Bighorns and Dragonflies
The Paa'chucham, the Serrano Bighorn Sheep Songs, tell the story of how the first Bighorn sheep came to be. At one time these important Native American ceremonial songs were sung as frequently as they were meant to be sung. But as time went on, the world changed drastically, and these traditional songs began vanishing, right along with the Bighorn sheep, from Southern California’s Native American homelands.
Illustration from prehistoric rock art of a Bighorn sheep in the Coso Range. (Pat Murkland)
This week we’re talking about how 12 of the Serrano Bighorn Songs were saved about 50 years ago. We’re also spotlighting how the songs are just one part of the Native American cultural life that our 2021 Dragonfly Award winner is saving and sharing with new generations.
Join us as we share a few of these songs at our Dragonfly Gala on August 14, 2021, when Dorothy Ramon Learning Center honors Kim Marcus (Serrano-Cahuilla) with the 2021 Dragonfly Award for his soaring achievements in saving and sharing Southern California Native American cultures.
Kim Marcus, of Santa Rosa Reservation, is a Singer, Storyteller, and Culture Bearer who is dedicated to saving and sharing the traditional ways of Southern California’s First People.
This is Part 1 of a video interview by Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), president of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center (at right in video), with Dragonfly Award winner Kim Marcus, discussing their traditional singing, including the Paa'chucham.
In the 1970s, Lloyd Marcus, who had learned the songs from his father, Louie Marcus, saved the songs by giving a recording of 12 songs to Ernest Siva. For a while, Ernest Siva apparently was the only one singing the Serrano Bighorn Songs. He shared the recordings with Lloyd’s nephew Kim Marcus and his family. Through Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, Ernest Siva has continued to teach and share the songs with new generations. Kim Marcus also keeps singing, saving, and sharing.
Ernest Siva reminds us, what his great-grandfather taught: Learn the new ways, but never forget your songs, your culture, who you are.
Saving the Bighorn Sheep Songs
Illustration from prehistoric rock art of a Bighorn sheep in the Coso Range. (Pat Murkland)
(Excerpt from the Center’s Heritage Keepers newsletter, Spring 2008, Volume 5, 2)
By Pat Murkland
Creation
… “When we first came to this world and this world came to be, for us, there was a need for things that we have today, that we take for granted,” Mr. Siva explained in a [2008] … interview with Sherwood Chen of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts. “The Creator asked his Creation, his children, who would help us by becoming the grass [or deer, or other plants and animals] or the bighorn sheep, in this case. And the people who volunteered became those things. But as they became, as they began to change, they realized what they were doing, that this is the way it’s going to be … we’re not going to be like this anymore … We’ll have different ground to walk on, suitable for our feet. We’ll have specialized feet. Our bodies will fit where we’re going to live … So there is almost a kind of melancholy feeling.”
He kwe ma to kai yu pe … ‘Went into the mountain wilderness.’
Before each bighorn hunt, the Serrano would sing the Paa'chucham. The singer would dance with a built-in rattle of bighorn sheep hoofs attached to his leg. “So when they would sing the songs they would almost feel that transformation,” Mr. Siva said, “and by the time when the songs and dances were finished those dancers were wild creatures and they’d leave the ceremonial house — I’m talking about how they would re-enact — and from then on they were wild beings. That’s how the connection was maintained, so you would remember it, appreciate it, give thanks. As I said, when you sang the songs … the bighorn sheep each had a role to fulfill and that was to provide itself to serve mankind, so that instead of hiding and running away … he would be available and he’d become the game.”
Bighorn (Paa'rt)
The Bighorn sheep (Paa'rt in Serrano, plural Paa'rm, and Pa'at, Cahuilla) in older times was an important game animal, and seen as very powerful spiritually. It probably was one of the most difficult animals to hunt; bighorns tend to stay well-hidden and spend much time amid severely steep and rocky heights. “When possible, the hunters hid in well-camouflaged blinds at the water hole and shot the animals when they came to drink. The Cahuilla also hunted bighorn by following the game trails and picking off a bighorn as it walked the trail to a water hole.” 1
Every part of the Bighorn was used for tools, food, and useful materials, including its horns, hooves, and hide.
Dragonfly Memory
At the 2008 Dragonfly Gala, Ernest Siva, then 71, and his grandnephew, Isaac Horsman Rodriguez, then 17, sang several of the Paa'chucham as part of an apprenticeship supported by a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.
Isaac Horsman Rodriguez and Ernest Siva sing at the 2008 Dragonfly Gala. (Carlos Puma Photo)
As we reported in 2008, although Bighorn sheep in Southern California have dwindled dangerously in population and are no longer hunted, there is much to learn from the songs:
“Isaac’s mother, Carolyn Horsman, recalled seeing a map with the names of thousands of tribes across the North American continent. ‘When you see that and when you see what exists now, how can you say that genocide didn’t happen? You know something very surely happened to all of these people and those who are in the greater society need to keep hearing our voice, and that we’re still here. And that we create and craft our own story. And that maybe we don’t blend as well as people want us to blend, but we’re still a positive influence on the world. And the Bighorn Sheep Songs show that. They show that appreciation that people should have for life itself. That’s what it represents. Because that’s what Indian belief systems show. It’s appreciation for life and showing people how they need to live and behave toward each other.’”2
Illustration from prehistoric rock art of a Bighorn sheep in the Coso Range. (Pat Murkland)
Join us and hear a few of these beautiful songs at the Center’s Aug. 14, 2021, celebration of our Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts, when we also honor Kim Marcus for his soaring cultural achievements. Note: RSVP; Seating is limited.
Help support our 501(c)3 Dorothy Ramon Learning Center! If you cannot join us, we welcome your donation. Help save and share Southern California’s Native American cultures.
News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center loves to hear from our community: EMAIL. Subscribe, share! Thank you! Pat Murkland, Editor. July 28, 2021.
Bean, Lowell J., Sylvia Brakke Vane, Sue Myers, and James Toenjes, “Cahuilla Ethnozoology: Database and Report on Sixteen Faunal Species found in the Cahuilla Territory,” Cultural Systems Research Inc. report for U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Palm Springs, California, January 2007
Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Heritage Keepers newsletter, Spring 2008, Volume 5, no. 2, pages 1 and 6.