Rattle Painting, Blanket, by Gerald Clarke Jr. in Dorothy Ramon Learning Center Gathering Hall
This time every year we’re running around at top speeds, preparing to welcome you all to Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s annual Dragonfly Gala, our big celebration of Southern California’s Native American cultures. As you know, COVID-19 postponed this year’s Gala. This week, we’ve experienced the enormous Apple Fire as well. Our Learning Center leaders, Ernest and June Siva, are now home and safe. We have much to celebrate. Although our Gala now will wait until 2021, the joy of Native American cultural traditions always continue. At 6 p.m. (California time) Friday, Aug. 7, 2020, please join us on Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Facebook page, as Morongo Bird Singers sing “live.”
About Morongo Bird Singers and Dancers
We time-travel to the 2015 Dragonfly Gala, when Lead Singer Walter Holmes received Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Dragonfly Award for soaring achievements in saving and sharing Native American cultures. From our award ceremony:
“Born in Indio, Walter Holmes grew up on Morongo and Torres-Martinez Reservations. His father was from Morongo, and mother from T-M. He was well-steeped in his culture, and started learning to “sing birds” at age 6. He sang with Bird Singers Matt and Gene Pablo, and Anthony and John Andreas.
But he said he wasn’t serious about singing until he was 19. One day some college students came to Malki Museum and asked him to sing. There were no lead singers there, so he was put on the spot. He realized he only knew two songs well enough to sing them alone. So he sang the “long versions” of both. From that day, he got serious about learning the songs. He now leads the Morongo Bird Singers and Dancers. He sings at wakes, funerals, and civic events such as banquets and weddings. He especially feels it’s important to share with the general public. And he stresses the importance of passing on cultural knowledge to the younger generation. There are responsibilities on both sides, he says. Parents must share with children, and children must ask parents and other elders to teach them. Over the last decade he has taught bird singing and dancing at Morongo School once a week during the school year.
Holmes also founded Two Eagles Christian Ministry, based at Morongo. He thinks it is important to sing heritage songs in church. “For a long time Indians thought they had to put their rattles down to sing in church,” he says. He sings these songs to the Creator, and now he is asked to sing and speak not only in his own church, but in many others as well.”
The art of bird singing
This week we asked Gerald Clarke Jr. of Cahuilla Band of Indians to share his reflections on bird singing and how he incorporates this cultural tradition in his artwork.
“I was raised with a traditional understanding of the world and the importance of community,” Gerald Clarke Jr. says on his website. “I feel a responsibility to share my perspective and the humanity we all share. I don’t make Native American art. I express my Cahuilla perspective as a 21st Century citizen of the world and the passion, pain, and reverence I feel as a contemporary Cahuilla person.”
Explore more at https://www.geraldclarke.net.
Thank you from The Center
We thank you for your support. Dorothy Ramon Learning Center is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that saves and shares Southern California Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts. Join us at dorothyramon.org and Dorothy Ramon Learning Center on Facebook.
Please tell us what you’d like to see in your newsletter: Email. Thank you! Pat Murkland, Editor. Aug. 6, 2020