Summertime leaves of black oak (Photo by Josh Jackson courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Teerhich (Proverb)
By Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano),
President of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center (written in 2008)
Cousin Marigold [Linton] just sent me a generic-sounding proverb. She wanted me to "Serrano-ize" it. So, to comply with her request I first put my version into English:
Tell me, and I might remember.
Show me, but I might forget.
Include me, and it is truly ours forever.
And, the Serrano:
Ney kuchii teer, mit nehun yawq.
Neychii ayn, mitan omik shevek.
Werhanich tach nyiiv, ame pat mumk chenyu perrax atahtamerav.
This one’s for kids (and everyone reading).
By Pat Murkland
With this proverb in mind, during the pandemic we asked some kids what they’d like to tell everyone about being a Native American.
In one class at Morongo Reservation school, most students said they’d like to tell everyone about how Native Americans take care of the land.
So today we’re talking about that. We’re talking about oaks and acorns.
California Black Oak in fall in San Bernardino National Forest. This deciduous oak’s leaves change color in fall. (U.S. Forest Service photo by Tania C. Parra, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Area canyons, mountains, and brushy slopes are places where you can find different kinds of beautiful oak trees. These trees take many years to grow.
Oak trees provide shelter and food for many birds, animals, and lizards and other reptiles. And people, too.
When you stand under an old oak tree, you may be standing exactly where someone stood more than 100 years ago. Or maybe farther back in time …
This oak stands in our Inland Southern California canyon. (Pat Murkland Photo)
In Southern California, the Cahuilla and other Native American people have owned their own oak groves throughout time. For centuries, they have tended their oaks.
All Living Things
Worth repeating, this, from Cahuilla anthropologist Lowell Bean (another Dragonfly Award winner)1:
“When Mukat and Temawayat [in the Cahuilla Creation story] created the world, they created beings. So, if you’re out, for example, picking for a basket, you’re not picking [a plant]. You’re picking up a being. Something that is alive and has a personality, and you treat it as such. It has rights. You talk to it.
“If you’re going to hunt a deer, or a major game animal like a mountain sheep, prior to the hunt, you would communicate with that animal and ask its permission for you to use it. And the deer, as the song indicates, knew you were going to do that. And this was his place on Earth. Just as the acorn has its own place on the Earth. And the chia seed has its own place on Earth. You treat it with respect for it.
“It isn’t just a religious matter that you treat it respectfully. It’s also because it’s a spiritual being.
“But, what’s the point? Some old Indian fellows many years ago got together and they figured out there is a thing called an ecological ethic. You have this ecology and all these things in the world that can support mankind. And if you don’t take care of it, you’re going to lose it. If you take care of it well, you’re going to live better than if you don’t take care of it well.
“So there were rules and regulations about how we treated the animal world and the plant world. We treated it with respect.
“What does that mean? That means you don’t overuse it.”
In much older times, for example, Native Americans across California took care of the oak trees' health by burning the areas under the oaks.2 The fires cleaned out the dead leaves and other plants, destroying the wormy bug pests that could kill the trees and ruin their acorns. The ashes left behind became a natural plant food that promoted growth.
In turn, the oaks have taken care of the people. The oak offers gifts, especially acorns. In Inland Southern California, the most desired acorns come from the black oak, Quercus kelloggii. The Cahuilla people have the same word for black-oak tree and acorn: kwíñill.
This rich food not only helps the people survive; it makes sure that you live well. Good fats, carbs, and protein are all in one acorn, all for the picking.
But you cannot eat it right away.
Acorns from live oaks and black oaks stored in a willow granary made by Kim Marcus (Serrano-Cahuilla, the Center’s 2021 Dragonfly Award winner). (Pat Murkland Photo)
Lots of work
The late Cahuilla Elder Katherine Siva Saubel explained: 3
“Múlu'uk pe'yíkawpi' míyaxwe. First you have to pick it.
Háni' 'áy pe'wáxnipi' míyaxwe. Then you have to dry it.
