Indian Rock and Mortar Rock
Berkeley, California, United States
Two city parks in Berkeley holding Ohlone bedrock mortars, where the Sogorea Te Land Trusts rematriation work has returned living Indigenous recognition to the neighborhood.
Two outcrops in Berkeley's hills carry the densest urban evidence of the Ohlone presence: Indian Rock Park and Mortar Rock Park, where the chiseled round mortars in the stone were used for pounding acorn meal, the daily work of the villages that stood here before Berkeley existed. The parks anchor a living recognition: the Sogorea Te' Land Trust, led by Ohlone women, works on rematriation of land and sacred sites in the East Bay, and local coverage has traced what the rocks mean to the community that remembers them.
The stones are also beloved of the city's climbing culture, and the negotiation between recreation and reverence is itself the contemporary story of the site. As urban sacred places go, this is the rare case where the original practice's material evidence is visible in the stone itself, in a residential neighborhood.
Visiting
Indian Rock Park, 950 Indian Rock Ave, Berkeley; open park. See Sogorea Te' Land Trust. The mortars should not be chalked, chiseled, or sat in.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Berkeley_Indian_Rock.JPG), CC BY-SA.
Associated traditions & practices
Visitor stories