By Pat Murkland
When we drive along the 210 freeway past Arcadia, we’re usually not reflecting about the past. We’re stalled in the present — that is, usually stuck in traffic — and trying to reach our future, a destination that Google Maps inevitably predicts is now another 20 minutes away. We crawl westbound past the freeway exit signs naming the racetrack, a lone lasting relic of a time when the place had a giant ranch named Santa Anita.
It’s tough to imagine what the lands looked like more than 175 years ago, when a Scottish immigrant named Hugo Reid owned Rancho Santa Anita in the 1840s. Or the centuries before that, when these lands were solely Native American homelands.
Hugo Reid adobe and old mission bell at Rancho Santa Anita, ca.1900-1902. (Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library; From the California Historical Society Collection at the University of Southern California.)
Hugo Reid did leave us some of his memories. His wife was a Native woman described as a Gabrielino named Victoria, or Bartolomea. She was originally from the Comicrabit (or Comicranga) ranchería, and different biographies agree that when she was 6 years old she was taken to the nearby Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, which was near present-day Los Angeles. Married at age 13 or so in a forced marriage at the mission to a man named Pablo Maria, she was in her 20s but already a widow with four children when she married Hugo Reid around 1836.
Late in his life Hugo Reid wrote a series of letters about the local Native American people, and these letters were published in 1852. The Southwest Museum resurrected these letters in a 1968 book, The Indians of Los Angeles County, edited and annotated by Robert F. Heizer. This work is accessible for free online via the Library of Congress American Memory series, “California as I Saw it: First-Person Narratives of California’s Early Years, 1849-1900.” Link here. (Note: Some references in the text are considered offensive today.)
Here are a few interesting place names that Hugo Reid named [from pp. 7-9 in the 1968 book with Robert F. Heizer’s notes added]:
Yang-na
Los Angeles
“In Mission San Gabriel baptism records this appears as Yanga, Yabit, or Yavit with a total of 166 entries from 1777 to 1805.”
Sibag-na
San Gabriel
“In Mission San Gabriel baptism records this appears as Sibapet, Sibanga, Sibap, etc. A total of 218 baptisms from 1774 to 1811 are recorded: The San Fernando register has 32 entries (1802-1811) for the ranchería of Chibugna (Chibubit, Chibuna). Alexander S. Taylor (California Farmer , Feb. 22, 1860; May 11, 1860) states that the site of San Gabriel Mission was called Tobiscanga or Toviscanga.”
… Acurag-na
The presa
“Mission San Gabriel baptismal register has Acuranga and Acurabit entered 6 times between 1775-1800. The locative suffix -nga, -ngna , is Gabrielino and is affixed to the village name. The suffix -bit, -vit, -pet, -bet , etc., is the Serrano locative. Where both groups came together each applied its locative suffix to the village name. Johnston (1962: 10), however, quotes information from J. P. Harrington that the ending -vit, -bit or -pet “indicated the habitat of an individual, much as a New Yorker adds the 'er' to his city's name.”
Asucsag-nas
Azuza
“Mission San Gabriel baptismal register shows this as Asucsabit, Acuzabit, there being 228 entries for the period 1774-1811.”
Cucomog-na
Cucamonga Farm [Rancho Cucamonga]
“Hoffman (1885: 2) renders this Cucumog-na. In the San Gabriel Mission baptismal register the ranchería name appears as Cucamonga, Cucamobit, Cucamobuit, etc., 102 times for the period 1785-1813.”
Pasinog-na
Rancho del Chino [Chino]
“San Fernando Mission baptismal register gives this as Passenga, Passanga, Pachanga, Patzanga, etc. There are 14 entries dating from 1797-1804. It is probably the same name as Reid's Pasecg-na further on in this list and identified with him as “San Fernando.” It is not the native village at the mission, however, since in the introduction to the San Fernando baptismal record it is stated that the ‘mission was founded in the place called by the natives Achoiscomihabit’.”
Aleupkig-na
Santa Anita
“Written by Hoffman (1885) as Almpquia-na.”
These are only a few names from Hugo Reid’s list. In addition, many more village names appear in mission baptismal records, giving a glimmer of the vast scope of the First Nations in Southern California, and especially the villages around Los Angeles. And, despite Robert F. Heizer’s continual references in the 1968 book to the Native American people in past tense, THEY ARE STILL HERE.
Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s treasured friend, the late Tongva Elder Julia Bogany, worked hard for years to make the people VISIBLE.
And as we finally travel home, eastbound on the 210 freeway, between Baldwin and Santa Anita avenues in Arcadia stands a bridge that Julia Bogany had a role in designing.
Giant “woven baskets” flank the Gold Line Bridge.
The Gold Line Bridge, courtesy of Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority/LACMTA.
The giant baskets stand in tribute to the Native American people of the region.
As Julia Bogany said, “Be visible.”
Dorothy Ramon Learning Center Events:
Creative Poetry
Our free creative workshops co-sponsored by the Luke Madrigal Indigenous Storytelling Nonprofit, Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, and Pre-Texts continue this Saturday, July 22, 2023, at noon at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, 127 N. San Gorgonio Ave., Banning, CA. Poet Juan Delgado will lead a discussion as the group centers on an Indigenous story. Participants then make art or write creatively. All are welcome. Ages 16 and up.
Dragonfly Gala Update
Supporters have donated more than 50 silent auction items that include beautiful Native American art, jewelry and other eclectic items for the Dragonfly Gala on Aug. 12, 2023. It’s the 501c3 nonprofit Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s 20th anniversary of saving and sharing Southern California cultures, languages, history, and traditional arts. Help us honor Dorothy Ramon Learning Center leaders Ernest and June Siva!
SECURE YOUR SPOT. TABLES: $1,000, $2,000, $3,000; SPONSORSHIPS ALSO AVAILABLE. Individual tickets, $60. PLEASE RSVP HERE.
Your RSVP helps us make sure we can serve everyone! SEATING IS LIMITED.
We’re looking forward to our delicious meal with BBQ and traditional foods prepared by Willie Pink; displays and cultural exhibits with Mother Earth Clan, Morongo Cultural Department, Malki Museum, San Manuel Education Department, and more; traditional bird-singing and dancing; and our epic silent auction. Please join us!
Thank you
News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center is always FREE. We love to hear from you. PLEASE EMAIL. Thanks as always for reading along with us, from Center leaders Ernest and June Siva and Editor Pat Murkland. July 20, 2023.