 In my Chochenyo-Aloni language, what I said is, good evening, and welcome to the land. My name is Vince Medina. I am a member of the Muakma-Aloni tribe of the East Bay. And tonight it's supposed to be a wonderful night full of beauty and strong words due to the wonderful rain that we're having, which we can't complain about it because it's great that we're having this, right? Some of our speakers might be running a little bit late, but I figured that it's better that we start to share some songs, to share words, and to share this immense beauty of native California. This is a spoken word event. It's an open mic event. There's no agenda that's part of this, and the reason why I wanted to have this event as an open mic is because it represents the dynamic beauty, the enduring beauty that's here in California. Historically in California, there's 120 different languages that are spoken, just within the modern boundaries of what we call California. Today, 60 of these languages are spoken today, and many more are being relearned and revitalized, including my family's language, Chochenyo. Chochenyo is the language of the East Bay, so the language of, if you think, Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, all the way down to about San Jose, and it's a very close, close, close sister to Ramatouche, which is the native language of San Francisco. Historically there's about eight different Aloni languages that are spoken in this area that stretches from San Francisco, Vallejo, all the way down to about Monterey. And today, three of these Aloni languages are being relearned and reawakened. Chochenyo, which is my community's language, Rumsin, which is the Monterey Aloni language, and we're fortunate to have Gray Castro, who is Rumsin Aloni here tonight, and Mutsin, which is the language of the area near Gilroy. I'm proud that these languages are coming back and that they're being reawakened. And to give a bit of an overview about who I am and my connection to language and my passion for language, so I am Aloni, I am East Bay Aloni, we're the native people of this area. And for about 70 years, our language was said to be extinct. It was said to be dead, to be lost to time. It was, as a result of things like the missions, missionization, the Spanish, when they came here with missions, they forced us not to speak our languages. During the secularization period and the Mexican ranchos, communities became sometimes disconnected and people didn't have others to speak to. And during the worst time for us, which is the Gold Rush genocide, people would often be killed if they spoke their languages. And it was a horrible and terrifying time to be Indian. But somehow, out of those horrible atrocities that occurred, and we know that history can be very unfair, somehow our languages persevered and our cultures persevered, our identities persevered, our stories, our dances, our religions, all of these things that many thought would at one point be silenced, kept going, and they're still here today. And I avoid this mantra that's often all throughout the California Indian world that just says, we are still here because we're more than just still here. We're thriving and we're doing very well. We're doing very well in reclaiming things that were taken from us. We're doing very well in reinventing and adapting to changes. And the words that you'll hear tonight are words that are connected, and these are the oldest words of this area that today we call the Bay Area. So for thousands of years before this land heard anything else, before the land heard Spanish or English or any other language, it heard the native words that are going to be spoken tonight. And I thoroughly believe in my heart that language also has healing capacities. It heals. And when the land hears the words and the words come back to life and the words are reawakened, then what happens is the land hears something that it's heard for a very long time that must be very comforting. And with that, there are spiritual capacities that are connected to the language. So people ask, well, if all of these difficult challenges occurred and if the language stopped being spoken for 70 years, how are you able to speak it today? And that's a realistic question. That's a fair question to ask. And the reality is that we had to relearn it. We had to reconnect with it. And what happened is after the missions that I was describing, after the Gold Rush genocide, after all these atrocities, the language kept being spoken, but only by a handful of people. So Rumson, Mutsin, and Chochanio all had just handfuls of people that were speaking the language, just a couple, three or four maybe, that's it. And could you imagine, just, you know, think about this, what a terrifying time it must have been to be what could be the very last of a language that goes back thousands of years. It must have been absolutely terrifying. But despite that terror, despite that unknown world that was in front of them, they kept speaking. And one of the elders in our community, his name is Jose Guzman. He's one of our ancestors. He's a Loni. He's East Bay a Loni. When he was asked about the language and when he was documenting the language, he said, which means as for me, I am not going to stop speaking. So we have an obligation, I believe, as modern day Indian people, as the indigenous people of this land. We have a unique obligation to continue the language and to continue on, even if we're entering uncertain times. And even if we're entering times that we don't know, you know, because who knows, maybe all of this work that we're doing right now, maybe in 50 years, nobody will care about it anymore. That could be a reality. But we face those challenges and we keep going because we know we have an obligation to walk in the footsteps of those giants before us who refuse to stop speaking the language. And these people, what they did was they recorded thousands of pages of notes of documentation of their language with linguists that came throughout the Bay Area. And in my community, there was a linguist named John Peabody Harrington who recorded many Loni languages. He recorded Chochenyo, he recorded Rumson, he recorded Mutsin Loni languages, and also many Chumash languages as well. And he recorded these languages and many people see him as being a hero and he is a hero in his own right. But the heroes to me are those people who gave the information and who sat down with Harrington, who recorded their words, who recorded their stories, and they recorded also their songs on wax cylinder recordings. And we're talking songs that are sung about Mount Diablo, songs that are sung about Mission Peak. There's stories that go back into the beginnings of the world when all of the world was flooded, except the very peak of Mount Diablo, which in our language we call Tushchuk, which means the place of the day. But after Indians escaped the missions, the Spanish called it the Thicket of the Devil. So Mount Diablo is where we get the name today. I like our name better, that's just to be said though. They told these stories of a time when giants roamed the world, when stone bodies were being defeated in the underworld, and they told these stories as if they happened yesterday. There was just immediacy to recording these stories. And I think of these people who recorded these stories and these tales, these legends. I think of these people as being my heroes, like my martyrs, because they weren't going out without a fight. They weren't going out without at least trying to say their language, and they succeeded because we're able to speak it today. We came together