Photo By Yanelli Z. Robles
A BANNER YEAR—Southwestern College has entered into a new era of rapprochement with San Diego County’s Indigenous Kumeyaay People by acknowledging their land and inviting them into the college community. The college hosted a full-scale powwow in the spring and a pair of flag raising ceremonies.
By Diego Higuera
Words matter.
So does their delivery.
Especially to people who have faced down extermination and nearly went silently into oblivion.
“Ya at eeh!”
Tiffany Haswood’s Dine’ (Navajo) greeting was clear in its delivery and upbeat in its tone.
“Hello! All is good.”
Haswood’s solitary word of welcome spoke volumes for the nearly 200 people gathered to honor the Indigenous Kumeyaay People at an emotional flag raising ceremony at the Mayan Hall Theater patio. Unlike the demolished Mayan Hall, San Diego County’s Kumeyaay staved off elimination and are coming back strong, said spiritual leader Bobby Wallace. His People numbered about 30,000 at first contact with Europeans in the 1500s and dwindled to about 700 in 1900. Today San Diego County – despite the fact that it is home to 17 reservations – has a Native population of just 0.6 percent.
“We were almost taken out and we are the remnants of what’s left,” he said. “We are going to thrive. We are going to stay badass. We are gonna keep going.”
Today there are about 4,500 Kumeyaay, Wallace said, and the number is growing in both reservation and urban settings.
“Every footstep is a prayer,” he said. “Every stride a ceremony. Every life is a celebration.”
Southwestern College hosted its second Kumeyaay flag raising as part of its new efforts to recognize, honor and include Native People of the borderlands. The college is built over a La Jolla/Kumeyaay settlement and was largely detached from local Native Americans for its first six decades. It once had a demeaning Native American nickname and insensitive red mascot straight off a buffalo nickel.
That has changed.
Leilani Javier, vice president of the college organization Native American Students and Allies (NASA), read a land acknowledgment that thanked the Kumeyaay for allowing the college to exist on their historical land.
Assistant Professor of Native American Studies David Salomon, who identifies as Gabrielino/Tongva from Los Angeles County, said the acknowledgment is an uplifting ritual whose time has finally come.
“It is extremely important that the world and (Chula Vista) recognize that this is sovereign Kumeyaay land,” he told the gathering.
San Diego County shares in the historical crimes against Native Americans. Spaniards, Mexicans and Americans all participated in genocidal practices and stripped 19th and 20th century Kumeyaay of their land, their culture and their lives. Kumeyaay were enslaved and driven into the cold, rocky eastern hills. Later they were forced into boarding schools and forbidden to speak their Ipay language.
“It is a new time, a new era,” said NASA President Lucia Napolez, who identifies as Yaqui. “We are going forward in a very good new direction. It takes courage to change. We have the courage to change and we are putting in the work to make the way for a better community.”
The preternaturally upbeat Napolez said it is important to know the past to be able to go forward with intentionality and meaning.
“That’s exactly what we are doing here now (at Southwestern),” she said.
An important symbol of the Kumeyaay People’s resurgence are Bird Singers, performers of sacred songs that were thought to be extinct as late as the 1980s. Kumeyaay Bird Singers, led by Blue Eagle Vigil, showed that a damaged culture can heal. Four men, including Vigil, sang as four women danced to the beat of their halma—gourd rattles that set the rhythm in the lead singer’s hand.
Chuck Cadotte, an American powwow dancer and teacher from the Dakota Standing Rock Sioux People, brought his intertribal Star Dancers, students from his powwow dancing classes at the Ballard Center. He proudly introduced four jingle dancers wearing dazzling dresses the colors of tropical parrots and covered with cone-shaped “jingles” that ring out like a chorus of small bells during performances. The conical shapes have a soft richness when they ring that evokes a clear flowing stream. Joining him was a fancy shawl dancer and a very young traditional dancer Cadotte called “a prodigy.”
“I’ve been here for many winters now, and this is our second time coming down (to Southwestern College) to do this flag raising,” he said cheerfully. “It’s pretty awesome. It’s really good to be out here and to do something on Kumeyaay land for our brothers here.”
Jingle dress dancers promote healing, he said, through their steps and musical regalia.
“When you hear the cones, they represent the calling of the healing spirits,” he said. “When somebody’s sick, the spirits come in and heal whoever’s not feeling well.”
Cadotte bowed his head reverently and invited the gathering to think of ill friends and family.
“We say prayers for them now, for anybody out there you know is sick or needs healing while these girls are dancing,” he said. “I suggest that you say your prayers in your mind and ask for the healing spirits to come and visit the family member that’s sick and needs healing.”
As if on cue a blustery, cloudy morning lit up as clouds parted and the sun made its first appearance of the day. The breeze changed direction and curled around the pot of smokey incense, suddenly dispersing it like a swirling rainbird over the entire gathering. People all across the mall inhaled the fragrant offering and smiled as the jingling commenced. Mother Earth seemed pleased.
Cadotte, the head dancer, was radiant in his elaborate regalia adorned with beads and feathers. His headdress was a symbol of his respected status as an elder leader. He held a drumstick in one hand and a dance shield in the other. His coterie of young dancers followed him over the turf like tenuous young fawns just growing into their grace and elegance.
He and a young male dancer performed “The Sneak Up,” a ritualist series of steps that evokes hunters in the woods stalking food for the members of the tribe.
If there was a favorite of the enraptured audience it was the solo performance by brave Ayla, a primary aged young girl of the Northern Cheyenne People in one of her first public performances. She glided over the ground in the Butterfly Dance, a lovely storytelling piece about a young girl living near a creek who collected water each morning. One day, she met a group of hunters from a distant village, including a boy her age. They became instant friends. After sharing a meal, the hunters left, and the girl promised to wait for the boy’s return.
She waited for days, weeks and eventually years by a large boulder at the creek. One day, years later, another group of hunters passed by. Among them was the same boy, now grown. Although he did not immediately recognize her, he felt the place was familiar. When the girl realized it was him, she joyfully jumped off the boulder and danced around, spinning with her blanket.
Ayla’s movements, graceful and free, evoked a playful butterfly. Applause rained down as the blushing child moved off to the grassy knoll to join her friends.
Loquacious and philosophical Wallace of the Barona Band of Mission Indians (the English name for his Kumeyaay band) gave his blessing.
“I want to give thanks today for the blessing of being alive, feeling the cold air upon my face, and for all of us to feel it too on this good day, in this good land,” he said. “I pray to the ancestors who have been here before us, those who traveled right here, up and down the river Ah-ha’ Coo-mulk (the Sweetwater River) north and south. They remain with us to this day. We pray for Mother Earth, for the weather and the animals, for the things we know and the things we don’t know. We pray for all people—the good, the bad and everyone in between. We pray for ourselves last, with respect, so we can get through this day, this life, a little better each day at a time.”
Blue Eagle Vigil said he was proud to perform at the event.
“Ha Ow Ka!” he said. “In our (Ipay) language ‘Ha’ means ‘yes,’ ‘Ow’ refers to your fire, and ‘Ka’ means to continue. So when we say it, we’re saying, ‘Yes, may your spirit continue.’ And that’s what is happening today.”
Wallace ended the ceremony with a final admonition.
“We keep going because we’re only here for a short time,” he said. “We’re not perfect people, but we’re setting an example for the younger ones to see. They’re taking it in. We’ve got to do the best we can.”
