Summer brings fun, singing, and sharing Native American cultural ways, along with good food. Here are a few events coming right up:
Native American Heritage Celebration
Lorene Sisquoc and Mother Earth Clan with a cultural display at an October 2022 event (Pat Murkland Photo)
Saturday, June 17, 2023
10 am-4 pm at Ya'i Heki' Regional Indian Museum,
Lake Perris State Recreation Area, 17801 Lake Perris Drive, Perris, CA
Lorene Sisquoc of Mother Earth Clan and Sherman Indian Museum says she’ll be at this event celebrating local Native American cultures. Come learn and be inspired by her and others.
Park officials say admission to the Heritage Celebration is free. However, the regular park entry fee of $20 per vehicle applies. (Ask about the senior citizen discount.)
Welcoming Home the Birds
Sunday, June 18, 2023
11 am-4pm, Idyllwild Arts campus, 52500 Temecula Rd., Idyllwild, CA
Celebrate Father’s Day with traditional bird-singing and dancing and cultural activities amid the Cahuilla homelands of the beautiful San Jacinto Mountains. All bird-singing groups are welcome.
Hands-on cultural activities will include Lily Clarke (Cahuilla cordage) and Blossom Maciel (Cahuilla games and toys), along with Native foods tasting. Shop from the wares of 13 Native artists, visit cultural displays (Lorene Sisquoc plans to be at this event, too), feast at the food truck, and then walk off any extra calories with meadow walks guided by Elizabeth Paige of Native American Lands Conservancy.
This free event kicks off a special week at the Idyllwild Arts campus:
22nd Native American Arts Festival Week
Shaliyah Ben, executive director of the Native American Arts Center at Idyllwild Arts, says, “For the past two decades, Idyllwild Arts has celebrated, centered, and held space for Indigenous communities during our Native American Arts Festival Week. Each year, as planning commences, it gives myself and my colleagues an opportunity to reflect on the rich history of the festival and Idyllwild Art’s legacy of positioning Indigeneity as core to our work — a legacy that traces back to 1950, as well as envisioning the dynamic future of Native American arts and culture.
“As we developed the theme for the 2023 festival, we turned to the notion of humor — highlighting and amplifying its intrinsic role in Indigenous lifeways, culture, and survivance. When reflecting on humor, I think of my own people, the Diné, and our laughing ceremony, which is one of the most significant occurrences in a young Diné person’s life. In this ceremony we celebrate our infants and the acknowledgement of their first laugh as a welcoming reception into this world, recognizing them as beings capable of expressing all emotions.”
Guest curator Dr. Meranda Roberts (Northern Paiute and Chicana) organized the festival exhibition Still We Smile: Humor as Correction and Joy, including works by the late James Luna (Luiseño). Workshops include basket weaving with Elder Rose Ann Hamilton (Cahuilla). Other participants are comedian and TV writer Joey Clift (Cowlitz), and artist, writer, and filmmaker Steven Paul Judd (Kiowa-Choctaw). The week ends with Good Medicine Comedy Showcase.
More information and schedule HERE.
Dragonfly Gala
Ernest and June Siva in 2009 in front of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in Banning. It’s no coincidence that USC colors are also the Center’s colors. Both are SC Trojans. (Pat Murkland Photo)
Eat some traditional cultural foods such as wewish (acorn) along with delicious pit BBQ beef and chicken at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Dragonfly Gala on Aug. 12, 2023, at Morongo Community Center, Morongo Reservation. We invite the community to celebrate the 501c3 nonprofit Learning Center’s 20th anniversary of saving and sharing Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional art. Please join us in honoring our beloved leaders, Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), our president, and his wife, June, our vice president.
Enjoy traditional bird-singing, dancing, and other traditional music, our epic silent auction, lots of cultural displays, and more! 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.
Thank you!
And thanks from Center leaders Ernest and June Siva and Editor Pat Murkland for reading, liking, sharing, and subscribing to News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, your FREE weekly online newsletter. We welcome your EMAIL. June 8, 2023.