And at the 2018 Dragonfly Gala, the Dragonfly Award goes to ...

We'll be honored and thrilled this Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, at our Dragonfly Gala to present the 2018 Dragonfly Award for soaring achievements in saving and sharing Native American cultures to BILL MADRIGAL Sr. AND HIS FAMILY.
Please reserve your spot now, 951.849.7736, or email eandjsiva@gmail.com, so we can make sure we have enough of Daniel McCarthy's delicious BBQ dinner to serve everyone. The gala will be at Morongo Community Center.

Here is what they wrote about themselves!
"Bill and Monica are of Cahuilla and Luiseño ancestry from local reservation communities. They home-schooled and raised their children William Jr., Menil, Andrew, Kateri, Starla, Nesune, Noel, Avelaka, and Tishmal in their faith and traditions on the Cahuilla Indian reservation.
All their lives they visited with the elders to learn our culture, bird songs, stories, basket making, foods, and languages.
They have formed a traditional Bird-singing/dance group and also teach what they have learned to all our people and those who want to learn in the local area.
They have been teaching on the local reservations and presenting at schools, colleges and Universities for many years.
Their grown children have also been active in cultural teaching and giving presentations on our culture as well.
It is with great honor and love of our brothers and sisters to share the gifts of our elders that come from our Creator with all our native family!
Umon Chemingkim All our relatives!
Nesun Achama!"

Singing & Storytelling for The Center

Our Fourth Sunday cross-cultural concert series so far has taken us on a musical journey across the seas, to different continents and diverse cultures. 

We traveled with the fiddle music of Bill Bell to the lands and ballads of his ancestors. We enjoyed the Silver Sounds flute chorus and the inspiring Celtic-themed odes to our natural world on Earth Day. 

Our most recent concert with GG & the Jazz Masters took us to our American history with some old jazz favorites and some foot-tapping swing and Big Band numbers much appreciated by our audience. 

Now we're coming Home. 

Photo by Carlos Puma for The Center

Our next Fourth Sunday concert, scheduled for 3-5 p.m. ... yes, the fourth Sunday in June — June 24 — will feature our own Ernest Siva, President and Founder of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center.

Mr. Siva is Cahuilla/Serrano, and he brings a lifetime of learning and sharing Southern California Native American cultures and traditional music. It will be a thrill to hear his voice, and the voices of his Native American flutes, in the beautiful acoustics of our Center's San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians Gathering Hall at 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning. 

Look forward to singing and storytelling. 

Photo by Carlos Puma for The Center

Mr. Siva says:

"I plan to sing a variety of Serrano and Cahuilla songs with their stories and educational information. I will use the flute to illustrate how these songs can be used for personal enjoyment. 

"Some of the songs will include: lullabies that teach lessons, hunting songs that aren't used anymore for hunting, but are beautiful songs to sing and remind us of our relationship to animals, such as the bighorn sheep and the deer; bird songs that tell of our coming to this world and the wonder of creation, and examples of special songs of some of our neighbors, the Chumash and Luiseño."

Photo by Carlos Puma for The Center

Your $10 at the door will help the Center do its important nonprofit work of saving and sharing Southern California's Native American cultures, languages, history and traditional arts such as music. 
See you soon!

Eyes on the Night Sky

Orion, © J.C. Casado, courtesy of NASA

American Indians in Southern California knew the night skies intimately. 

The science of the skies was crucial to their stories and songs.

These in turn hold the essence of their cultural identity.

The First Cultures knew exactly when the solstice would come, in summer and winter. 

Archaeoastronomy and ethnoastronomy experts have extensively studied the roles that each solstice played in our area cultures. 

There are secret places only illuminated by light at the time of a solstice. 

Some of the beautiful Chumash rock art paintings along the California coast depict astronomical events. 

Some of these paintings have been linked to astronomy and mythology. 

We now can only guess at all the stories the ancient art tells about the Chumash view of the universe.

Here is one public place you can go to see ancient Chumash art: Painted Cave.

The Indians also knew their constellations. 

They didn't see the star formations the way we do.

No swan.

No goddess chair. 

No crab.

Instead of Orion's Belt, for example, the Serrano and Cahuilla people saw three bighorn sheep.

To several Indian nations, the Milky Way was a road to the afterworld. 

And Dorothy Ramon tells some wonderful Serrano stories in her classic work with linguist Eric Elliott, Wayta' Yawa',

including the story of how the Milky Way was formed.

The Milky Way envisoned as a road, 

© Larry Landolfi, courtesy of NASA

It started with a race between Rabbit and Coyote:

'Ami' kwan naami'n 'ayee'.

