Seen not long after sunrise: Datura or Jimsonweed, after blooming and receiving the light of the full supermoon. This flower will soon wilt under the June sun. (Pat Murkland Photo)
By Pat Murkland
The night is bright this week with “Strawberry Moon,” the first of two consecutive so-called “supermoons,” or full moons that seem bigger and brighter because of their close orbits to Earth. This week we’re talking about a few Inland Southern California native plants that shine and glow eerily bright in the night under the summertime full moons.
These include native plants especially held sacred. They date back to Southern California Creation Stories and hold the power to kill.
Plants To See Under a Full Moon
While in spring we saw an array of bright flower colors, including the purple of the food-plant chia, now we’re seeing many flowers dressed in summer white:
WHITE SAGE
The setting sun catches the stalks of white blossoms of white sage. In moonlight they stand out in a different way. (Pat Murkland Photo)
Qas'ily (Cahuilla), qáṣil (Luiseño), khapshīkh (Chumash dialects), qaarqc (Serrano): 1 White sage, a sacred plant, traditionally is a purifier, food, and medicine plant, a shampoo and hair straightener, cleanser, and for dyes.2
As evening falls, the leaves of white sage seem to take on their own light. Note: I didn’t take photos in the moonlight, leaving it for you to witness. (Pat Murkland Photo)
DATURA OR JIMSONWEED
The first rays of sun after sunrise hit the fragrant but poisonous Datura blossoms. In moonlight, if you’re lucky, you can see hawkmoths acting like hummingbirds as they feed from the nectar and pollinate the plants. (Pat Murkland Photo)
Ma:nič (Serrano), Mánit (Cupeño and Gabrielino), Mo'moy and Momoy (Chumash dialects), Kiksawva'al (Cahuilla): 3 This highly sacred plant was used in ancient and older times as a giver of visions, for protection, and as a painkiller. The only plant that appears as a person in Chumash histories, Momoy (Jimsonweed) holds the power to see the future. 4 Datura blooms in the moonlight, and in daytime, the blossoms wither away.
All parts of this plant are highly poisonous. You can ingest the poison through touch. Modern-day people lack the knowledge of ancient times. Every year, people go into comas and die from consuming jimsonweed.
COYOTE’S TOBACCO, NATIVE TOBACCO
As the sun rises: All these tobacco flowers opened in the night and will wilt and die in the morning sun. New flowers will open in the night. (Pat Murkland Photo)
Pi:vt (Serrano), pivat and pivat-isil (Cahuilla): Another plant that blooms in the moonlight, its blossoms dying each day in the daytime sun. Used in ancient ceremonies and rituals, native tobacco is one of the first plants created by (Cahuilla) Creator Mukat, and was used by Isil, Coyote, the Ceremonial Assistant.
This tobacco plant was used instead of sage in older times for ceremonial smoke. “Often associated with power, gaming, the human soul, and many other activities and concepts.”5 Some pipes were brought out only for smoking in certain sacred rituals.
Native tobacco is another highly sacred plant that is highly poisonous. The several species of native tobaccos contain alkaloids that are highly toxic, especially affecting the nervous system. They can cause severe illness and do kill. While in ancient and older times, Indigenous religious leaders once were knowledgable in the use of native tobacco, modern-day leaders and Elders now conduct sacred blessings and other ceremonies with commercial, non-native tobacco smoke.
The closing flower of native tobacco in daylight resembles a falling star. (Pat Murkland Photo)
BLUE ELDERBERRY
The blossoms of elderberry resemble clusters of stars. (Pat Murkland Photo)
Kuuht (Serrano), Hunqwat (Cahuilla), and Kutpat (Luiseño): Food, medicine, materials for making music, basketry dyes. While the berries are ripening in what will be an extravaganza kind of year, some of the characteristic white blossoms remain on our local blue elderberry shrubs, glowing energetically in the moonlight.
And in what is now a common refrain, blue elderberry also contains poisonous alkaloids that quickly can make people very ill, so knowledge is key.6
In Moonlight
White plant blossoms typically gather and reflect the sunlight. But in the case of the plants that bloom at night, they beautifully reflect the light of the moon. You may notice as you see the world in the bright, cold, full light of Moon (Muat in Serrano, Ménil in Cahuilla and Cupeño, Mwar in Gabrielino, Moyla in Luiseño7) away from all human-made lights, that these plants, especially the jimsonweed and coyote’s tobacco, actually seem to glow like the Earth’s own stars.
Many may call this month’s full supermoon the Strawberry Moon, but in Cahuilla, the full moon when its spots show clearly is called yelamenyil, 8 according to Cahuilla anthropologist Lowell Bean. The next supermoon is due July 13, 2022. Go out, explore, and enjoy the mystery, art, and beauty of native plants in moonlight.
Before then … Save the Date, July 11, 2022
“Explore Native American Art with Gerald Clarke,” a community cultural in-person gathering and Dragonfly Lecture at 6 p.m. on Monday, July 11, 2022, at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, 127 N. San Gorgonio Avenue, Banning. Suggested donation $10. Join us for a creative journey with Cahuilla artist Gerald Clarke, who will be recognized at the Dragonfly Gala on Aug. 13, 2022, as our Dragonfly Award winner.
“Combining various media in his sculptures, paintings, and installations, Clarke derives artistic inspiration from his homeland’s cultural heritage and its desert and mountain environment. He utilizes wit and humor to expose historical and present-day injustices found in critical social, economic, and environmental issues facing our world.”
And Reserve Your Spot at the Aug. 13 Dragonfly Gala
Dorothy Ramon Learning Center is a 501c3 nonprofit led by Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano) that saves and shares Southern California Native American cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts.
Your $50 ticket, $1,000; $2,000; $3,000 tables; or Gala sponsorship on Aug. 13, 2022, Morongo Community Center, Morongo Reservation, all support the 501c3 Dorothy Ramon Learning Center.
Please RSVP, and reserve your seat or table, space is limited!
Thank you!
News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center welcomes your EMAIL. Thank you from Editor Pat Murkland, June 15, 2022.
Sources for plant names for white sage as shared in the April 20, 2022, News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center: Cahuilla, Lowell John Bean and Katherine Siva Saubel, Temalpakh: Cahuilla Indian knowledge and usage of plants, 1972, Malki-Ballena Press, pp. 136-138; Luiseño and Serrano, Kenneth C. Hill, Serrano Dictionary, University of Arizona, 1989 versioncopy received from author; Chumash dialects, Jan Timbrook, Chumash Ethnobotany: Plant Knowledge Among the Chumash People of Southern California, © 2007 Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and Heyday Books, pp. 184-186, and Serrano, Ernest Siva (personal communication).
Lowell John Bean and Katherine Siva Saubel, Temalpakh, p. 136.
Chumash from Jan Timbrook, Chumash Ethnobotany, p. 65; Cahuilla from Lowell John Bean and Katherine Siva Saubel, Temalpakh, p. 60, the others from Kenneth C. Hill, Serrano Dictionary, June 1989 version, p. 58.
Jan Timbrook, Chumash Ethnobotany, p. 72.
Lowell John Bean and Katherine Siva Saubel, Temalpakh, p. 90.
Lowell John Bean and Katherine Siva Saubel, Temalpakh, p. 138.
Words shared from different languages by Kenneth C. Hill, Serrano dictionary, June 1989 version, p. 67. Orthography is Kenneth Hill’s except for Muat, Serrano, from Ernest Siva.
Lowell John Bean, From Time Immemorial: The Traditional Ways and History of the Members of the Agua Caliente Reservation, © 2020 Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Agua Caliente Press, p. 52.