Elder Ernest Siva walks on his ranch with his dog, Remy (Remington). He sings and talks to Remy in the Native American Serrano language. (Pat Murkland Photo)
By Pat Murkland
Native Americans in Southern California have no word in their languages to describe a pet cat. Instead we see words borrowed from Spanish, such as the Serrano, gato. That’s because no domestic cats lived in Southern California before those felines began arriving with immigrants, especially from the late 1800s on.
Dogs wag a different tale. Dogs have been hanging about Native homeland hearths since the Creation. This week, News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center shares a few stories about rez dogs.
Dogs are useful. Southern California’s Native American people knew this from the start. Dogs help people hunt. They guard homes, especially at night. They bark needed warnings. For the region’s Native Americans, they also serve as messengers. They can come to you as a dark omen of your future. And they are, for a few, a source of supernatural power.
Creation of 'Áwal (Cahuilla)
Imagine this scene during the Creation, as told by Cahuilla ceremonial leader Alejo Patencio in 1925. Creator Mukat has made his creatures, and they have all just come alive:
“Then Mukat put all his creatures into the ceremonial house, for it was night. … When the sun arose in the east the dog was talking, but then he became dumb. He knows everything in his heart, but he cannot say one word.” 1
From then on, dogs became telepathic messengers. Dog lovers today understand exactly what Cahuilla people told anthropologist Lucile Hooper in 1918: “Dogs cannot talk, but they understand everything that is said. They have a soul just as we have.”2
Through time, dogs have stayed at Native Americans’ sides. John Morongo (son) sits with his dog, circa 1890-1920, at Morongo Reservation. Courtesy of William H. Weinland Collection, Box 2, photCL39 (130), Huntington Library
Homeland Security
Cahuilla people told Lucile Hooper that Creator Mukat assigned 'Áwal to guard homes and protect the people. A few Cahuilla dog names that Ramon Garcia of Morongo Reservation shared, names “said to have originated in the beginning,” show how tough it once was to be a protector:
Honwet-mihanwish (male). “Fights bear.”
Honwet-mikish (female). “Fights bear.”
Iste-mihanwish (male). “Fights coyote.”
Iste-mimikish (female). “Fights coyote.”
Nishkish, “Ashes,” comes from the dog’s guardian role: “People used to throw their ashes outdoors in a certain place,” Lucile Hooper wrote. “The dog would sleep on that spot because it was warm. After doing this, one dog became gray and looked like ashes. After that he was called Nishkish, as all such appearing dogs still are.”
Historic rez dogs: The dogs stay close to the big table filled with a feast, at a gathering (unknown) at Morongo Reservation circa 1908-1929. Courtesy of The William H. Weinland Collection, Box 6, photCL 39 vol. 1 (72), Huntington Library
Keepers of Secrets
Dogs are all-knowing. They hold special powers. For example, in a story that Joe Lomas told in Cahuilla in 1964, a Cahuilla cultural hero named Yellowbody consults first with his dog about a method that may kill an enemy. 3 At the story’s end, Yellowbody, his mother, and his brown dog walk together into the hot spring at Kúpa (Warner Hot Springs, especially a sacred site to the Cupeño people), “and still live there today, strange beings who never die, dogs. People sometimes saw them — the brown dogs — as they run about. After a while they disappeared into the water again. … This story is altogether true. To this day the people living in Torrez say that they (the beings living in the water) are their ancestors.”4
Sean Milanovich (Cahuilla) says: “At Aguanga, meaning ‘From the Dogs,’ it was reported dogs were seen coming out of the spring there. The three-headed dog was seen coming out of the spring in the past. The dogs are spirit protectors of that place.”
In other stories, people are transformed into dogs to test people. Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), president of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, told a video story in our March 31, 2021, News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center about Gopher Woman and the transformation of a dog. In this video he shares a little more about that story in relation to the Cahuilla Dog Clan.
He tells about his dog, Remy (Remington), and other memorable dogs.
Dogs of Power
The paperback cover of Lowell Bean’s 1972 classic, Mukat’s People, shows Pedro Chino with his dog.
The dogs of Pedro Chino, a powerful Cahuilla pá'vu'ul shaman, served as messengers to him. Katherine Siva Saubel tells one such story in her 2004 cultural memoir.5 Pedro Chino doctored and cured a sick man who traveled to Palm Springs for help, she said. Unfortunately the man was not only ill in body, but also ill-willed. He boasted to all that he’d cured himself. He kept secret Pedro Chino’s role. The man then got sick again.
