Native Americans buy back tribal sacred land

It's been a very long-awaited homecoming for the Esselen Tribe, but after 250 years, the northern California native people's sacred land is finally theirs again.The tribe inhabited the Santa Lucia Mountains and Big Sur coast for thousands of years, until Spanish explorers claimed the land as their own.

After centuries of life without land, the tribe recently PURCHASED 1,200 acres in Big Sur to rebuild their tribe and tend the land there. Tom Little Bear Nason, tribal chairman of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County, said the deal will position his tribe close to the most "sacred spot on the coast," for the Esselen people, and the "center of their origin story."