This week it’s super hot in Southern California, and it’s easy to feel tired or out of sorts as we slog through life’s challenges. Here are some little gifts of beauty, resiliency, and inspiration for you, from the small ways and big ways that people save and share Native American cultures.
Growing Back
Resiliency: In the one-year anniversary of the Apple Fire, here are beautiful white sage and other medicine plants growing back after being burned to the ground. (Pat Murkland Photo)
A Cool Drink for You
We’ve been remembering how, on those hot summer days, our beloved friend, the late Daniel McCarthy, always used fresh lemons to make the energy drink of lemonade with chia seeds.
Chia plate centerpiece at an early Dorothy Ramon Learning Center Dragonfly Gala.
Want some? Here’s a recipe from native-plant specialist Kat High of Kidiwische Connections:
CHIA LEMONADE
Ingredients:
1 T chia seeds (from your local health food store)
1 c natural apple juice
2 t lemon juice
Ice
Preparation: Combine chia seeds and juice and let soak ½ hour until it gets thicker, like jelly. Add lemon and ice for a refreshing, slushy drink. You can add slices of lemon, a little fresh mint, too.
ADDED REFRESHER: Chia, the native plant of power, featured in this News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, is still one of your top reads.
More Native Food Tastes
At the Gala, Kat High, Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s 2019 Dragonfly Award winner, plans to share samples of native-plant foods and drinks from Southern California’s Native American homelands, including elderberry flower fizz, acorn coffee, and their recipes.
Her native-plant exhibit will honor those late Elders who shared much cultural knowledge of native plants with us. They include the Center’s 2012 Dragonfly Award winner: the beloved late Tongva Elder Barbara Drake. Some of Barbara Drake’s supplies have been donated to Kat High for sharing at the Dragonfly Gala.
Gifts of Cultural Continuity
While we reflect on the recent losses of so many Elders, we also are joyful that they worked hard to give everyone much traditional Indigenous knowledge to carry forward, now and into the future.
This photo illustrates some of the late Cahuilla Singer and Elder Alvino Siva’s hard (and successful) work to revive traditional Cahuilla bird-singing.
The other day when our 2021 designated Dragonfly Award winner, Kim Marcus (in this photo, center, back row), dropped by to visit with Dorothy Ramon Learning Center President and Elder Ernest Siva (far right), they remembered singing with — and learning from — their Elder, Alvino Siva (left), in this bird-singing group in the 1990s.
Both Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano) and Kim Marcus (Serrano-Cahuilla) have since passed along the songs to new generations and helped support the robust revival of bird-singing traditions.
Giving for 56 Years
Gifts from the heart — and the BBQ pit: Here’s an article from a 1975 Malki Museum newsletter, talking about the Malki’s 10th annual Kéwet 46 years ago: “As he has every year since the first fiesta, Cahuilla chef Cliff Mathews of Morongo will prepare the pit barbecued beef, justly famous throughout Southern California.”
The Mathews family has kept up this reputation by preparing delicious BBQ for more than 50 years to support the beloved Native American Malki Museum, and other causes, and also more recently, generously for Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. At this year’s Dragonfly Gala on Aug. 14, 2021, Roy Mathews will continue his family’s longtime tradition and prepare the Gala’s beef and turkey pit-BBQ main course.
We also welcome Malki Museum board members to the Dragonfly Gala as they showcase an awesome Malki Native American cultural exhibit at the gala.
(Keep an eye on the Malki website for the museum’s own “in person” events later this year. )
Reunion of friends
Explore these other Native American cultural interactive exhibits at the August 14, 2021, Dragonfly Gala: San Manuel Reservation’s Serrano linguists; Heyday Books/News from Native California; William Hayes of Loma Linda University with his desert animals; Morongo Cultural Resources; Morongo Reservation School; Native American Land Conservancy; Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Nonprofit; 2021 Dragonfly Award Winner Kim Marcus.
The Gala is sponsored by the Morongo Band. Please note: Seating is limited. Still time to RSVP.
Help support our 501(c)3 Dorothy Ramon Learning Center! If you cannot join us, we welcome your donation. Help save and share Southern California’s Native American cultures.
News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center loves to hear from our community: EMAIL. Subscribe, share! Thank you! Pat Murkland, Editor. August 4, 2021.