Che he yom (Image Credit & Copyright: Blake Estes (iTelescope Siding Spring Obs.) & Christian Sasse via NASA)
By Pat Murkland
Now that the warm weather is here, we think about those older times on Native American homelands, when families often slept outside at night, under the wonder of stars.
When the late Cahuilla Elders Katherine Siva Saubel and her brother Alvino Siva were in their 70s, they fondly remembered those nights,1 and the stories their Elders would tell the children about the stars, as they drifted to sleep.
Right now, as the Moon is a waning crescent, we enjoy stars amid the dark skies and also look forward to June, when we’ll see the special stars of one story that’s been shared for hundreds of years.
Che he yom also known as the Pleiades star cluster (Photo by Bob Star courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)
The late Cahuilla leader Francisco Patencio remembered in 1939 that specific place in Moreno Valley where three girls “made the steps upon a hill and placed the signs, which are still there, and from them they went up to the sky, where they became the Seven Sisters.2
“But these were not seven sisters,” he explained, “only three. The other four stars are the jewels which they wore on their arms, about their necks, and on the caps on their heads. Among the Indians these stars are called Che he yom. These sisters only appear in June.”
He told about another star that we look for. “Now the three sisters … before they went into the sky, used to tease an Indian maiden because some of her teeth were missing in the front of her mouth. This caused her to be very much ashamed and sorry all of the time, so that she would never laugh, but kept her mouth closed. She became more unhappy all the time, so that she left her mother and father and became a star also.
“She became the most important star of all: the star that is known as the North Star. Her necklace of jewels still hangs below the light, and she guides all the world at night, the people on the land, as well as the ships on the sea. But she always keeps her face turned away from the three sisters. The Indians call her To quoush hem ish.”
Bird Singers and Dancers, M. Monguia painting at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, Siva Family Collection
At her visit at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center on May 15, 2023, poet and Elder Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez (Chumash/O’odham), remembered magical nights from her childhood when Cahuilla singers on Morongo Reservation would sing traditional bird songs through the night, under a wondrous canopy of stars.
Her daughter, Culture Bearer Deborah Sanchez, who studies and teaches the Šmuwič language (Chumash) in the Long Beach, CA, area, shared a poetic Šmuwič song that evokes the wonder of the stars.
(Note: this was recorded with an iPhone, so thanks for bearing with the on-location quality and background noises. Thanks to Deborah Sanchez for giving us permission to share.)
What do you see in the night sky?
Thanks
Dorothy Ramon Learning Center leaders Ernest and June Siva with longtime friend Georgiana Valoyce-Sanchez. (Pat Murkland Photo)
Thank you for reading along with News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, your free online weekly newsletter. We welcome your EMAIL. May 17, 2023.
SAVE THE DATE: DRAGONFLY GALA, AUG. 12, 2023, Morongo Community Center, Morongo Reservation. We invite the community to celebrate the joy of the Learning Center’s 20th anniversary as we honor our beloved leaders, Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), our president, and his wife, June, our vice president, and our 20 years of saving and sharing Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts.
We’ll have limited seating, so please make your reservation early,
TABLES: $1,000, $2,000, $3,000; SPONSORSHIPS ALSO AVAILABLE.
Individual tickets, $60. PLEASE RSVP HERE.
Personal communication, 1999, Pat Murkland
The two star stories are from Francisco Patencio, “The Story of the New Stars,” in Stories and Legends of the Palm Springs Indians, as told to Margaret Boynton, © 1943 by Caroline Snyder, Palm Springs, Times-Mirror Co. Los Angeles pp. 50-52.