Young yucca plants grow in Inland Native American homelands. (Pat Murkland photo)
By Pat Murkland
The history that we wanted to share with you today in News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center was breaking my heart. I turned off my laptop, and went outside. Time to find balance, to see how the yucca and other native plants are all growing. So, we will share that history with you later, and meanwhile, welcome to this quick intervention trek, with a little time travel in Inland Southern California’s Native American homelands.
Yucca Visits
I walked briskly into the canyon wildlands, which were burned to a crisp in a pandemic 2020 wildfire and flooded heavily in severe rainstorms at the start of 2022. My main goal was to check on our resident Panu'ul (Cahuilla) and Uumuc (Serrano), or chaparral yucca plants (formerly yucca whipplei, now scientifically named hesperoyucca whipplei).
Post-fire and rain yucca (Pat Murkland photo)
The first yucca I checked on is growing beautifully!
Thus began my quick time travel. This Native American superplant has given essential foods and fibers for untold generations. The late Elder Barbara Drake taught us how to respect and thank the plant, harvest wisely so new plants can grow, and process properly.
2013 memory: The late Barbara Drake harvesting yucca. (Pat Murkland photo)
Most importantly, Barbara Drake exemplified cultural sharing. She shared yucca, for example, with Elders and others who otherwise may not have access to this traditional, tasty food. (She and others also still teach: If you don’t have specific permission to take native plants on private or public land, don’t do it.)
2013 memory: Rose Ramirez (left) and the late Barbara Drake used the Dorothy Ramon Learning Center kitchen to process and prepare yucca blossoms to share with everyone. (Pat Murkland photo)
Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), and his wife, June, leaders of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, love to eat the nutritious yucca blossoms, especially with their breakfast.
Leaching the harvested blossoms by boiling, part of the processing. (Pat Murkland photo)
As my quick trek continued, I climbed their hill to check on the progress of any plant I may harvest for them later this year, under the watch of Qwirriqaych (Mt. San Gorgonio), younger brother Ayaqaych (San Jacinto Peak), and their accompanying foothills. I thought of how prehistoric people saw these very same mountain views as they climbed these sometimes steep, brush-covered slopes, in search of plant news.
Near a dead yucca, a new generation of yucca thrives in view of Ayaqaych. (Pat Murkland photo)
The late archaeologist Daniel McCarthy in recent years often relayed plant news to the community, such as when the agave plants he carefully watched near Pinyon Flats were ready for Malki Museum’s annual agave harvest and roast. He scientifically surveyed yucca and agave each year over a wide area. Several years ago when he walked along this trail and looked at yucca with us, he said, “You should track these.”
So, I have been observing and hanging out with Panu'ul and Uumuc and enjoying their company, as you would with a good friend.
Resilient yucca on burned hillside. (Pat Murkland photo)
Back in Time
Yucca plants take about five years or so to grow and throw up their trademark stalk with living cloud of white blossoms. Knowing when native plants were ready for harvesting probably was one of the most important tasks that kept Indigenous communities thriving. Harvests such as agave and yucca in spring, and mesquite, acorns, and pinyon nuts later in the year, commanded much people-power and hard labor in picking and processing. A tribal leader couldn’t risk making a too-early or too-late call when the community food supply was at stake.
Cahuilla anthropologist Lowell Bean explained that competition from insects, rabbits, rodents, birds, and browsing deer could ruin plants that you were eyeing as valuable food: “However, the Cahuilla kept a sharp watch on the maturing plants so that they would be at the right place at the right time in sufficient numbers to gather crops as soon as they were mature.” 1
Nothing was predictable, though, as our own wildfire and more recent mudslides and flooding show in their transformation of our landscapes. “They never knew from season to season, or even from day to day,” Lowell Bean points out, “whether the plant food in their area was going to be available in sufficient quantity or quality for their basic needs. That it was sufficient over the long range in no way relieved the tension caused by immediate needs.”2
This world of unpredictability supports the strength in resiliency that is a hallmark of Southern California’s First Nations. And, as it appears, this resiliency also is a key characteristic of Panu'ul and Uumuc.
Today
I walked up a hill where the 2020 wildfire had burned all brush, the flames so intensely hot that they melted and destroyed all the plastic pipes on a nearby water tank. A long, dry period of little water followed, and then intense rainstorms pummeled our area at the start of 2022, triggering mudslides and rock slides, and carving out deep gullies on this hillside.
Yet on this day in 2022 the hillside was filled with yucca plants of varying ages, growing wherever the eye could see.
Yucca growing everywhere. (Pat Murkland photo
Not only did older yucca plants survive the fire and floods, new yucca plants are growing. So many. Apparently yucca plants like the changes that fire and water bring.
Yucca shines bright on burned and rain-eroded hillside. (Pat Murkland photo)
Resiliency. I was reminded that throughout history, the resiliency and strength of people also keep shining bright.
Thanks for reading along today. Comments welcome: EMAIL. Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, led by Ernest Siva, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that saves and shares Southern California Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts. We welcome your donations. (MORE INFO.) — Editor Pat Murkland, February 16, 2022.
Lowell John Bean, Mukat’s People: The Cahuilla Indians of Southern California, © 1972 by the Regents of the University of California, University of California Press, p. 51.
Ibid.