as a community, my tribal community, and many other tribal communities in California, and we started to reawaken the words. So to relearn them from the old documentation that exists, from wax cylinder recordings, by listening to the words, by listening to their pronunciation, by listening to their grammatical structures. And what I started to realize, and many other people in our community as well, is that when we reawaken the words, we peer into this world of complexity and of beauty. Because when a lot of people say, oh, you can learn about the past through archeology. You can learn about the past through accounts of what people wrote in the Spanish. You can learn about the past through this way or through that way. And there's truth to that, I suppose you can. But what you can't learn through archeology, or through the accounts of the Spanish, or through the accounts of Gold Rush, you know, people coming in and writing about Indians. Is you can't peer into the soul of how a people saw themselves, but with language you can. And there's a lot of negative things that are out there about Indian people, especially Indian people in California. Things that are instilled in our minds through fourth grade circulums of having to build horrible mission projects of having to go and read about these minimalistic people who collected acorns and just kind of seem to disappear. That's often what's presented of us. The reality, though, is far more complex. And when we look into the language, we see the complexity. We see the beauty. We see the way that people interacted. We see the way that people came together. And that in itself shatters all stereotypes that are out there. And so when I say language can heal, this is one thing that I would like to discuss. And maybe put the seeds in your mind. That language does heal because it empowers us with our confidence. It raises our self-esteem and it connects us to the oldest words and the oldest people of this land. And those people are still here. They're still here physically. They're still here spiritually. And in Chochenya we have a phrase. And the phrase is And it means the ground turned to stone. But below and above the world of the spirit remains. And it's important to think about this because if you look around at a place like San Francisco, it physically is stone. It's concrete, right? Look around. You don't see much existence of Indian culture. You don't see much of the thousands years of existence of Indian people in this area. I mean it's really hard to even notice that we even are here. But as long as we're here, we are in itself, we go against the stereotypes. We shatter the stereotypes. And we delegitimize the fact that other people own this land that really can't be owned. Because the land is alive and it's a part of us. And it's connected to our DNA, to our blood. It's connected to everything that makes us a Loni today. Everything that makes us indigenous. So I wanted to do two things. And then I'm going to open up the mic to my fellow Native Californians who are here to sing or to share words. Or to offer blessings, offer prayers, whatever they would like. We live in a modern world, so we do have time limits. 730 is the time that they told us that we should be done. So I'll try my best to keep this on time. But I would just like you to think as you're hearing these words, you know, maybe put yourself somewhere else. And just think that these are the oldest words of this area, of our home. This is our home. And we have a right to speak this language. We have a right to speak our words. And when we do, we bring them back to this place that they've been in since the beginning of time. I'm going to say a prayer and during this prayer I would ask you to stand. I'll tell you in Trochanio and then I'll repeat it into English. Oh, you're welcome to sit down. In our language it means to you, creator, I'm grateful for, oh, sorry, I'm trying to think of the literal words. Because I've realized what I end up doing is I think more in Trochanio sometimes than in English, which is not a bad thing, right? But our word for creator is waka na hexe. And waka na hexe, what it means is the one who commands, the one who controls. And I said, I'm grateful to you creator. Creator, to you I'm grateful. It's a new day and we are all here together. I ask you creator to listen to me. I ask you to listen to me. To my ancestors, to our loved ones who passed. I'm grateful for your strength and your power. To our elders, the old timers, I'm grateful for your wisdom and for your dignity. For the generation that will come, for your dreams yet to be. For the sun that rises, for giving us a new day, for birthing us. And to you creator, for healing us, for your healing capacities. And we learn from our ancestors where they teach us every day. And every day can be a struggle or a fight, but every day we keep going. And every day we fight for our languages and every day we fight for our people. And every day it might seem difficult, but we, the translation is we tread on, we keep going. So we speak our languages and we cure our people. And because of this tomorrow will be better and we know it will be better because it always gets better. So that's a prayer I couldn't have said earlier in my life. But I know that we're being guided by people outside of us. We're being guided by our ancestors, I thoroughly believe. So I have been talking a lot. And there's other Elonis and other native people in the room who have a right to talk. And I want people to be able to share their words. My friend Canyon, Sayers Ruth, is here. And she's Moots and Eloni from the area near Salon Batista. Gray Castro is here. He's Ramson Eloni in Salonon. And then also Carly Dominguez. Where's Carly at? She's back there. And so Carly is Chumash. There are relatives from down south in the Santa Barbara area. And if there are any other California native people who wanted to share words in their language, you're welcome to. It's an open mic. And I'll try to, I'm a very poor MC, but I'll try to do my job to rotate people up. And then also I wanted to share a Chochanio Eloni story. So if I could start perhaps by asking Greg to come and share some words. I hate podiums. Because then somebody might say, Greg was up making a speech last night. God forbid that anybody said I made a speech. I like talking to people. Might be hard to imagine that for some of you that know me that at one point I was so shy I could barely talk to myself in the mirror. Me she's too. He's our young and very forceful and talented friend, Vince Edd. I'm Greg Cascio. I'm Totrol Selenin, Rumpson Eloni. And on my mother's side, my Rumpson homeland is Carmel Valley. Mostly around the village of Tukutinup. Which is sort of a bare patch of ground next to the creek nowadays. So what lives of our people is right here. Imagine a people that believe they came up right from the ground. Many of our native stories in California talk about were made from the things of our earth. My mentor was Pitt River. I believe that his people came from a berry bush. My Selenin people thought we came from elderberry. So that dynamic is repeated in most of the cultures in California and having that connection to where you're from. Just think about that. And having it exist for thousands of years. And the language came from that. We came right up from the ground and we were kind of staring around. And we had to describe to each other what we were seeing, what we were feeling, what we were experiencing. And that's where language came from. It came from the very place that we came from. So they're all intimately tied. The language, the