By Pat Murkland
“Ayaqaych: Gathering Mountain” was the theme of the March 2023 Native Voices Poetry Festival, when we celebrated the Native voice in all the arts and our relationships with our special and unique landscapes. At our Festival we invited everyone to join artist Gloria “Toti” Bell of Banning in painting a community mural celebrating San Jacinto Peak, Ayaqaych. Today we’re sharing the results.
The peak of Ayaqaych as seen from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in Banning. (Pat Murkland Photo)
We wanted everyone to paint outside Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in downtown Banning, where we especially enjoy the view of the majestic drama of Ayaqaych, with its peak rising to more than 10,800 feet, one of the most prominent peaks in the United States.
The rainy weather, though, prompted the art project to move indoors, to the back of our Gathering Hall. This worked out better. As people painted, some traditional stories and songs that have been shared around the mountain for centuries, were shared again with the crowd at Native Voices Festival.
Kim Marcus (Serrano-Cahuilla) sharing traditional songs at 2023 Native Voices Festival. (Carlos Puma Photo)
We’ve marveled before at how, for miles around, for countless years, people in Native American homelands have had a special relationship with Ayaqaych. It’s a sacred site. The Serrano name Ayaqaych means “Gathering Mountain,” and as Ernest Siva explains, “This is where our people would go to gather and process foods and medicine. People of spiritual power would also go there to learn their songs.”
It remains a special place for all today. Artist Gloria Bell says she wanted the painting to convey how the mountain lives forever, calling countless generations.
She worked out a basic sketch and set up a plan with her young students, who came to the Festival to paint and contribute to the artwork.
Gloria Bell began the painting. (Carlos Puma Photo)
All at the Festival were welcomed to participate. The welcoming of all interested and the unity among collaborators reflects the mission of the 501c3 Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, where we bring together Native and non-Native people in a greater understanding of Native American cultures. We aim to build community unity as we save and share Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
The artists were from all walks of life. The youngest artist was 3 years old, and the oldest were age 70 and above. The artists signed the back of the painting. (Carlos Puma Photo)
But first, the sky, then the mountain, began taking shape.
“The mountain is the main focus,” Gloria Bell says. “It calls the people, for generations.”
The center of the painting featured a group of people representing the ancestors. (Carlos Puma Photo)
The people from the past are singing, holding children, holding food, and behind them bloom bountiful superplants of food, fiber, and medicine, the yucca plants.
On each side of the past generations are, “The present, and the future,” Gloria Bell says:
They are a bird singer, and a young woman wearing a dragonfly earring. The dragonfly introduces the Dorothy Ramon Learning Center dragonfly logo that’s on the Gathering Hall doors, which in turn refers to Center leader Ernest Siva’s signature Dragonfly Song.
You must have a quiet and calm heart when you sing the Dragonfly Song. Then you can call a dragonfly to come to you. Years ago, at the mountain’s Strawberry Creek, young Ernest Siva told this story to his future wife, June. Then he sang the song. And a dragonfly came and landed on his hand.
About the bird singer: As the Hall filled with traditional bird songs, the bird singer was painted and his bandana was added at the event. The bird singer was inspired by Elder Kim Marcus.
In many ways, the mountain collaborated on this painting.
“What the mountain gave us is still there,” Gloria Bell says. “It never goes away.”
Here’s the final work!
Presenting:
”Ayaqyach: Gathering Mountain,” by Gloria Bell and our community at the seventh Native Voices Poetry Festival.
Thank you to all our artists, and all those who participated in the creativity and sharing at our seventh Native Voices Poetry Festival, which in 2023 was co-sponsored by Idyllwild Arts Native American Arts Center. We’re looking forward to our next event together with Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez on May 15, 2023.
Thanks for supporting our nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, led by Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), now in our 20th year of saving and sharing Southern California’s cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
As always, thanks from Center leaders Ernest and June Siva and Editor Pat Murkland for reading, liking, subscribing, and sharing News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, your FREE online weekly newsletter. We value you. We welcome your EMAIL. April 19, 2023.