UPPER LAKE, Calif. — On Wednesday afternoon, a group of young Pomo dancers performed in the bright early afternoon sunlight in Upper Lake’s downtown as singers chanted and burned sage.

As the young men performed in their beaded and feathered regalia, the young women, some of them crowned with headdresses of tall feathers, spun in circles, their long colorful skirts twirling around their ankles.

They danced barefooted with pieces of carpet put down to protect them from the hot pavement between the Habematolel tribal offices and tribal hall.

Over their heads, gazing past them and up into the sky, toward the mountains, was the portrait of Vanessa Niko, a young woman of Pomo and Samoan descent who, for many, is the face of the nationwide crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women — known as MMIW — in Lake County.

Niko, 35, a mother of six and member of the Habematolel Pomo tribe, was killed on June 30, 2017. The father of three of her children, Willy Tujays Timmons, has been charged with murder in the case.

A mural of Niko was completed by muralist Shane Grammer and a group of a dozen young artists over the course of six days on the side of the Habematolel tribal hall, with the work completed earlier this week.

The project was a partnership with the tribe, the artists and Grammer’s Hope Through Art Foundation, which is dedicated to broadening public awareness and education of social issues such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women through art.

The foundation on Wednesday honored Niko’s cousin Ida Morrison as the “heartbeat” of the project for her support and advocacy.

The mural dedication took place on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day.

The ceremonial dancers and many community and tribal members from Lake County, the North Coast and beyond came to celebrate Niko’s life, cut short by what Morrison said is a “generational curse” for native people — domestic violence.

Kumu Hula Mikilani Young, a representative of United Pillars of Aloha, sang and offered chants of honor and healing for Niko and her family as a tribute to her Samoan heritage.

Also on hand were Sheriff Brian Martin and Lake County Superintendent of Schools Brock Falkenberg.

The mural is based on a real-life portrait of Niko, looking back at the camera over her right shoulder, her long black hair flowing loose down her back. The outlines of six daffodils flow throughout the mural, symbolizing her six children — three boys and three girls — who used to pick the flowers with their mother on walks through the rancheria.

There also are handprints in red paint featured throughout the mural, which is the symbol associated with the effort to bring awareness to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

Friends and family remember Niko as hardworking, diligent, devoted to her children and her family. She also worked hard to help the Habematolel tribe build its Running Creek Casino, where she later worked as a supervisor.

Morrison said Niko just wanted to be the best mother she could be, and she put her children first.

Niko was a great spirit and a beautiful soul. “We all have a path,” said Morrison, and her cousin’s path suddenly ended in the summer of 2017.

Morrison said Niko and Timmons had a difficult relationship that required them to often stay away from each other for periods of time. But Morrison said that on that summer day nearly four years ago, Timmons came and picked Niko up. With the knowledge that comes from hindsight, Morrison said her cousin couldn’t have realized it would be her last day of life.

Later that day, a Lake County Sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to a physical altercation at a home on Bridge Arbor Road in Upper Lake. There, the deputy found Timmons assaulting Niko, hitting her in the head with a rock. She died at the scene a short time later.

Timmons has remained in the Lake County Jail since his arrest. He was indicted on a charge of killing Niko by a criminal grand jury in December 2017. At one point he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

The District Attorney’s Office told Lake County News that Timmons is set for trial on Aug. 11.

Niko’s mother is raising her youngest children. The youngest of the children was just 11 months old when Niko died, Morrison said.

“This needs to stop,” said Morrison.

A nationwide crisis

The tragedy that took Niko’s life — and which speakers on Wednesday said has had broad impacts on tribal members and the greater community — is just one story in what many individuals and organizations are calling a nationwide crisis.

One speaker at Wednesday’s event in Upper Lake said that a lot of Indian women “grew up pretty rough.”

Morrison said Indigenous people don’t want to report domestic violence because the perpetrators are sometimes family members or someone they know personally.

She said native women are supposed to be strong, and so they think reporting abuse makes them weak.

There is another such tragedy in neighboring Mendocino County, where authorities and family members continue to seek answers in the February 2018 disappearance of Khadijah Britton of Covelo.

Britton, 23 at the time of her disappearance, is believed to have been abducted by gunpoint by her boyfriend, Negie Fallis.

He arrived at a Covelo residence, demanded she come outside, then had a physical altercation with her before witnesses said the two of them got into a black Mercedes sedan and left. She has not been seen since.

In a February online event, Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall said his agency is continuing to try to find out what happened to Britton.

The Urban Indian Health Institute, a division of the Seattle Indian Health Board, issued a report in which it explained that while awareness of the crisis is growing, data on the violence has remained scarce.

In a 2018 report, the group discussed statistics from 2016. In that year, the National Crime Information Center reported there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls. However, the US Department of Justice’s federal missing persons database, NamUs, only logged 116 cases.

The Urban Indian Health Institute also said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that murder is the third-leading cause of death among American Indian and Alaska Native women “and that rates of violence on reservations can be up to 10 times higher than the national average.”

However, the institute’s report also noted that no research has been done on rates of such violence among American Indian and Alaska Native women living in urban areas “despite the fact that approximately 71% of American Indian and Alaska Natives live in urban areas.”

