We’re sizzling under the sun in this Inland Southern California heat wave. It’s so hot that our desert tortoise, who thrives in summer, is sheltering underground in her cooler burrow. Above, the sky has conjured some clouds. Will it rain? Will thunder start booming in the San Bernardino Mountains?
Here’s a thunderstorm story, based on a story told by Serrano Yuhaatviatam leader Santos Manuel in 1918. The story is adapted from anthropologist J.P. Harrington’s notes and translated into Serrano by Mark Araujo-Levinson, with his Serrano language teacher, Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), president of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center. This story was shared with Morongo Reservation’s Cultural Heritage Department, and at Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s 2020 Native Voices Poetry Festival.
Great Horned Owl in Joshua Tree (Courtesy of Joshua Tree National Park, Photo by Robb Hannawacker)
Tuuk (Night)
Kwenevu' kesha' 'aweerngiva'.
There was a bad storm.
Hakupvu' weerngtu'.
It was raining a lot.
Kwenevu' te-er'cu'.
It was thundering.
Te-er'cvu' hakup kwaara'k.
The thunder was very loud.
Paarnia'tvu' tum hayp mermerher puukupyava' vernarqvernarq.
Lightning flashed throughout the sky.
Kwenemu' taaqtam hakup terrmq.
The people were very scared.
Kwenemu' wacha' chichinam yuuvuka' qac.
There were four boys outside.
Chichinam chaatu'aymu' yuuvuka' weerngap.
The boys were singing in the rain.
Kwenevu' wiihtavec kuuman akiiv.
The old man was sleeping in his house.
'Api'a'vu' howpk Muumt peyixka' wiihtavec kim.
Owl came to the old man.
“Charnarnk! Charnarnk!” Muumt keyvu' kwana'.
“Wake up! Wake up!” Owl said.
Wiihtavec charnarnk 'ami' hihii muumti' kwenevu' 'ama'.
The old man woke up and saw Owl.
“Mamc. Kwa'c chaatu', qay amay' warrêngk paavorhi' yuu' uva'im. Chaatu',” Muumt keyvu'.
”Listen. Sing. Not now, but at 6 in the morning. Sing,” Owl said.
“Haa. Ne'tan chaachwi'f,'” wiihtavec keyvu' kwana'.
“OK, I will sing,” the old man said.
Kwenemu' Muumt hiinyi'kcu' 'ami' wiihtavec hamek kuuman.
Owl flew away and the old man slept again.
Wiihtavecvu' charnarnk 'ami' mutu' hakup weerngtu'.
The old man woke up and it was still raining hard.
Kwenevu' wiihtavec chernuk 'ami' 'u' 'anyuy 'aayti'.
The old man stood up and picked up his rattle.
Kwenevu' wiihtavec mih yuuvuka' 'ami' qay' hihii chichinami'.
The old man went outside and did not see the boys.
Mutu' hakup rumaaruma'n.
It was still very dark.
Kwenevu' 'ama' mamc te-er'ci' 'ami' hihii weerngti'.
He heard the thunder and saw the rain.
Kwenevu' tikaltikalq pipitk 'owvap.
The lightning bolts filled his eyes.
Wiihtavec chernuk weerngap 'ami' 'eervk 'anyuy 'aayti'.
The old man stood in the rain, and he lifted his rattle.
Kwenevu' 'ama' poi'cu' chaatu'.
He began to sing.
Kwenemu' te-er'c poi'cu' rrewerrewetktti'.
The clouds began to disappear.
Kwenemu' weerng turruxk 'ami' taamit hyerchk.
The rain stopped and the sun came out.
Taamitvu' puchuk taami'. Kwenemu' puuyu taaqtam mih yuuvuka'.
The sun was very bright. All the people went outside.
Puuyu' taaqtam hihiim taamiti'. Puuyu' peehun 'a'ayec 'amay' nyihay kwana'.
All the people saw the sun. They were all happy.
Kwenemu' 'api'a' puuyu' taaqtam poi'cu' chaatu'.
After that, all the people began to sing.
'Ama' 'ayee.'
That’s all.
About this Story
The People
(Photo courtesy of the National Archives)
Linguist and ethnologist John Peabody Harrington (1884-1961) was famously obsessed with collecting cultural information from California Native American people. For more than 40 years, he amassed thousands of unedited field notes for the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology.
Santos Manuel was leader of the Yuhaaviatam, Pine Tree People, a coyote moiety clan said to be originally from the north side of the San Bernardino Mountains. Many Serrano people died amid sieges of smallpox and other diseases, and during an 1860s military-style campaign led by settlers aiming to kill all Native Americans in the San Bernardino Mountains. By the 1870s, most of the survivors, led to safety by Santos Manuel, lived clustered in the foothills near Highland. U.S. President Grover Cleveland in 1893 signed the patent authorizing San Manuel Reservation, which is named after Santos Manuel, north of Highland.