Háni' 'áy pe'táshpi' míyaxwe. Then you have to crack it (open).
Péngax pé' 'áy pe'péveypi' míyaxwe. Then you have to pound it.
Píka' 'áy pé' pe'eytúluska' héspen. Then you grind it up real well.
“... Píka' pe'písanipi' míyaxwe pé'iy. Then you have to remove it (the bitterness, from tannic acids).
'Eneneka' pé'e'. It’s bitter.
Pé'pé' pé'ish pé' pe'páchikpi' míyaxwe pál tíngish písh.
That’s why you have to leach it with warm water. ...
Pénga' pé' 'áy nánvayaqa tá' písh pe'séxpi'. And then it’s ready for you to cook.”
Acorns have been an important food for people throughout time.
When Elder Ernest Siva’s late mother, Katherine Howard, talked about acorns with anthropologist Michael K. Lerch,4 she said that during the preparation process, acorns need to be dried, cracked, and shelled, and then dried again.
Here’s an ancient kitchen tool used for grinding acorns. (Pat Murkland Photo)
After carefully leaching all the bitterness out of the acorns with water (a crucial step!), it’s time to cook the acorn dish.
Katherine Howard told anthropologist Michael Lerch that the leached acorn is heated to a boil with very little water, and needs to be stirred constantly. Dorothy Ramon added that the stirring must be done in a counterclockwise direction.
The Serrano name for cooked acorn dish is witsch. The Cahuilla name is we'wish.
The late Tongva Elder Barbara Drake, native plant specialist and Dragonfly Award winner, serving acorn to members of the Madrigal family at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s 2008 Dragonfly Gala. (Carlos Puma Photo)
Please join us. Explore Native American traditional uses of native plants for foods, medicines, tools, and more, from 10 am to 2 pm this Saturday, October 1, 2022, as part of Fall Fest at the San Timoteo Canyon Schoolhouse, 31985 San Timoteo Canyon Rd., about 6 miles west of Beaumont. Free family fun! Read more about the event HERE.
Other events:
“A Light to Do Shellwork By”: Dragonfly Lecture 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17. Elder Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez (Chumash/O’odham (Tohono and Akimal)), will read from her new poetry book, A Light to Do Shellwork By, and tell stories. Co-sponsored by Idyllwild Arts! We also thank the College of the Desert Visiting Authors of Color reading series for support and enthusiasm. Your $10 supports the Center’s programs.
Play Native American wooden flutes with the Dragonfly Wind Flute Ensemble players: The monthly flute class and gathering meets every second Saturday from 1-4 pm at the Gathering Hall at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning. $10 donation. Information, email: Brian Woodyard.
AHEAD: Dorothy Ramon Learning Center plans to bring back Native Voices Poetry Festival in early 2023, our regional celebration of the human voice in all the arts throughout time, from traditional songs and stories in our Southern California Native languages to contemporary creativity. The seventh festival will again feature performances and creative workshops for all ages. We are figuring out the dates so we can include our many partners and some new partners. Stay tuned and if you’d like to get involved, EMAIL.
Thank you!
Thanks for your support of the 501(c)3 nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center as we work together to save and share Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center welcomes your EMAIL. Thanks from Center leaders Ernest and June Siva and Editor Pat Murkland, September 28, 2022. Subscribe to News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. Discover, explore, and share Native American cultures every week. It’s free.
Lowell Bean, Dragonfly Lecture at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, 2011. Recorded with permission.
Read more about controlled burns and other ways that Native American people tended the landscapes around them in M. Kat Anderson’s Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. © 2005 by M. Kat Anderson, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London.
Katherine Siva Sauvel (also spelled Saubel) and Eric Elliott, 'Isill Héwas Wáxish, A Dried Coyote’s Tail, Book 1, pp 47-48, © 2004, Malki Museum Press, Morongo Reservation, CA
From Michael K. Lerch’s Serrano Uses of Plants in Joshua Tree National Park, a report dated June 1997. He learned Serrano cultural uses of native plants from Katherine Howard and her sister Dorothy Ramon in the 1970s.