“Dancing on the Brink of the World”: Seeing Indigenous Dance and Resilience in the Archaeology of Colonial California

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn California, Indigenous hinterlands served as places of opportunity and safe harbor for Native people responding to colonization during the Mission Period (1769–1830s) and afterward. Even as Native communities visited Spanish missions in the San Francisco Bay Area, their long‐standing traditions of mobility supported novel opportunities to depart missions and seek out seasonally available foods. Hinterlands also provided contexts for Native people to conduct other social practices threatened by missionary colonialism. These were places to meet, mourn, dine, and dance. Expanding the Indigenous hinterlands concept, this article addresses the persistence of Indigenous dances. After reviewing the historical record of Native dances in California—simultaneously permitted/documented and forbidden/ignored within mission settings—I examine the archaeology of dances. Evidentiary priorities in archaeology and limited exploration of hinterland settings have impaired the study of where and how colonized people practiced their cultures. By paying closer attention to dance practice and the epistemological gaps in archaeology, Indigenous communities and archaeologists might further enhance studies of postcontact resilience and change and move closer to a decolonized archaeology. [dance, archaeology, colonialism, Indigenous peoples, California]