place we came from, and us. And the language doesn't really exist apart from us. But as Vin said, for many of the communities it went to sleep. And we're now reawakening it. Slowly, carefully. Some more than others. I really admire those like Vince and Canyon who have committed themselves. And so much of their time to learn your language. I have not. I have other things that I'm doing. Protecting the cultural sites and other endeavors. So I've only learned a spattering over languages. Both Rumson and Selenin. What I have learned though is a couple of languages from my cousin Linda. So I'm going to do one now. Just real quick. We do have a time limit. So I won't do the original version which lasted about four or five days probably. Not sure we have enough coffee for that. So it'll just be a few, just a couple little snippets. Just a few snippets. That's one of my favorites. It's not because it's the easiest actually. I worked on that one because I don't know. I told my cousin Linda. I said some of the words they sound Jewish to me. The pronunciation is just, and I'm not Jewish. So I don't know where that came from either. But it just sounds what I've heard Jewish words pronounced. It sounds sort of like that. But it's Rumson. And it is very tied to our area. It is the Fog song. And those of you in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area would know about Fog. And just like San Francisco Monterey has Fog. And sometimes we just want it to go away. It's Dennis' job. It's brought moisture to the plants and animals. And okay, you're done. You need to go home. Sometimes it doesn't listen. So you have to encourage it. That song has to be repeated sometimes many, many times before the Fog finally gets the message and goes home. My understanding of the translation for that, this shows you how connected we are with our land. What an intimate, personal connection we have. It's telling Fog, you need to go home. Pelican is beating your wife. Our ancestors had a sense of humor when I was much younger. And I first came out of my tribal community and was doing work with other communities. I have to admit that I was amazed even though I knew Indians weren't dead, right? Because I went to school, they said the Indians were dead and I went home and told my dad. They said, we're all dead. And he said, that's okay, son, because then they won't try to kill you. But it was still amazing that there was other native people. And unlike us, neither, where I was inside, the last speaker was probably in the 1920s, maybe 1930. And this little inside, 1964, little later, because there were much more rural, they managed to hide better for a little bit longer. But the last one passed on in about 1964 that we know of. And then nobody spoke it. My dad doesn't remember many words being said in his language from his grandparents who raised him. And so it was a revelation to me to hear native people. Speak their language. I knew there was native people, but they actually spoke their language, practiced their customs, did their traditional ceremonies. Obviously I didn't get that from our public school program. That information and hearing it directly from the people was amazing to me. And the first one I remember was at Canyon's Place in Indian Canyon, the first storytelling festival way back in the early 90s when Canyon was very small. And the first speaker was a well-known basket beaver. Her name is Nancy Richardson-Steel. She's Kuduk and she got up. And I think some people thought it was a little rude because she started talking and nobody could understand what she was saying. And she kept going because they figured after a point she would stop and do the translation thing, right? And she didn't. She probably talked for about 40 minutes and told about four or five of her origin stories all in the Kuduk language. And myself, just like everybody else, I didn't understand a single thing she was saying. But to my ears, it was like a song. It was magical. It was a lyrical flow to it. And she did gestures, and so you kind of got the idea that it had something to do with frog women, which is one of their origin stories. But just the fact that you're hearing this in that magical place of Indian Canyon, ancient on its own, and hearing this ancient language and that there are still speakers out there. And I'm not a hopeful kind of guy in general. I'm pretty pragmatic. And if I look around and I know enough my history to know just what we've been through, but that gave me hope. And I still have hope, with these young people here that you're going to hear tonight, that they've brought back the language. There's others within the Aloni community that are virtually conversational. Now imagine that. It's been three quarters of a century or more since we've had speakers and we have people having conversations. That is a story in itself, I think that's going to be told in the future. Let me see if I can remember one more song. I decided not to tell any stories. I tell mostly silent end stories. And we'll stick for that for the moment. Unless I can't stretch out enough and we need to kill some time at the end. But when Indians get the mic that's usually not a problem. That was a dear song. One little quick story. It's a very ancient story about a month old. We were at the heyday celebration. Heyday books had their 40th anniversary celebration a couple of weeks ago and there was about 500 people, which is pretty amazing because I heard there was only 250 tickets available. So I don't know who crashed or who slipped under the wire or something like that. But there was a lot of people there celebrating this marvelous publication that has done a lot for 80 people. Our young emcee, Vince, works there. Lucky guy. And one of the things that was really neat is Vince set up a gambling table. Right? So I'm watching him gamble. I think when I walked up he wasn't doing that. He was doing that. He was doing that. He was doing that. I think when I walked up he wasn't doing that well. And so he called out for a song. We were starting to talk about, we need a song, right? I've just been trying to think of the song. I can't think of it because we're not gambling. See we need to have the stakes out here. But at that moment I did think of a gambling song and it worked while I sang it. I think, did you wind up winning? You won 40 bucks. I didn't get any of that. But that shows the power of our song sometimes. Right? Yeah, this is a gambling song. So we can all go out and buy a lot of tickets. Hopefully you'll share a little bit of it. Okay. It went into the pot. Then they go into your pocket, did it? To try to get it. Okay. Okay, so that's what we're doing now. Okay. And then we have to bring it back to the table. So we have to bring it back to the table. Okay. Didn't they go into your pocket, did they? To arrange this. OK. You're covered. Some Indians are really fast. If I only look stunned here, it's because I was, because I was only asked to do this a couple of minutes ago. I didn't know it was an open mic. Good thing I, it's a half clapper will travel always, keep it with me, never thinking I'd actually use it. In fact, usually it's when I don't have it that they usually get asked. Didn't work this time, but I'm just happy to share a little bit of what I know of the Rumson culture. The final thing I wanted to say of that message of hope, the last month I've been doing a lot of conferences and symposiums and panels, and a lot of them had to do with what happened to us, and not necessarily the good part, but not the 15,000 years of history. It's just the last 150 or 200 years of history. And that