Bound to these mountains for ten thousand years.
The Esselen are an Indigenous people whose homeland stretches across the Santa Lucia Mountains, the Carmel and Big Sur watersheds, and the central California coast.
The Mission of the ETMC is to preserve and protect our cultural heritage and ancestral sacred sites of the Esselen, Rumsen, Chalone, Sureño, Chunchunes and Guatcharrone peoples — including the historic villages of Monterey County — while building a sustainable future for generations to come.
Reclaim & Restore Ancestral Lands
In 2026, we are working to protect and reclaim Kuchun Village, where the Arroyo Seco meets Carmel Valley — a place central to Esselen ancestral and cultural heritage, now at risk of being divided into luxury estates and vineyards.
What’s happening now
Gatherings, openings, and notices from the Esselen community.
Tularcitos Creek Lands Reclaimed
Intertribal Fire Training
California State Parks Partnership
What we tend to.
Our work falls into three quietly-related practices — none of them new.
Land
Returning, restoring, and stewarding ancestral places — from Big Sur to the inland watersheds — in the slow, careful way they ask to be tended.
Culture
Carrying forward language, song, basketry, and ceremony — and teaching the next generation what it means to be Esselen today.
Community
Governing ourselves, supporting our families, opening doors to members, neighbors, scholars, and friends of the land.
We are the original people of these mountains, valleys, and shorelines — and we have never left.
The Esselen people have lived in the lands now called Monterey County since time immemorial. We continue to gather, to govern, to teach our language, and to care for the places that have always cared for us. We invite you to learn, listen, and walk gently.
“We did not vanish. We were never gone. The land remembers us, and we remember the land. Every restored acre, every word of our language spoken aloud, every child taught to gather and to thank — these are how a people continue.
Walking with us.
Organizations, agencies, and neighbors lending their support to the long work of restoration and revitalization.