Wana the Bear v. Community Construction, Inc.

Opinion

BLEASE, J.

Plaintiff Wana the Bear, a direct descendant of the Bear People Lodge of the Miwok Indians, seeks reversal of a judgment that the Native American burial ground under development by defendant Community Construction, Inc., is not a cemetery entitled to protection under the California cemetery law.

This case comes to us shrouded in the history of an ancient Indian people whose remains, bulldozed from their resting place, stir the anguish of their descendants. But there is no succor for these profound sensitivities in the law to which plaintiff appeals, 1 the sepulchral confines…