was a heavy weight. Some of the stories are really horrific, and it's probably a good thing. In some ways, our school system didn't tell you these things, because they can give you nightmares. And this is things that humans did to other humans. And I'm facing it now because tomorrow I'm actually going to go into a classroom and talk to a fourth grade class. Hopefully they don't have Popsicle Stick missions staring at me. But the good thing is that there's hope. We lost more than 90% of our people. So those of us that are here and that claim our connection to our ancestors came from that rugged and brave 10%. So I thank you for honoring them by your presence and listening to our words. Thank you. Thank you, Greg. Greg Castro, he's always been a role model to me. And he lives up to his words by protecting our sites, by protecting culture. And Greg and I, before we had this conversation, where us as a younger generation, we're able to continue on so much knowledge and all of this because of the elders in our community. We couldn't have done it without elders who passed on and who kept that language and kept that knowledge, even if they didn't speak the language. My grandfather didn't speak Chochenyo. My grandmother didn't speak Chochenyo. But they kept that core of what it meant to be Indian alive. What it meant to be indigenous to this land alive. And recently what I've been doing and before I pass on the mic to Canyon is I've been hosting language classes where we come together in my family. And we come together at this place called the Aloni Cemetery, which is in Fremont, close to Mission San Jose. And we've been having community-based language classes there that started small. And they became something that is bigger than I thought that it might have at first. And the special thing about the Aloni Cemetery is the continuity of our family that's always used that place. It's an old ancient village site. So it's about 40 miles to the south of here. It's an old ancient village site that's been used for thousands of years. But then we've always continuously used it. And back in the 1960s, Caltrans wanted to put a freeway through the middle of it. And a bunch of our elders came together in the 1960s. And they said, no. They said, you're not going to do this to us. And some of the elders, they said, my mother's buried there. It's not just an ancient Indian village site, but it's a place that we use. And our relatives are there. So we came together. And my grandfather's grandmother is buried there. Her mother is buried there. And her grandfather is buried there. And he was born in a time before there were any whites or Europeans in this area. So it shows. And we just buried a loved one there last year. So we always used it. So when we have community-based language classes, having that continuity to culture is so important because it shows that language, lineage, culture, ancestry. All those things are just all part of one. There's no separation between them. And what we were doing when we came together at the Ohlone Cemetery in our last class was we were playing gambling games, like what Greg was just talking about. We were playing staves, which is this really fun California Indian gambling game where you get a bunch of dice and you throw them down. And then you get points. And you have to win all the counting sticks in order to win the game. So it gets people taught one another. And it can be a pretty cutthroat. And people bet money. And people get really serious about this game. And we came together at the Ohlone Cemetery. And we were playing staves at our last language class as a basis to learn numbers and to count and to just have fun. So we were going through the numbers with Imhen, Utin, Kappan, Katwash, Mishord, Shaken, Oshatish, Kanekdish, Telekdish, Ywesh. We're repeating them over and over. And then one of the kids, she was about nine years old, she said, why don't we have any gambling songs that we sing? Why don't we sing any of them? And then one of the elders said, because all of our songs that we have for Trochanio people, they're all religious songs. And it would be inappropriate to sing them. So they knew that we can't sing those songs. But then she said, this elder, she said, why don't you guys make some new Trochanio gambling songs? And so we did. So we started to come together, and we made some new gambling songs that are in Trochanio. And I can't remember all of them, but there's one. And our songs are kind of short. Many California Indian songs are just based on a lot of repetition, but they're beautiful. So one of them goes something like, let me see, how does it go? This is new. So it's. And it means, it means, oh, I'm going to win. I'm going to win all your money out there. I'm going to win. Now I'm going to win it all. So it shows, even if things might seem like they're lost, they can come back. They can come back. So next up, I want to invite my good friend, Canyon, to share her words. My name is Canyon Sares-Rootz. I am the daughter of Ann Marie Sares. We reside in Indian Canyon, the only federally recognized Indian country between Sonoma and Santa Barbara. And that has always been my home. I am also very lucky to have the family and relations that I have now, because I have grown up knowing I am native my entire life. As a young one, my mom loves to tell the story. I was about five, six years old. I went to school. And I had told someone I was Native American. And they're like, you say you're Indian. You're all dead. I went home crying. My mom brought me to school the next day. And I go and point him out, and I'm like, damn, it's him. He did it. He said it. And he's going into the young boy's bathroom. And my mom's like, what am I supposed to do? She ended up speaking with the teacher. And it opened doors for conversations. And she later got to meet the mother of that child. But she didn't approach him immediately. Straightforward, I had become friends with his little sister. And after a few weeks, she then brought up, oh, one young boy at the school had said, if you say you're Indian, no, all Indians are dead. And it hurt her. And she goes, who would say that? And my mom goes, oh, your son. It was very casual. And she's like, OK, we need to work on this. And so I have a couple of things to share. And as you took note, I brought my notebook up because I have been focused on revitalizing the language of my ancestors, which happens to be the Mutsun language. There are, I believe, eight in Ohlone territory. Sorry, eight. And I happen to reside in Indian Canyon, which is Mutsun territory. And that's South Santa Clara, North Monterey Bay, and Gilroy Hollister, right where Indian Canyon is. And I was lucky enough to, one, get to know Vincent, and two, he helped open the door for me to participate in the Breath of Life language survival with Berkeley and Echols, advocates for indigenous California language survival acronym. And so with that, I got to meet a cousin, Karina Luna. And she's been working with Natasha Warner on a dictionary for the Mutsun language. And I'm so lucky that I came in right around the time where they are establishing a strong word base, and also with all of the notes, Harrington notes, DailyQuest notes, all of that information that has been documented and sadly has been very dormant. If anyone ever tells you California languages are dead, just tell them that they're dormant and they are being awakened. And so I've been lucky enough to work with them. I've actually produced a coloring book, or Indian Canyon, that soon will be publicly, well, right now, it's publicly available, but I mean, published and shared with