Anthropological Nihilism and the Chumash Indians

April 23, 2000: "I have read your web-page and have found it to be a straight-foward and painfully detailed explanation of some the issues associated with the divisive article published the in the magazine, Current Anthropology.

I believe that anyone who reads this webpage can gain a better understanding of the problems which plague not only contemporary Chumash who struggle to preserve their sacred religious sites from destructive development and unscrupulous "professional" anthropolgists, but might also gain some degree of familiarity with the complex, internal debate among members of the anthropological community itself.

This debate is not merely about who anthropolgists work for and whose political-economic interests they uphold. This debate reflects the broader issue of whether anthropology as practiced today, is capable of scientific objectivity on the level of other disciplines such as theoretical physics (it clearly is not) or whether it is merely an "interpretive art", and is therefore not reliable or authoritative for purposes of public policy.

Some anthropologists have a vested economic interest in preserving an image of scientific objectivity. They engage in unethical attacks and censorship upon those within their own community who might question this image. Neither have they flinched from making it their business to meddle in the internal affairs of the Chumash community, deliberately targeting those Chumash families & individuals who challenge these same anthropolgists when sacred religious sites are threatened by the latter's irresponsible actions.

Some of these anthropogists wish to undermine the status of Chumash people themselves by claiming to be the "gatekeepers" of Chumash identity- literally, to say who is Chumash and who is not. By controlling membership of the Chumash community, they wish to regulate what contemporary Chumash might say and do. I know of no other ethnic group in the Unites States whose fundamental right of self-determination & identity is under similar attack, and I doubt that any other group would tolerate such an offensive and arrogant assault by so-called "experts".

This outrageous attempt to control the Chumash community, flies in the face of every legal precedent and federal administrative interpretation of Indian law that I can think of. The old policies of termination and assimilation have been repudiated. Now a faction of anthropologists would have us step backwards, and have us all believe that like the Indian agents of the wild west, that they alone "know what is best for those savages" and therefore, we should permit them to control the destinies of California Indian peoples.

We California Indian peoples whose treaties were never ratified nor honored, whose ancestors were left homeless and without means of self-support and ruthlessly hunted down by American death squads (the infamous "state militias") in an ethnic cleansing campaign of extermination, whose numbers were reduced by an incredible 90% (a higher mortality than suffered by European Jews of WWII), suffering indescrible emotional and psychological damage not to mention severe social disorientation when our cultures were decimated, deserve justice. As Dr.Martin L. King once said: "Justice delayed is justice denied".

When is the anthropological community going to ever develop a sense of justice and fairness and recognize the part which they can now, albiet belatedly, play in securing such justice for the surviving remnants of the California Holocaust ? Do they covet their privileged academic careers so much that they close their minds and yes, their hearts too, to what any decent American can plainly see? I think that the American public wishes to see justice for California Indians, because I have faith in the basic goodness of all people.

So, I appreciate your work in providing the internet-literate public the opportunity to learn and to gain a more complete understanding of important issues that face our Chumash community. Thank you"

Michael Khus

(Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation member & former member of the federal Advisory Council for California Indian Policy)

Back to Homepage
The Jonjonata Controversy
Mike Khus' article on Point Conception
The Chumash Indians (subdivisions)
The Haley/Wilxcoxon Article