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First Museum Report

For my first report, I chose to do it on our field trip to Puvungna and Rancho Los Alamitos. On September 14th, we met at the Puvungna site on the campus of CSULB behind lot 20 by the residence dorms. Puvungna is an ancient village and burial site that was once populated by the Tonga or “Gabrielino” people that is still active today. Later in the day, we then went up to Rancho Los Alamitos. It began by looking like a traditional museum with artifacts on the walls and shelves for display, and not as personally relational like the Puvungna site.

First off at the Puvungna site, we got to meet a few people that were helping cleaning up and your cousin that was active with the site for a long time. They shared with us about how the land is sacred, used to be a natural spring, and how the University was trying to take it away to build over it. When we first got there there were a bunch a red ribbons hanging on the trees. We then learned that it was a symbol for the burial of someone, and was put up for ceremonies. We also saw the ancestor poles which were the symbol of someones burial place, kind of like a tombstone. They put different colored string wrapped around it that represented different things. But one thing that I found intriguing was that the University was in a lawsuit for the land. The lawsuit favored Puvungna, and CSULB was not able to build over the land. Puvungna was kept open to the public, and the Gabrielino continue to have their sacred land. But my favorite part about Puvungna is that people think that it is just a “burial ground” because thats what I thought it was. But then I learned about its history and ceremonies and found it very interesting.

Later at the Rancho Los Alamitos site, I didn’t feel as connected to the history as I did at Puvungna. Although we saw a video showing the history of the sacred land, water, farming, and ranching, I just didn’t feel as personable with the site as I did with Puvungna....