a few establishments, but I'm sharing it in classrooms already, and I'm selling it to families and friends and gifting it to my elders and relations. And so I'm gonna start off with the very first thing I wanted to learn, and it's gonna take me so I haven't been practicing. And this is Mutsun Aloni. Ursenka Atia Kutis Mutsun Riche Kamse Enohek, Eliyak Bu Kansire, Pa Champika Kan Wut Kamse, Eliyak Kampika Kan Amakamse Kan Nappe Peretakawas Mutsun Murgurma, Tom Sanak Kanis Wutu. And it is saying, I only learned a little bit of the Mutsun language, but my heart is happy. Technically, it's my liver is happy because that is the seed of all emotion, and I enlighten my relatives, I make my people happy. I am of this land, a Mutsun woman. Thank you, all my relations. Oh, so I was so excited to be able to say that. And the challenging part, with the Mutsun language, thankfully it's one of the most documented of the, what is the, I'm losing the word, the language branch, like the group that we're. Panusun, thank you. Because I was reading one of what it says, Utian. I'm like, okay, Utian, and then Panusun. Sorry. And so it's one of the more documented ones, and we share a lot with Chichenyo, even though Chichenyo is way up here and Mutsun is right down here. And when I was speaking with one of the linguists, she was really focused on the language. And native people are a little more spiritual and sacred, so I wanted to say something to honor my elders and my ancestors and spirit and ceremony. And she goes, for us linguists, we don't focus on the abstract. I'm like, that's not abstract. But for linguist definition, it's for abstract. And so she focused a lot on the, this is this and that is that, which is great, because there's a lot of information out there. So fundamentally, we're able to say the dog's just running and this is going on, and I'm sharing this with this person. But it's kind of harder to say, well, of course, my heart is happy, so seat of my liver is happy. And different things like honor my elders or my relatives, but we have words for relatives, but we don't have words for elders who have passed on. So I either have to say my dead grandmother, my dead grandfather, my dead, I have to say just I make my relatives happy. And then I would say alive and dead. So I'm learning and I actually, I'm always frustrated with the English language because it's so ambiguous, it's frustrating, words change, letters change, and also the sounds of them. There's nothing consistent. And with our language, it's simplified and it's constant the way the constant vowels and consonant goes, there's always a consistent pattern. So it never changes and never confuses you, never slips you up. And I'm like, something I could understand. Now I just have to relearn it. But it's awakening within me and being the daughter of Anne-Marie Serres and being one of the only lineal descendants residing on this sovereign land. There's a lot of responsibilities with the roots that I have and the steps that I walk forward in. And with that, my mom would want me to share with you a song. I honor all of my ancestors. I am Kostinoan Aloni and Chumash. I'm actually comprised of many California natives as I'm doing my genealogy a bit deeper. I have so many California natives but dominantly right here in the Bay Area. And a little bit of Chumash and with the Chumash roots that I'm trying to honor, I want to share with you my grandmother's song. This song came to me differently than it was taught. And so just out of respect for my elders who have taught me that song, this one is a little different. And with the song, we honor our grandmothers, their grandmothers and in all mother earth for without them and without her, we would not be here. We are sharing this time and space together for a reason. And so with this song, that's where those energies lie. And yeah, I'll scoot this over. This was like me before. And so I just wanted to share those pieces. I have one other song that I've shared and heard in many languages. So I'm not sure what origin it has but we have a connection to the land because we are Bay Area native peoples and native peoples of all nations have that connection. Some of us who are uprooted, we are wanderers and we are kind of like blowing in the wind and we find connections with our relations and our family and friends. But for me, I identify very rooted in the Bay Area. As much as I do want to travel, I know I'm coming back. I know I'm going to be right there in Indy, canning in the log cabin, welcoming people to the Loni territory and being an advocate for truth and history. I am always continuing my education and striving to teach more people about the truth. I was just at East Bay, East Oakland Boxing Association but that Boxing Association has turned into an awesome after school youth program. And I got to talk to them and talk to them about the clapper stick or traditionally we'd call it a slapstick, elderberry, talking about our indigenous foods, talking about the missions, talking about a little bit of the origin of Thanksgiving though I don't have a lot of information about the Wampanoag and everything that happened. I just generally am being an advocate as it's not all hunky dory and fluffy as it's being presented in schools. And so native people do have that connection to the earth. And so there's a song that my mom has always taught me and shared with me. And I'll sing it in English afterwards so you can recognize it. Pide ka nama si kampatiaan hetel kanoso so to kanoso pide ka nama si kampatiaan hetel kanoso so to kanoso earth my body water my blood air my breath and fire my spirit earth my... Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Canyon. Canyon and I, we've developed this really great friendship that I very much have a lot of respect for. And I think that we have an obligation as indigenous people to support one another and to support the good works that each other do. And a few years ago when Canyon was just starting to reawaken her moots and words, I'm just amazed by how far you come and how far you've come with pronunciation. And it just is a testament to what is possible when our hearts and our minds are in a good place. And besides that, she's just a really good friend too. She's a good person. So that's always nice. Since Canyon was singing a song in Shumash, we have another person who's in the audience who's Shumash as well, Carly Dominguez. And if you're comfortable, I would be honored. We would all be honored if you could share some of your words. And the Shumash are relatives down south in the Santa Barbara area. Thank you, Carly. Hakuwachu. Hello, my name is Carly Dominguez. I just want to say, I guess I'll say a few of the words that I know in Shumash. They're mostly place names from where I'm from, which is the coast between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. So the words that are coming to me now would be kayukas, pismo, sapkato. Wow, what are some of the other ones? Mm-hmm. Sea is actually water. I haven't yet to study my language, honestly. So what I know are mostly place names, like I said. And where I've spent my time studying actually for the past few years has been with our plants. So I know the name of our four sacred plants and I'm happy to share them here with you today because they are the words that I know. And so maybe, actually, I was thinking, as I say them, I'll say them in Shumash and then I'll say them in English. And if you can kind of imagine them, if you know the plants, you can kind of see them. I don't have them with me, so I'm hoping that you can maybe know. So weishap is yerba santa. It's