Deer, Coyote, Takwish, Mukat, and many other characters in a series of stories that recount the birth of the universe, the arrival of people, the reason for traditions, and the names for landmarks. This section concludes with the arrival of "White People" and a short narrative interspersed with snippets from the story of Spanish colonization.

While Suntree's scope is ambitious, this is also one of the book's weaknesses. Narrating the history of the universe is a formidable task. Though not impossible for poetry, it typically requires an elision and compression not associated with scientific explanation. In the first part, apparently, Suntree wants to put scientific data into poetic language. While conceptually interesting, ultimately this approach makes one long for the elegant simplicity of lightning, thunder, and edicts delivered from the sky. Too often the text suffers from overly detailed descriptions of, for instance, weather patterns or a "phosphate molecule" (27). Humans aren't mentioned until almost halfway into the book, and even then they are seen from a distance, "sailing south down the coast from Siberia / walking overland through the breaks in the ice" (116). The second part is more successful than the first. Here Native songs immediately establish a human perspective, even when they speak of non-human figures. The point of having both narratives may be to illustrate different perspectives, but this point could have been made with fewer explosions, freezes, and thaws.

Still, Suntree should be lauded for illustrating how the history of Southern California extends beyond the establishment of the most recent shopping mall. She deserves even more praise for incorporating the history of Native Americans into this epic. Indeed, one of the book's most interesting features is what it omits: the period from Spanish colonization to the present fills just 20 pages. In effect, Suntree tells the story that is least often told, and for that alone readers can be grateful.