Baja tribes' elders eager to pass on culture to youths
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/6775763.htm
Sep. 15, 2003
By Anna Gorman
LOS ANGELES TIMES
SAN DIEGO - The heat was searing on the Viejas Indian Reservation, but Abelardo Sesena did not seem to mind.
The 52-year-old Paipai from rural Baja California adjusted his cowboy hat and continued chipping away at the willow branch with a knife while his
young students watched closely, eager to finish their own bows and arrows.
Sesena and his fellow artisans and toolmakers from the remaining Indian tribes in northern Baja traveled across the Mexican border in August for a
summer cultural program designed to pass down ancient traditions to the younger generation of Indians living in San Diego County.
The elders showed the youths how to weave juncos leaves into baskets, pound clay into pots and play traditional games.
They also taught the students how to say words and phrases in the native Indian languages.
Sesena said Indians on both sides of the border had forgotten the culture of their ancestors. "It's important for the kids to learn how things were,"
he said as he bent the bow into an arch.
But to him and other Baja Indians, handicrafts are more than just history. The baskets, tools and dolls are economic and cultural lifelines, used to
raise money for the communities and to strengthen ties with the tribes north of the border.
It is unclear exactly how long Indians have lived in Baja California, but anthropologists believe that about 95 percent of the population was Indian
as recently as 130 years ago.
The numbers declined with the arrival of colonists, miners and ranchers. Now there are only about 1,200 Indians left in northern Baja, divided into
four tribes -- Kiliwa, Kumiai, Paipai and Cucapa.
The tribes have witnessed a dramatic shift in population in recent years, as many members have given up farming and moved to the cities to find
steadier work.
Baja artisans have played a critical role in the effort to maintain traditions, filling stores and museums on both sides of the border with
handicrafts and tools.
When the artisans can afford to get the necessary visas, they also travel to the United States to teach at schools and conferences.
Much of the money from the classes and sales helps sustain the families who still make their homes in remote villages such as San Jose de la Zorra.
Few cars traverse the dirt road into San Jose de la Zorra, a community of 145 Kumiai Indians who live in small ranches surrounded by chaparral and oak
trees nearly two hours by car from Ensenada.
Chief Rito Silva said he understood why fellow tribe members had left for the cities. In addition to jobs, they wanted to live with electricity and
running water and with immediate access to doctors.
Silva said he did what he could to provide work for his community, but he could not find jobs for everyone.
Over the summer, the tribe received a contract to renovate part of a rural road nearby, and he was able to offer short-term work to 20 locals. Others
have found work on nearby vineyards and cattle ranches.
Standing next to the workers as they raked pebbles off the road, Silva said he wished the Mexican government paid more attention to the tribes. But
the chief said he, too, had hope in the handicrafts -- and the younger generation.
"We need to preserve the traditions ... and I'm hopeful we will do so," he said. "The kids will have the knowledge. They will become" professional
artisans.
Mike Wilken, a cultural anthropologist from the United States who has worked with the Baja tribes for more than two decades, said the traditional
bowls that Indians now sell as art were used to gather, store and serve food.
"It's a different world here," said Wilken, who runs the Ensenada-based Native Cultures Institute. "Here the women are weaving the baskets like their
ancestors have done for generations. And it's only 100 miles away as the crow flies from San Diego."
On a July morning, Virginia Melendrez Silva, 42, and her daughter Arcelia Ojeda Melendrez, 20, sat side by side in a trailer in San Jose de la Zorra.
Ojeda threaded strands of juncos into a flat circle, using her mouth to hold strands in place. It takes three days, working six hours a day, to weave
a small basket that sells for about $20, she said.
When asked what she thinks about as she weaves, Ojeda smiled and answered, "Money."
Down the road, Rosa Maria Silva worked on a pendant that she hoped to sell for about $7. Silva said she was one of the first women in the Kumiai
community to learn how to make the necklaces and baskets two decades ago.
Now, she said, there are about 30 Kumiai who know how to weave.
Silva grew up in San Jose de la Zorra and does not want to leave, even though it is hard for her family to earn enough money to buy food. "Sometimes I
am desperate" to sell the handicrafts, she said.
Javier Sesena, 29, who grew up in a Kumiai community in Baja, always knew that he would leave -- and that he would come back.
Sesena, who is co-director of the Native Cultures Institute, said that there were still Indians living without electricity or running water, but that
the communities had improved and had started to learn that they had resources in their back yard in yucca, acorns and pine nuts.
The institute works to preserve and revitalize the indigenous communities by bringing doctors to the villages, awarding scholarships to the youths and
training Indians how to live off their land without damaging the environment.
And each year, about $17,000 goes to the artisans from various programs, Wilken said.
At the Viejas cultural program, the artisans displayed their work. About 80 youths from the reservation attended the program.
The elders received a $500 honorarium, along with housing and food, during the week they were in the United States.
Josefina Ochurte, a Paipai Indian with worn features and strong hands, said little but worked hard making and teaching pottery.
She lives at the foot of the Sierra Juarez mountains, but has traveled to the United States several times to share her skills.
At the next table, 78-year-old Manuela Aguiar cut patterns out of fabric and told the children through a translator how to sew and stuff the dolls.
Rebecka Diaz, 9, was nearly finished with her doll, which she dressed in a flowered skirt. "Once you get the hang of it, it's very easy," she said.
Counselor Chuka Pingleton said the program brought the tribes together in a time when immigration officials were cracking down on the border and
making it difficult for Indians to cross back and forth.
"The only thing that separates us is that border," he said, as his son sat watching Sesena make a bow and arrow.
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