a long green leaf and it grows kind of like this and it has purple flowers that attract butterflies. So that's weishap. And then we have mulash, which is mugwort. It's a larger plant. It grows like that. Yeah, and that plant, that's for our dreams. So I just hope that you'll remember that when you see that plant, that that plant is for your dreams to come true. And then, so then we have kapshik, which is coastal sage. And the coastal sage is this like minty, like this light turquoisey minty plant that kind of grows out like a bush. And that's for pleasant memories. So that gives you a little bit of the insight into how we think about the plants. Like we're concerned with dreams and pleasant memories. And then white sage, of course, is weishap in shumash. So white sage is a white sage that grows up, comes out like this, and that's to keep the bad things away and the good things close. And I hope with just those few words you can know a little bit about my people and how we see the world. We're more concerned about our dreams and coming true. And that's something that was instilled in me by my family. I'm glad. I think Vince, you mentioned like sort of our grandparents that don't necessarily know the language, but they know how to be Indian, right? So my grandmother, I was raised in the homeland of my father and yeah. So my grandmother was always making sure that we told her what we did every week, what our plans were, what our goals were and how we were gonna achieve these goals, okay? And I didn't realize growing up how special that was being a native person. I didn't realize how important it was to have weekly counsel with somebody that believed in me and believed in my dreams and believed in my success because a lot of people that I interacted with at school or any place that I went, they didn't have those same goals for me necessarily. And this is something I've learned growing up. I didn't know that when I was in public schools, right? It's just something I've learned later that. So I just wanna say that. And I also had the privilege of being raised by 10 uncles and aunts also. And none of these people spoke the language, right? None of them knew the language, but we knew the places on the land to go to. We knew which pine trees to go to that were important. We knew which waterfalls to go to that was important. We knew when it was time to go to the ocean. We knew that we had to go to the ocean so that we could start again. I think my family knew that we had to process traumas. My family didn't talk about the traumas all that much, but we would just go and take care of it. We would go to the ocean and let the ocean clean it away. I'm from the ocean. Our creation stories are from the ocean. Yeah, so they taught me how to be Indian even though I didn't necessarily know the language. And as I've learned some of the songs, I've learned songs about dolphins and seaweed. And so the ocean is very, very present in our language and it explains a lot to me about who I am. The ocean is an extremely important thing to me. And it's not something that we see in movies. It's not, if you're in American culture, it's just not as present as it is for me and for my people. So I think that's what I needed to share with you all this evening about the Shumash people of the West Coast. We are a coastal people. We are happy people. And yeah, I'm very grateful to be here with you all today. I'm very, very happy that my relatives from the North are welcoming me. I moved out of my homeland when I was 18 actually. So I was sheltered. I was raised with my family and then moved out. And since I've been up here, it's been great meeting all these people because I grew up for all intents and purposes with only Shumash people, which were my family. But I didn't know how special that was until I got out of it, right? And I was like, oh, not all people grow up with like coastal California natives. Oh, okay. So since then I've been reaching out and getting to know the Amamutzin people, Rumsunaloni, Chichenyo, all these people of the Coastal Miwak, Pomo, all these one, the Yura, Kura, up north, Kuru, thanks. Thank you. All these wonderful people that have different stories from my family's stories. So thank you very much for being here and sharing this space with me. Thank you. It's so powerful, I think, to see how our stories, even if they're different, how they overlap. And as Carly was talking, I was realizing that our languages are from entirely different families, Shumash and Aloni languages. But when she was talking, your word for water, which you see at sea, is our word for water in Chichenyo and also in Mutsun and also in Rumsun. So there's similarities that are there. And when I'm looking around and I'm looking at a lot of the California native people who are here, which I'm looking at our jewelry and we're like the original bling bling people, I think. You know that? And in Chichenyo, or for Chichenyo's, for Alonis, the stories that I was taught, and I can't speak for everybody, because we're all different. We're all not just one group of people, but there's a lot of different Alonis and different tribal groups. But my grandmother would tell me that we wear Aboloni because for us, it protects us and it gives us protection. Because you see how shiny it is and how beautiful it is, but when there's bad things at the world that are thrown at us, the Aboloni reflects those bad things away from us and gives us protection. So I see a lot of people in my family, especially the elders, like my grandma and some of my aunties, and they won't leave the house without wearing a piece of Aboloni, even if it's like a small thing, like an earring or a bracelet. And when I'm looking around, I just see how that's still true even today. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that since this is like a spoken word event, at Hay Day Books where I work, because I work for New Sierra California as well as doing a lot of other things, because native people in California, all native people, we all gotta wear a lot of hats. We gotta always do, whether it be language revival or protecting sacred sites or protecting our music or songs or whatever, we're always trying to do a million things at once, and we're usually pretty successful at it. But when I was having this first spoken word at Hay Day Books in Berkeley, we had this wonderful, beautiful event where we strung lights throughout our old office, which used to be like a violin factory, and we strung Christmas lights all throughout the parking lot and gave people blankets to sit down, and there was a band that came and sung rock in the Maidu language about the internalized oppressions that Maidu people had and continued to have with the Gold Rush genocide. And there was songs that were sung, Carly sang a song. Kayla, my Hoopa friends sang Smelly Cat in the Hoopa language. There was rap that was done. There were stories that were told that brought people to tears. There was this feast of traditional California foods that were mixed with modern foods. And Malcolm Margolin, who's my boss and the author of The Eloni Way, and he started Hay Day Books, he was telling the story and he said, he said, in the 20, 30 years ago, in the 1980s, he would go to these language conferences and he would see so much pain and suffering and sadness, and there was this overall sense, he would say, that was very depressing and it could be very sad because there were people who were coming from the last generations that could have been the very last generations of their language. And with that, you could imagine there would be sadness, right? And that's