And then they raced.

'Ama' hwi't kwan puchuk ya'i': xhayp qac.

Rabbit ran like crazy off somewhere.

Hwi't 'uvya' kwan hakup puchuk ya'i' amay wahi'ti' pehpa'.

The rabbit ran faster than the coyote.

Yangk 'ama' puuyu' puchuk ya'i' 'ama wahi'ti' pehpa'.

He ran ahead right away.

Xhayp rrewetk 'ervrayt.

He was gone right away.

Kwan 'ayee' wahi' mutu' xhayp kimay.

The coyote was coming along.

Mitavu' hwi't cherner'k.

The rabbit stopped.

Kwenevu' puhca' 'amay.

He (the rabbit) was looking back at him (coyote).

'Ap wahi' kwan hakup kimay puchuk.

That coyote was coming along as fast as he could.

Payika' 'ingkwa' kwan hucuuchk kimivayu'.

He kept falling as he came along.

'Ani 'ama' hwi't puuyu' taaqn 'amay.

The rabbit was beating him (coyote) by a mile.

Haa, hwi't qay' pana' taaqan.

Yes, the rabbit did not beat him.

Qayvu' ta'taaqan 'ama' hwi't kwan wahi'ti'.

The rabbit did not beat the coyote.

'Ama' ni' kwan puca'.

He was looking back at him (he was waiting).

'Ap kwenevu' 'ayee' kuuman.

He fell asleep there.

'Ama'vu hwi't.

That was the rabbit.

'Ama' wahi' kwan 'ayee' penek.

And then the coyote passed him up.

Taaqan 'amay, hwi'ti', kem ki' parfcani'am, 'uviht.

He beat the rabbit, that's what the storytellers used to say.

Their path and all the dust made the Milky Way!

— Page 615, from Story No. 518, "Coyote and Rabbit Racing"

All Southern California cultures told wondrous stories about the stars.

For Chumash tales retold by the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, click here.

The arrival of certain stars in view meant new seasons, and the time for new tasks, or ceremonies. August Lomas  (Cahuilla) told Lucile Hooper: "The old men used to study the stars very carefully and in this way could tell when each season began ... They never went to the mountains until they saw a certain star, for they knew they would not find food there previously."

At the Western Center in Hemet on Saturday, the Riverside Astronomical Society and Ernest Siva teamed up for a powerful evening called "Stories and Stars." Ernest treated the audience to two lullabies, the Little Bear Song (Serrano) and the Dragonfly Song (Serrano/Cahuilla).

But the evening was too exciting to put anyone to sleep!

Voices of the Flute

Mountaintop Music and Arts

The rising temperatures remind us that summer is coming, and so is the annual Native American arts festival on the (cooler) mountaintop in Idyllwild. 

Every July, aspiring flute-makers  explore the creative and inspirational  Native American flute workshop at Idyllwild Arts with Marvin Yazzie (Navajo) and his wife, Jonette, and Ernest Siva, president and founder of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. 

The Yazzies teach how to make a beautiful wooden flute in the Plains style.

Ernest Siva (Cahuilla/Serrano) then teaches the basics of flute-playing. He shares stories and songs from Southern California's Native American nations. 

But much more happens. 

A community forms. People make lasting friendships, discover their inner flute player, and share discoveries and the wonder of our region's Native American music.

Discovering Voices

Our Voices of the Flute book and CD, our first publication from Ushkana Press, got its start on that mountaintop.

Each year, Ernest Siva shared a handmade, hand-written, photocopied, stapled-together work with the students that this Indian elder had entitled as a spoof, "Ten Little Indian Songs and More."

 

Much, Much More

Ernest Siva had written western music notations for this centuries-old music. It was the first time anyone had done this. He also wrote down the words in Indian for the songs. In some cases, Ernest Siva was the lone, known remaining Native American singer who was singing these ancient songs. Sharing them with the flute workshop was a way of saving them.

Saving and Sharing

When Dorothy Ramon Learning Center formed to save and share Southern California's Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts, publishing this work seemed not just a natural, but instead, a responsibility. Ushkana Press, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit's publishing arm, took on the project. 

But the title?

June Siva, Ernest's wife,  simply said: "Voices of the Flute."

Subtitle: "Songs of Three Southern California Indian Nations."

In the Chumash stories that have been passed down to us from J.P. Harrington, there is a Lizard who plays a flute.

He plays his flute to listen to the Voice of the World.

Each of these songs is the voice of a culture, a people.

Each time we listen, we can discover something new from something that is very old.