In April, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — the first Native American woman to hold a cabinet position — announced the formation of a new Missing & Murdered Unit, or MMU, within the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services to provide leadership and direction for cross-departmental and interagency work involving missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives.

The new unit is meant to put “the full weight of the federal government into investigating these cases and marshal law enforcement resources across federal agencies and throughout Indian country,” the Department of Interior said.

Haaland said the new unit will be an “all hands-on deck” approach. “The new MMU unit will provide the resources and leadership to prioritize these cases and coordinate resources to hold people accountable, keep our communities safe, and provide closure for families.”

This week, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation naming Wednesday, May 5, as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, and said helping solve the issues surrounding Native Americans who go missing and are murdered is a priority for his administration.

“My Administration is fully committed to working with Tribal Nations to address the disproportionately high number of missing or murdered Indigenous people, as well as increasing coordination to investigate and resolve these cases and ensure accountability,” Biden said in a Tuesday statement. “I am further committed to addressing the underlying causes behind those numbers, including — among others — sexual violence, human trafficking, domestic violence, violent crime, systemic racism, economic disparities, and substance use and addiction.”

The president said the federal partnerships to address the number of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples will be governed by “the Nation-to-Nation foundation of our relationship with Tribal governments and respect for Tribal sovereignty and self-determination.”

On Thursday, state Assemblymember James C. Ramos (D-Highland) will present House Resolution 40, marking May 2021 as California’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Awareness Month.

He will also lead fellow Assembly members in Native American song and prayer before the start of Thursday’s floor session commemorating Native women who have been victims of violence.

The event will be live-streamed here at 9 a.m.

“The numbers of Murdered Missing Indigenous Women and Girls tell us that Native women face a pandemic of violence,” Ramos said. “The crimes against them go unresolved for a number of reasons, from confusion over law enforcement jurisdiction to misclassification of ethnic identity to lack of data and law enforcement collaboration. The bottom line is that victims and their families do not get justice.”

Ramos, the first California Native American elected to the Legislature in its 170-year history, successfully introduced AB 3099 last year.

The bill authorized funding for the state Department of Justice to assist local and tribal law enforcement, improve collaboration among tribes and sponsor a study to increase protective and investigative resources for reporting and identifying missing Native Americans in California, particularly women and girls.

Ending the silence

The mural project, with its very public aspects and the community support it received, is part of a shift toward ending the silence that has enabled violence against Indigenous men, women and children to continue.

Grammer has used his art to take on difficult topics before, beginning 12 years ago when a missionary friend working in Cambodia told him about child trafficking. “That project branded my soul.”

Then, three years ago another friend told him about the “lost flowers,” referring to missing and murdered Indigenous people.

“I’m just an artist who said I need to step up and do something,” he said.

Grammer, founder of the Hope Through Art Foundation, is a Chico native who has focused on trying to bring beauty out of tragedy. Some of his work in that vein has included creating murals in the midst of the devastation of the Paradise Camp fire.

In March, he worked on a mural project in Chico in collaboration with Mechoopda and Pomo tribal members to raise awareness of the MMIW issue.

Morrison’s niece was used as a model for the woman portrayed in the Chico mural. During a conversation Morrison had with Grammer, he told her he wanted to paint Niko. He subsequently put together a proposal for the project, and Niko’s mother gave her approval.

“Things fell into place,” said Morrison, who had been praying for something to bring attention to this case and the larger issues of violence and cultural taboo surrounding it.

The Habematolel tribe, with about 280 enrolled members, had stepped up to help raise funds for Niko’s children after her murder.

Tribal Chair Sherry Treppa said they had contributed to Grammer’s Chico mural project and then were approached to support the Niko project, which they did. That support included permission to place the mural on the tribal hall wall.

“It’s important to us,” said Treppa, adding, “Maybe some good gets passed on the community.”

Treppa, like Morrison, notes the silence that has enabled such violence to continue for too long in tribal communities.

“People don’t talk about it,” said Treppa. “Tribal people talk about it even less.”

Grammer said community members have been incredibly generous, donating everything from the lift needed to paint the wall to food for the mural painters.

Community members also were asked to be part of the artistic and advocate process by adding their handprints in red to the mural.

When it comes to Grammer’s goal of bringing beauty from tragedy, Morrison, looking up at her cousin’s portrait, said, “He’s done it.”

Morrison said she feels like she didn’t speak out enough against Timmons, and now she wants to save others. “If I couldn’t do it for her, I’m going to do it for every woman.”

She said if there is even one person who is saved by awareness of the MMIW crisis, she will feel accomplished.

“It’s an epidemic that needs attention,” she said.

Besides her work to advocate for public awareness, Morrison is doing her part to teach the lessons to her children.

With her on Wednesday was her little son, Raymond.

Asked what we need to do, Raymond — who was eating lunch, stopped to say, “Protect the women.”

“Why?” his mother asked.

“Because they’re sacred,” he said.

To learn more about missing and murdered Indigenous people, visit Native Womens Wilderness, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA and the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.