Post by Okwes on Oct 12, 2006 14:25:18 GMT -5
Celebrating cycles of the sun
10/01/2006 - LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE CA
By Tracy E. Gilchrist
A red-headed, pre-teen boy in shorts and a T-shirt looked on intently as Oscar Ortiz braided a piece of a raffia palm tree that could wind up as a basket, a handbag or a fishing net.
"This is the beginning of a way of life," Ortiz, of Chumash Maya American Indian descent, told the boy. "You can make a basket or bear sandals."
The boy was learning how to make cordage at the Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center Fall Equinox festival — held at the center, about 15 miles up the Angeles Crest (2) Freeway, near Mount Wilson.
Indigenous people run their lives based on the cycles of the sun, which every three months fall into solstice, when the sun is highest or lowest in the sky, or the equinox, when the sun is "equal" in the sky — when the length of day and night are the same — said the cultural center's Community Director, Kat High, a descendant of the Hupa people of Northern California.
Based on the quarter-of-a-year cycles of the sun, American Indians know when it's the best time to hunt and gather, the best time to harvest and plant and the best time to go inside and tell stories, High said.
To celebrate the fall equinox — the best time for planting in Southern California — the cultural center blessed the ground and performed a ceremonial groundbreaking of its ethno-botanical garden. The center also dedicated its new weather station, held bamboo flute- and gourd-rattle-making workshops and kick-started the day with a pine-nut and elderberry pancake breakfast — a blend of native and contemporary cooking.
Breakfast, which included venison sausage and eggs scrambled with cactus, consisted of foods available near the cultural center.
Set against a mountainside several thousand feet up, burning sage and bamboo flute music filled the air while attendees ate breakfast.
Anthony Morales, head of the tribal council of the Gabrieleno /Tongva tribe, which is native to the area around Los Angeles, led participants in song to celebrate the day.
The cultural center, a former fire station, established in 1998, is a land base for American Indians, High said.
They've even named the main building Toypurina after the young Tongva woman who led the indigenous people in revolt against the San Gabriel Mission in the late 1700s, High said.
"There is no land in Los Angeles, Orange or Ventura counties for Indian people," High said. "This is where we can touch this earth and share this culture."
Besides serving as a gathering place for American Indians, the center holds musical performances, arts shows and workshops on American Indian culture.
Beginning in mid-October, the cultural center will host school field trips for students to learn American Indian culture and customs. A weather station that will eventually go on the roof of a building at the center connects wirelessly to a monitor and can measure rainfall, humidity, temperature, wind speed and direction, said astronomer Glen Miller, who is a quarter Tongva.
Students who visit Haramokngna can learn about the weather station, and through the center's weather postings on its website, can track weather trends on the mountain and compare them to where they live, Miller said.
High said that the center will teach students the five R's.
"Everyone knows reduce, reuse, recycle but we also use respect and restore," she said.
That's respect for the earth and everybody who lives on it, she said.
Copyright © 2006 Glendale News Press
10/01/2006 - LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE CA
By Tracy E. Gilchrist
A red-headed, pre-teen boy in shorts and a T-shirt looked on intently as Oscar Ortiz braided a piece of a raffia palm tree that could wind up as a basket, a handbag or a fishing net.
"This is the beginning of a way of life," Ortiz, of Chumash Maya American Indian descent, told the boy. "You can make a basket or bear sandals."
The boy was learning how to make cordage at the Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center Fall Equinox festival — held at the center, about 15 miles up the Angeles Crest (2) Freeway, near Mount Wilson.
Indigenous people run their lives based on the cycles of the sun, which every three months fall into solstice, when the sun is highest or lowest in the sky, or the equinox, when the sun is "equal" in the sky — when the length of day and night are the same — said the cultural center's Community Director, Kat High, a descendant of the Hupa people of Northern California.
Based on the quarter-of-a-year cycles of the sun, American Indians know when it's the best time to hunt and gather, the best time to harvest and plant and the best time to go inside and tell stories, High said.
To celebrate the fall equinox — the best time for planting in Southern California — the cultural center blessed the ground and performed a ceremonial groundbreaking of its ethno-botanical garden. The center also dedicated its new weather station, held bamboo flute- and gourd-rattle-making workshops and kick-started the day with a pine-nut and elderberry pancake breakfast — a blend of native and contemporary cooking.
Breakfast, which included venison sausage and eggs scrambled with cactus, consisted of foods available near the cultural center.
Set against a mountainside several thousand feet up, burning sage and bamboo flute music filled the air while attendees ate breakfast.
Anthony Morales, head of the tribal council of the Gabrieleno /Tongva tribe, which is native to the area around Los Angeles, led participants in song to celebrate the day.
The cultural center, a former fire station, established in 1998, is a land base for American Indians, High said.
They've even named the main building Toypurina after the young Tongva woman who led the indigenous people in revolt against the San Gabriel Mission in the late 1700s, High said.
"There is no land in Los Angeles, Orange or Ventura counties for Indian people," High said. "This is where we can touch this earth and share this culture."
Besides serving as a gathering place for American Indians, the center holds musical performances, arts shows and workshops on American Indian culture.
Beginning in mid-October, the cultural center will host school field trips for students to learn American Indian culture and customs. A weather station that will eventually go on the roof of a building at the center connects wirelessly to a monitor and can measure rainfall, humidity, temperature, wind speed and direction, said astronomer Glen Miller, who is a quarter Tongva.
Students who visit Haramokngna can learn about the weather station, and through the center's weather postings on its website, can track weather trends on the mountain and compare them to where they live, Miller said.
High said that the center will teach students the five R's.
"Everyone knows reduce, reuse, recycle but we also use respect and restore," she said.
That's respect for the earth and everybody who lives on it, she said.
Copyright © 2006 Glendale News Press