Interview With Dolores Lameira

Dolores Lameira, aka Auntie Dottie

Retired leader from the Muwekma Tribal Council and a matriarch for her Ohlone community.

Dolores was interviewed with ‘ottoy Initiative leaders Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino.

Q: Introduce yourself and your role in the Ohlone community

Auntie Dottie: My name is Dolores Lameira. I’m an elder, retired from the Muwekma Tribal Council. Now that I’m retired, I don’t play a role in my community unless they come to me and want to know something.

Vincent Medina, Dolores’ Nephew: I’d like to add that in our culture, titles like these are given by the community. And it’s not something that people are boastful about, right? But Auntie Dottie, we call her “la jefa,” the boss, because she has the last say about what goes on in our East Bay Ohlone community. So she’s the matriarch, the leader. Even though I have the role of president of our tribe, she has the last say right there.

Q: What are the ways you were taught by your elders, including your mother?

Auntie Dottie: I used to take my mother for car rides, to the rancheria where she was born, and she would always make me stop. In those days, these were the country roads out in the back. And we’d stop, and then she’d proceed to tell me about what they used to do as kids, like riding horses, playing rough.

When I was younger, the sisters and uncles would gather at our house with their families because my mother was the oldest. We were raised on greens, just like the cattle. They would go on little walks to gather food. Sometimes I went along and watched what they picked, because I could recognize the plant but couldn’t tell you the name of it.

Louis Trevino: We also learn by experiencing what they were bringing to the table, like acorns for example.

Auntie Dottie: My Aunt Cecilia is the one who would come and make the acorn soup or porridge. And that’s a lot of work. You know, you’ve got to start maybe two, three days ahead to crack and cook them first. Then you let it dry and make it into flour. And then you make your broth or whatever you’re going to make, you know. Thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

My dad would also give us lessons. When we were kids, we’d sit on the porch in the summertime and get a little lesson every evening on the stars. He was good at telling fables. There was always a story behind what he was telling us. They must have been carried down from his people.

Vincent Medina: That’s important too, our knowledge of the interconnection in the world, from the stars above to the plants on the ground.

Q: What wisdom do you share about the importance of Ohlone knowledge as science?

Auntie Dottie: The way they lived, how they cared for each other, the medicines they used, the plants that they gathered to use. When we were sick, we didn’t go to the doctor. My mom took care of us. Her medications were always with the roots that she collected. She would boil them or whatever she did with them and use them on us, either as a rub or to drink, one or the other.

Vincent Medina: See, when we talk about Ohlone science, that’s what we’re talking about right there. I mean, your mom was a doctor!

Auntie Dottie: Yeah, she was a doctor.

Q: How did your mother and your elders teach you to take care and be kind to the land?

Auntie Dottie: They taught us by making us help when they planted during the planting season in the spring. What to plant and what plants were important, more so than others, you know. We learned how to water them, feed them, you know. They need nourishment just like us.

Vincent Medina: And this also connects with the stories you told me about the way of taking care of the land with burns.

Auntie Dottie: That’s right. The land would be overgrown with weeds and, you know, all kinds of different trees and bushes that all had to be cleared. You’re purifying it again, to start all over. It’s a way of giving thanks and giving back to the land. It’s a job, but the land gave its goodness back to you in what it produced for you, you know?

Q: How do you feel having Ohlone knowledge and culture represented at The Lawrence?

Auntie Dottie: I think it’s wonderful! It’s surprising to me that a lot of people are interested in our history, but it’s wonderful. When I was younger, I never saw our culture represented in places like this. This is the first time for me, and I’m 95!

Vincent Medina: I remember when I was a kid, there would be almost nothing out there about our Ohlone people. Because they always talked about us like we were all gone.

Auntie Dottie: We no longer existed, according to the books or the smart people. They didn’t know what they were talking about.

Louis Trevino: When I was in fourth grade, I asked my teacher to do a report about our Ohlone people. The teacher didn’t know what to do with me. So they found this book in our little school library and gave it to me. There was one chapter about the Costanoans, so I read that chapter. It talked about the tule boats and our tule houses, and about fishing and other things. I thought it was great. And then the very last little paragraph was about how all the Costanoans were now extinct.

I felt so happy reading it at first, but then I was so confused. I took it to my grandmother, and she said well that’s just a lie. And so she kept the book and I said well I gotta take it back to the library. She said it’s not going back to the library. We had to pay a little fee, but she didn’t want that book going back.

Q: What advice do you have for Native people who might have felt left out in the past?

Auntie Dottie: Try and learn about your past. Contact your family members that are still alive, hopefully. They could give you more information. When I’m interested in something, I also go to the library to get my information.

Vincent Medina: But if they read something that’s not true, don’t believe it! Because, you know, some of these kids read something that’s written about our Ohlone people or about another tribe they’re a part of, and then it will say something that you know is just not true. So just like having some what do you call that? A little bit of healthy skepticism.

Q: What is a message you have to visitors at The Lawrence Hall of Science when they see Ohlone culture and knowledge represented there?

Auntie Dottie: Bring your family and your friends. Please come. Let them enjoy the beauty that’s in here. If you truly love the Bay Area, you should learn about us. We’re not all dead, we’re in this new generation like everybody else!