rightful, that's rightful sadness. But he said, this event that occurred, the spoken word event in Hay Day was boisterous and it was loud, it was fun, and it was dynamic. He said, you know what, it was even sexy. And I like to think about this and think about how we're not just like these extinct people of the past, but how we're living, thriving, modern people of today. And one thing that Carly was saying that I tried to touch upon a little bit earlier is how even if we didn't know a lot of the specifics of our Indian identities, we knew that we are Indian, that we are indigenous, that we are native. And as long as we know that, a lot of the specifics can come back to us like that song that I was singing or that sort of stuff. But there's, I wanted to end with a story and storytelling for native people, it's very significant because it teaches us how to be good people and how to live good lives and it teaches us values and morals and it kind of teaches us how to make sense of this complex world that we live in. And a lot of Bologna stories survived and they survived different times, they survived colonization, they survived the missions, they survived the Gold Rush genocide and a lot of these stories survived but in order to survive, they adapted to different languages. So some of the stories for Alonis, they were adapted into Spanish during the mission times, then they went to English after the Americans came in and then for a long time, that's how a lot of these stories were told in English. And the roots of the stories though never really changed at all, just the medium and the language of how those stories were told might have changed. So the story that I'm gonna tell, I've never done this before but I'm gonna tell it only in Churchanio. Then I'll give you a synopsis of it in English but At Breath of Life, the language conference that was just being spoken of, I was able to translate some of these stories from my elders that were told in the Rancheria were Pleasantons at today and they were told in the Rancheria and they were recorded in the 1960s and they were told in English for a long time. And then now when we come together at our language classes, we tell these stories in Churchanio again. So could you imagine how special that is to have something go from Churchanio into Spanish and to English and then back into Churchanio? You know, it kind of speaks to that human capacity to heal and to become better and to fix things that were seemingly once lost. So if I stutter at some points, just bear with me because I never told it strictly in Churchanio. I've always usually had somebody translating it for me and then telling it, translating the lines into. The story goes off and it starts off. Ouyakishroekne mak warab tak, payahitkenakshe. Ayye payahitkenakshe yawatishekne yammakne mak muakma aloni. Imhen tuhi thuakshikma yawaten makruetka yaraakat halkin. Ayye kikne payahitkenakshe yawatishek. Makwetishki im-akshomayyan. Ayye ki mayyan, mayan ana, ana netuhi, ana. Aque hinsushitekne netuhi ana, hinsushitekne, hinsushitekne, ana mak-akshomayyan. Mayan ki aque tak chormon yawatak chormon, aque tak chormon yawatak chormon. Ayye mayan truhekne, mayan truhekne netuhi. Mayan truhekne. Mayan ki, mayan ki ay takishmak, uksharit urakishima, uksharit hemmenya urakishima, netuhi ayye nemarute, ayye hushistak. Ay takishmak ki ana, mayan, ayye mayan ki, mayan ki aque tak hinsushitekne, aque tak hinsushitekne, truhekne netuhi. Ay takishmak ki, okay. Mayan ki arukishikma, tarashikma, ayye ki. Watishi potewish ennen, watishi potewish, netuhi nemarute, ayye net potewish ennen, yawrute makyu, mayan ki ay takishmak urakishima, urakishima, uksharit pamun, pamun netuhi nemarute, netuhi nemarute, urakishima pamun. Ayye ne, ay takishmak ki, okay, why not? Watishik. Netuhi mayan, mayan uksharit pamun, potewish ayye tarashikma, potewish ennen, enutka, yawaten alkin, makruekma. Ayye payan hitken nakshe, hiikne, hitikne, ne urakishima, yawaten alkin tak. Ayye payan hitken nakshe, waka ayye roket palup, roket palup, roket palup, akwe tahin nushikma. Ayye payan hitken nakshe, ammakne, ne urakishima pamun, potewish. Ayye payan hitken nakshe, ammakne, im hen urakish, utin urakish, kapan urakish, urakish, urakish, urakishima potewish ennen. Ayye ammakne, ammakne. Ayye payan hitken nakshe, hen wep, we til, ayye wep til, ayye wep til, im hen tuohi payan hitken nakshe, akkokne, makruetka, makruetka, inutka alkin tak. Ayye makruekma, kiikne, payan hitken nakshe, anna, anna watishekne makruekma, ne tuohi makruetka, anna ayye payan hitken nakshe, watishekne, makruetka. Mayan kiikne, yuvatam chormon, kanakruekne, ne tuohi. Ayye makmuekne shawe, ne shawe, ne shawe, ne shawe. Yuvah, yuvah, yuvah chormon, yuvah, yuvah, yuvah chormon, yuvah, yuvah chormon, tak, ne tuohi, yuvah, yuvah, yuvah chormon, yuvah, yuvah, yuvah chormon, yuvah, yuvah, yuvah chormon, yuvah, yuvah, yuvah chormon, tak, yuvah, yuvah, yuvah chormon. and if you want to be a part of this you can be a part of this and it's important to be a part of this and everyone can be part of this and I'm going to be a part of this and if you want to be a part of this and help be a part of this and if you want to be part of this and it's really important For me to be a part of this I think people like me need to be part of this So a little bit of our story, just a synopsis. A long time ago, there was this evil creature. Evil, evil, evil creature called the blood monster that loved to eat the blood of a loney people. That was his favorite food, yes it was. So he would go around to all these different villages and he would eat the blood of a loney people and you know what happens after he ate the blood, they would die. So, you know, things weren't looking too bright. Things were kind of grim at that time. And then one day, because before we had Facebook and email and all this stuff, you know, we had runners who would spread messages and they ran to this big loney village. And they came to this village and they told the kapatan, the headman, the wetish. They told the headman, payan hit kanakches on his way. That means blood monster. So the kapatan, the headman, he asked Coyote, his best friend, what do I do? Do we run away? Do we go relocate somewhere in the hills? Or do we just, do we just give up? What do I do? So Coyote said, don't worry, I'll make a plan. So he went and he asked a bunch of ladies in the village. He said, I need you to make lots and lots and lots of acorn soup. And the lady said, why? We have enough acorns, you know, and everybody's eating right now. So why should we make more? And then they said, just make sure you make it. So they all trusted Coyote. So they said, OK, we'll go make lots of acorn soup. We trust you. It's kind of weird, but all right, why not? So then he asked other people in the village, other ladies. He said, we need you to make lots and lots and lots of baskets, those beautiful watertight baskets that people use to eat soup out of. Because we're so smart. We know how to make baskets that are tight enough to hold water. Remember that? So we made, so the ladies said, but that's a lot of work. And they said, just please make these baskets. I need you to make them. So the lady said, OK, so they made lots and lots and lots of watertight baskets, soup baskets. Then Coyote went and asked a bunch of the guys to go into the mines and collect this red mineral that we call ochre that we use to make body paint out of and to make red paint as well. So the guys said, we're tired and those mines are far away. But Coyote said, please, I need you to do it. So they said, OK, we'll go. We trust you, you're a friend. So