Pedro Chino’s two dogs told him the man was returning for more doctoring, Katherine Saubel said. The dogs explained how disrespectful the man was, and encouraged Pedro Chino not to cure him again. One dog said, “Péqi' 'ísh kúkusqa.” “He is just making fun of you.” Sure enough, the man came back for treatment. Pedro Chino’s heart was not in his doctoring, Katherine Saubel said. And he didn’t cure the man; after the man returned home, he became very ill again and died.
Dog days
Rez dogs offer some flaws, some endearing and some, not. In the Creation Story told in the 1930s by Cahuilla leader Francisco Patencio, Creator Brothers Mukat and Témayawet “smoked the tobacco and created Ow il (a dog). They gave him some tobacco also, but the smoke hurt his eyes, and he has never been able to see so well by day as at night since.”6
They can see and smell well enough for food. In these two historic photos, circa 1920, opportunistic dogs are “no end of help” during the lunchtime break at a springtime cattle roundup on Morongo Reservation. In the first photo, a dog stands hopefully as the people gather to pick up their lunch food.
In the second photo, a different dog zooms toward the people who are seated on the ground, eating. Is this the same dog that’s standing near the feast table in the social gathering photo above?
Hopeful of getting a share. Courtesy of William H. Weinland Collection, photCL 39 (115), Huntington Library
People seated on the ground, at dog’s eye level, eating — an opening for any dog, whether 100 years ago or now. Courtesy of William H. Weinland Collection, photCL 039 vol. 1 (82), Huntington Library
“Rez Dogs Eat Beans”
And of course the dogs could have whatever the people were eating. At the Learning Center’s Native Voices Poetry Festival, Gordon Johnson (Cahuilla-Cupeño) shared his story: “Nearly every [Pala] reservation household has at least one dog. Many have two or three. With no fences, the dogs have the run of the place, free to do as they please,” he said.
“In the morning, some chase rabbits through the willows and cottonwoods across the river. As the day heats up, they’ll nap in the shade of the Mission San Antonio porch, or under the pepper tree behind the Pala Store. Some dogs follow their kids to the mission school, where nuns throw blackboard erasers at them to chase them out of classrooms. Others stick close to the back porch, ever watchful for a half-eaten tortilla roll tossed their way or a greasy frying pan that needs licking.
“I get a kick out of dog food commercials, like the one where the guy’s champion Weimaraners point quail and dive headlong into the pond to retrieve downed ducks. With nutrients scientifically balanced, his dogs only eat the best, he boasts.
“Reservation dogs eat beans. A dog that won’t eat beans doesn’t survive. A woman who gossips too long at her friend’s home and returns home to find her pot of beans scorched doesn’t throw them out. She dumps them into the dog dish. … Reservation dogs are tough. They’re known for it.”7
Dragonfly Gala Soon
SAVE THE DATE: Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Dragonfly Gala is scheduled to return on Saturday, August 14, 2021, at Morongo Reservation Community Center. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone again. Watch for details!
Thank you for reading News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center! It helps us when you subscribe, read, share. Tell us what you’d like to read, and how to serve you better. Please EMAIL. Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, saves and shares Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts. Join us at dorothyramon.org and Dorothy Ramon Learning Center on Facebook. Thank you! Pat Murkland, Editor. June 9, 2021.
Strong, William Duncan, Aboriginal Society in Southern California, (reprint from Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press, 1929. Series: Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, v. 26.), 1972, Malki Museum Press, p. 136 Note: His last name was spelled Potencio by William Duncan Strong.
Hooper, Lucile, in Studies in Cahuilla Culture, A.L. Kroeber and Lucile Hooper, “The Cahuilla Indians” (reprint from Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif. University of California, 1920, Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, v. 16) 1978, Malki Museum Press, p 361 (87).
Seiler, Hansjakob, Cahuilla Texts with an Introduction, © 1970, Indiana University Publications, Language Series Monographs, v. 6, Editor, C.F. Voegelin, pp 64-73, story told in Cahuilla in 1964 by Joe Lomas.
Ibid, p. 72.
Saubel, Katherine Siva and Eric Elliott, 'Isill Heqwas Wáxish: A Dried Coyote’s Tail, Malki Museum Press, 2004, Book 2, pp. 788-790, “Pedro Chino Communicating With Dogs.”
Patencio, Francisco. Stories and Legends of the Palm Springs Indians. As told to Margaret Boynton. © 1943 Palm Springs Desert Museum, p. 4
Johnson, Gordon, Rez Dogs Eat Beans and Other Tales, © 2001 by Gordon Johnson, 1st Books Library, “Rez Dogs Eat Beans,” pp. 1-3. Originally published in The Press-Enterprise newspaper.