‘Returning to Our Roots’ project brings Native people to Walker Basin
For thousands of years, Nuwä people harvested plants in the secluded mountain valley they knew as Yaatiip, which translates as the “Carrying Earth,” since the flat-bottomed valley was shaped like a giant basket.
Today Yaatiip (pronounced “yaah-teep”) is commonly known as Walker Basin, and it is an undeveloped agricultural area located in the Kern County mountains about 25 miles north of Tehachapi. Last week a group of Nuwä people were back in Yaatiip and the surrounding area as part of a project funded by the Library of Congress.
Supported by a Community Collections grant issued by the American Folklife Center, the effort is titled the “Returning to Our Roots” project, and it was initiated by tribal elder Merlene Everson and language preservation specialist Laura Grant.
Nuwä (Kawaiisu or Southern Paiute) elder and fluent speaker Lucille Girado Hicks is the special consultant for the project, sharing her memories and stories of growing up and harvesting native foods in Walker Basin area. Lucille and her family, including her siblings, Luther and Betty, and their parents, Raphael and Gladys, lived on the sprawling Rankin Ranch where Raphael worked as a cowboy and ranch hand. Lucille started off the recent expedition with a blessing and discussion via FaceTime from her home in Southern California.
“The main purpose of this ongoing effort is to reconnect younger generations of Nuwä people with their traditional gathering practices in their homeland of Yaatiip,” explained project coordinator Laura Grant. “Most of the Nuwä people are a diaspora now, and they are scattered. They have to travel long distances to do simple things they once did, like harvest traditional plants in season. So the project involves teaching younger Nuwä tribal members how to harvest and prepare Native foods, and to document that traditional knowledge.”
Beautiful weather and abundant wildflowers greeted the “Returning to Our Roots” team as they ventured into the mountains to tsehe ka’apa (pronounced cheh-heh kah-ah-pah), or gather food. Tribal members waded through small creeks running clear and cold with rain and snowmelt from a wet winter.
Using tools that included some historic Nuwä items, including baskets and milling stones, project participants harvested and processed po’opaatoor (Watercress), tutupivi (Indian tea or Ephedra), kuuvuus (Spring Gold), uutukwa’arübü (Miner’s Lettuce) and pasidü (Chia).
Team members range in age from Lucille, who is nearing 80, down to the youngest, Azul Hernandez, an eepizhi (little boy) who is just 15 months old. Azul came from the Coachella Valley with his parents, Aivan and Abby Hernandez, while Merlene Everson,
her son Oscar Ramirez and grandson Connor Flannery drove all the way down from Oregon.
Some team members still live in Kern County, including Brandi Greene Kendrick, the granddaughter of late tribal elder Andy Greene, and her husband Eric and daughter Sophia. Loreen Park, whose grandfather was Luther Girado, brought her three boys Jacob, Eli and Lane. They live nearby at Indian Creek.
The group stayed at the historic Rankin Ranch, a cattle and guest ranch in Walker Basin that was first established in 1863. The Rankin family has a long, friendly association with Nuwä people that spans multiple generations.
Among the places visited was the former site of a couple of cabins in the Loraine area where the Girados once lived, and where there are still pahaz (pah-hahz) grinding holes in bedrock that were used by Gladys Girado, Lucille’s mother and Merlene’s grandmother, and her ancestors.
“I’m so happy to be here, in the land where our people have lived for so long, and to see our young people learning these old ways,” Merlene Everson said. “It makes my heart feel good.”
The group also gathered plants from family property where Luther used to live in Walker Basin. There are pahaz there, too — evidence of the ancient presence of Nuwä people in the area.
The gathering and preparation processes were all filmed with multiple cameras for documentation purposes. Grant was the main videographer, with help from assistant videographer Saya Novinger, and I helped find the plants and taught how to harvest and utilize them.
When the project is complete, digital footage will be archived in the Library of Congress and will be publicly available for online viewing. Team members will be returning to Walker Basin for autumn gathering of acorns, pine nuts and other plant material.
It was gratifying to see Nuwä people back in their ancestral home of Yaatiip, collecting plants and speaking their language. Centuries pass, but tribal traditions are still being handed down to the younger generations. . .
Have a good week.