they went and they collected lots of red ochre to make red dye. So then once Coyote had all of these things, the acorn soup and the red dye and the watertight baskets, he mixed them all together and he added all these baskets to make it look like there was fake blood. And Blood Monster began to see this fake blood concoction. And Blood Monster is evil, but he's also pretty stupid. So he started to eat and he saw these baskets and he started, they were all leading on the trail, leading to the main village called Halkin. And they started to eat and they started to eat and he started to eat. And as he started to eat, he got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger because he's such a glutton, you know, he can't stop eating. He just keeps getting bigger. So then he makes his way to the entrance of Halkin Village, of this big village. And the people start screaming and they say, why are you doing this to us, Coyote? Why are you leading this evil creature right to our village? What's your problem? Why are you doing this? Are you crazy? And then that's when Blood Monster was making his way and Coyote said, don't worry, I have a plan. And then Coyote said to all the people, go into the center of the roundhouse that's in the center of the village and everybody go in that roundhouse, make your way there. And then as they were going to the roundhouse, that's when Coyote started to sing to them with his, he pulled out his clapper and he was singing. And the song kind of translates to, don't be scared, don't be scared, don't run away, don't be scared. So he makes his way, so all the people get into the center of the roundhouse. And Blood Monster at this point, he's massive. He's like this big heavy, you know, that thing that's like trying to make his way into the center of the roundhouse. And Coyote places the largest basket of this fake acorn soup blood concoction in the center of the roundhouse where all the people are at. And so Blood Monster tries to push his way into that roundhouse to get that very last basket of acorn soup. And he tries to push his way and push his way, push his way and he pushed his way. The way he didn't realize was that Coyote lined the doorway of this roundhouse with needles and arrowheads and obsidian points and thorns. And so when he pushed that final push into the roundhouse, he popped and he turned. So the story goes, he turned into a thousand mosquitoes. So then when he turned into all these mosquitoes, then Coyote said to the people, now you can defeat him little by little when he lands on you because he's still this hungry thing, you know, he's still trying to eat their blood. He said, Chah Chappu in Ishu. So slap your hand. And then little by little, they defeated the Blood Monster and then through that, he never existed again in the world except when there was a mosquito around. So he still made his way. And the moral of the story that was passed down to me from my elders, there's a couple of things. First thing is you trust the people that you love and you trust those people who've never let you down. That's one value that we have in our community is trust. We trust each other, especially the people who are good to you. The second thing is you don't run away from your problems. You tackle your problems head on and you don't run away. You don't act cowardly. You face your fears, you face your problems. And the third thing that was passed down is that if you have a huge problem like the Blood Monster or the way that my grandmother told it to me when I was a kid, she said, if you have a huge homework assignment, huge essay, you know, something like that and if you try to tackle it at the very last minute, you likely won't succeed. If you try to tackle it like in its immensity and its fullness, but if you break it down little by little, piece by piece, just like how Blood Monster was defeated by the mosquitoes, then you'll likely succeed and you'll do well. And that's a value that we have in our community that I still see us have for at Loneys is the value of moderation. And so moderation, trust, and not being afraid to face our problems are things that are connected to this story. And now it's so special to be able to tell this story in Chochenyo because we couldn't have done it 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but now we can. So I think this is the end of our time together at the Spoken Word event. For the people who are native to California, can you please come to the stage? The California native people, indigenous Californians, whether Eloni, Chumash, whatever. And if there's some people I didn't acknowledge here, I'm sorry. The way that we say... Wait for Greg, they come up. The way that we say thank you in Chochenyo, which is so beautiful, because when I was going through a lot of the old notes, I couldn't find a word for thank you and I realized we don't have a word for thank you because our concept is entirely different. And what we say is we say, Kisorshe akinnan, which means my heart is good. But if you take the word hinnan, even a step further, hinnan, it means heart, voice, spirit, soul, and life force, all in one. So basically everything that makes a person whole. So we say, Kisorshe akinnan. Did you want to say anything? Can you all say that? Kisorshe akinnan. There we go, and I can say, you know, a Chochenyo phrase. All right. Do you want to say anything? With indigenous languages, depending on who you talk to and how they've learned it, especially when you learn with linguists, sometimes they take the focus on the exact definition. And there's a word that my grandmother has always shared with my mom, no son. And her and my family's understanding and definition is in breath, so it is in spirit. And then also the conversations with linguists is breath, soul, spirit. That's why in the Earth My Body song is soto kanoso. And that would be fire is my spirit. No son. Peter kanomasi komodian hetel kanoso, soto kanoso. Hetel is air my breath, so breath, and then fire my spirit, spirit, no so. But no son in breath, soul, it is in spirit. And I just wanted to share, I do have a few coloring books on me if any of you are interested. And the song is right in there, so you can actually read the Earth My Body song. So I just wanted to let you know. I'll have some in sharing. So thank you. I wish you safe travels home. Thank you for being here. We didn't have much of a chance to maybe do a Q&A. One of the questions I get is why do we do it? Why do we learn languages? Why is it matter now? And in the 10 seconds I have, I'm not gonna be able to answer that. If I had 30 hours, I probably still couldn't, because it's taken me 25 years to kind of come to an understanding based on working with elders and understanding elders. We are so intimately connected to where we are. And we came from that place and the way we communicate with it was this language and it's unique. There are certain concepts that don't translate. So we actually lose a part of our life when we don't use our language, don't utilize that language, when we go back home and talk to our homelands to talk to the mountains that gave birth to us, the trees and the bushes. So it's not just intellectual, it's not just fun and games, it's not just a cultural practice. It defines and continues who we are. So that link to who we were for 15,000 years is something that still defines us. And even though it was asleep, it was still here. And it continues to be here and now we can hear young people have finally woken up and they're shouting it. So thank you for being here. Safe travels to everybody back home and thank you for joining us tonight.