Camp Pendleton Grounds Site of Acjachemen Natives Conversion

What California Indians lost under Junipero Serra, soon to be saint 
LA Times
Karin Klein
January 16, 2015

Through those records, many of today’s Acjachemen know which villages were their ancestral homes. Some can trace their roots back to Panhe, which means they know where their ancestors stood 9,000 years ago.

An early photo of Mission San Juan Capistrano
one of the missions overseen by Father Junipero Serra
(Los Angeles Times)

Is there a word for the extinction of cultures? Not the people of those cultures, but the cultures themselves?

I ask because one of the notable consequences of the California mission movement founded by and overseen by Father Junipero Serra was the loss of various Native American cultures, to the point where many Indian groups cannot now get tribal recognition.

It seems odd that Pope Francis, known for his cultural sensitivity and appreciation for diversity, has chosen to confer sainthood on Serra, who played such a big role in obliterating indigenous culture in coastal California.

Several years ago, I was honored with an invitation to attend a traditional Acjachemen ceremony in San Onofre State Beach, just south of the Orange County border.

The members were celebrating the fact that the Coastal Commission had put a halt to a massive toll-road project that would have encroached on the site of the ancient Acjachemen village of Panhe, which their ancestors had inhabited continuously for 9,000 years, until shortly after the arrival of the Spanish. In fact, it was at Panhe that the first christening took place in California; the actual spot is on Camp Pendleton.
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