“Pakuma was his name,” Kim Marcus (Serrano-Cahuilla), one of his descendants, says. “He was a Keeka, an inherited leadership role and a leader that served the people and overseeing the Big House.” The Keeka (also spelled Kika) oversaw the ceremonies, Creation songs, and conducted the sacred song cycles. The Keeka kept the sacred ceremonial bundle for the Big (ceremonial) House.
Ethnology in the 1918 Pandemic
Most of Harrington’s work among the Serrano people was conducted from summer to late fall in 1918. Santos Manuel,1 along with his son Tomás, were J.P. Harrington’s main consultants on the Serrano and their culture, including the people’s cultural relationships with places in Serrano homelands.
“John Peabody Harrington made two trips into the San Bernardino Mountains with Santos Manuel in 1918. Carobeth Tucker Harrington, then married to Harrington, accompanied them on one of these trips. Both Manuel and Carobeth Harrington became ill with influenza on this trip. They stayed at the Swastika Lodge on the south shore of Big Bear Lake, and recorded a great deal of information in spite of the illness. (Laird 1975:104-108). On another trip, Manuel’s son, Tomás Manuel, accompanied Harrington and his father.”2
Mark Araujo-Levinson says that at the same time, J.P. Harrington was working with a Gabrielino consultant, José Zalvidea (aka Z), who was living in San Bernardino. “So, Harrington was multitasking with Serrano and Gabrielino. He would drive José Zalvidea, Santos Manuel, and Santos Manuel's son on road trips to collect placenames throughout LA, San Bernardino, and Riverside counties.”
Origin of this Story
J.P. Harrington’s notes are notoriously difficult to decipher, mixing a Spanish dialect spoken by his sources with Native American words and English, spelling the same words differently, and sprinkling abbreviations throughout. Mark Araujo-Levinson relayed his adventures in exploring Harrington’s notes and discovering more about the Chumash languages in the December 9, 2020, News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, “Not Extinct.”
Amid the many pages of notes about Serrano culture and language, Mark Araujo-Levinson said he found the main idea for this story from one of the interviews typed out in the notes:
“So, the story wasn't in Serrano in Harrington's notes,” he explains. “It was a mix of Spanish and English, and the main points of the story were from the notes, so, I filled in the gaps to make it flow better, and make it more like a story. … I had to translate the Spanish into English, and then once I had an idea of the English portion, then translate into Serrano.”
Ernest Siva: Owls as Messengers
Owls are messengers, often bringing news of impending illness and death. But it’s not always bad news. Elder Ernest Siva (Cahuilla-Serrano), president of Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, shares some of the story Tuut, and then tells a story of how an owl messenger helped his father, saying owls also provide good news and advice. (And p.s., Ernest, we hope your wrist feels better soon.)
Thank you!
Thank you to Mark Araujo-Levinson for sharing this story with all of us in News from Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, and to Ernest Siva for everything, including teaching Serrano to Mark. Thanks also to Kim Marcus and Michael Lerch for your help. Thank you to our readers for your support.
It helps us when you subscribe, read, share. Tell us what you’d like to read, and how to serve you better. Please EMAIL. Dorothy Ramon Learning Center, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, saves and shares Southern California’s Native American cultures, languages, history, and music and other traditional arts. Join us at dorothyramon.org and Dorothy Ramon Learning Center on Facebook. Thank you! Pat Murkland, Editor. June 16, 2021.
THE RETURN OF THE DRAGONFLIES: Dorothy Ramon Learning Center’s Dragonfly Gala is scheduled to return on Saturday, August 14, 2021, at Morongo Reservation Community Center. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone again. Watch for details!
J.P. Harrington referred to Santos Manuel as Manuel Santos. From an ethnographic report directed by Lowell John Bean and Sylvia Vane: “It looks as though during the transition from Takic language naming systems to Spanish and then to English naming systems, there was an interim period when it was customary for a man to take his father’s (Hispanicized) first name as a surname.” From iii, Appendix, “A Glossary of Serrano and other Native American Placenames and Other Terms, from the Ethnographic Notes of John Peabody Harrington,” in An Ethnographic Overview of the San Bernardino Forest, Part A: The North, by Northwest Economic Associates and Cultural Systems Research, Inc., for U.S. Department of Agriculture, Southern California Province, Angeles National Forest, February 6, 2004.
Ibid., Appendix, p. i