FEATURE
ka’axtawaq
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North Wind Place
A walking tour at Foster Park by Kimberly Rivers kimberly@vcreporter.com
“I feel that sharing our intimate understanding, and love, of place will enrich the residents and visitors to our territory, inspiring in them a love and a deeper sense of responsibility for the health of our world.” - Matthew Vestuto
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ts̓ap ši’išaw | House of the Sun | Red Mountain looking west as the sun descends.
tymology may seek to find the original history of a word. But as living descendents of local indigenous tribes reintegrate, mitsquanaqań (Ventureno Chumash), the language of their ancestors into their daily lives, the rest of us have an opportunity to learn the names first given by the first people of this place where we all live today. “At 26, I set out to see if our language could be revitalized. Our last speakers had passed away in the 60’s, however I learned of the voluminous notes of the ethnolinguist, John Peabody Harrington,” said Matthew Vestuto, a member of Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians. He has served as language program coordinator for the tribe. He graduated from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, with a degree in Language Revitalization, Linguistics and Media and is a Board member of Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival. “There is ample ‘deep sentence structure’ recorded which assures we can revitalize [our language]. There’s some audio, too. In the course of transcribing these notes, I saw placename trips here and there, so I began to collect these in one place. Then I mapped them with some help from my friend Devlin Gandy.” Those maps, and other stories Vestuto is gathering and learning are being coalesced into a publishing project through ’iskiliwil, the publishing arm of the mitsqanaqań language revitalization effort. “I’m reorienting to our indigenous worldview. People talk about culture, but neglect the culture dish, the context. Knowing our world, in our language, is foundational,” he said in explaining the importance of this work to him. “Placenames are a wonderful way for our people to begin learning our language. It doesn’t involve complicated grammar and the names are immediately applicable.” Last week, the Ventura County Reporter joined Vestuto for a walking tour at Foster Park along the Ventura River to hear some of these stories and place names. “Our ancestors were hospitable and welcoming. Stealing land tends to sour that cultural value, however, I feel that sharing our intimate understanding, and love, of place will enrich the residents and visitors to our territory, inspiring in them a love and a deeper sense of responsibility for the health of our world.”
ts̓ap ši’išaw | House of the Sun
“This is Red Mountain. In our language it’s called ts̓ap ši’išaw, House of the Sun.” Vestuto said. “If you stay around here
around sunset, it just goes right there.” He points to the path the sun will take as it sets, spilling its rays on the side of the mountain. “You can’t see it from here, but across the way, you know where Teen Challenge is? The hill that is on . . . I believe that is katswiw or the Little Bird. It was a shrine hill. This all is a sacred area….ka’axtawaqh it means North Wind Place, and you can feel why, the breeze is pretty constant here. It’s where the interior climate meets the Ventura River and the coastal climate because everything narrows down here.”
ka’axtawaqʰ | North Wind Place
A young live oak tree in the area the Ventura Land Trust is restoring along the Ojai Valley Trail at the Big Rock Preserve.
10 —
— September 10, 2020
Passing a row of homes along the bike path, we continued. “Somewhere in here there was a sacred sycamore tree, the Spanish called it Aliso del Viento, the Wind Sycamore...There are a few of these that we know about. One is a sacred sycamore tree up the Santa Clara River near kamulos, today called Camulos named for the California Juniper. The area is sacred, not just the tree. Just as a cave is a sacred place, not just the paintings... The sycamore has a branch growing out to the west and they train it to form like an arch,” he said, bending his arm at the elbow. “And this particular sycamore had a big cavity, in
it there was an . . . anthropomorphic effigy made of wood, adorned with feathers and sqap, feather bouquets hanging upside down around the effigy. We dance with those. There were baskets all around the feet of the effigy in which people would deposit offerings...of seeds, shell bead money, later metal money, all sorts of things. Pine nuts, acorns.” “[The effigy] was of the deity called slow̓, which is Golden Eagle, and he holds up the upper world, and when his wings go flapping up and down, that’s what gives us the phases of the moon. He’s kind of partnered up with the sun. Slow̓ is also a word used to describe the leader of a village,” he said, sweeping his arm through the air indicating the area southeast of where he stood. “Where Juan de Jesus Tumamait, leader of the Mission Indians during the transition between Mexico and America lived was called kaspat kaslow̓, The Eagle’s Nest. Rather than the name of the place, it signified the seat of power and could move.” As for where the Wind Sycamore is today, “a man purchased the land and planted apricots, he supposedly cut it down. It doesn’t matter anymore, the whole place is sacred . . . ka’axtawaqh | The North Wind Place the spirit is there to pray to.”
koyo Creek and mišopšno
“You know heading up to Santa Ana Road? The second bridge . . . it crosses Koyo Creek. The name of that place is koyo and Fernando
A pathway at the ka’axtawaqʰ | North Wind Place | Big Rock Preserve leads to the Ventura River.
