Magical Words Under Twinkling Lights
Last Friday was simply magical. I had the idea for a California Indian Spoken Word, and with the help of many it came true. My words stumbled at times, and the idea was at times vague but poetry and songs in indigenous California languages flowed in Berkeley underneath a sea of city lights and stars.
Strings of lights illuminated a dark parking lot as speakers of California Indian languages took an open mic. Walan Amana, a Maidu rock band, performed as their drums, clapper sticks, guitars, and rattles merged together with beautiful vocals in the Nisenan language. They sung of experiences of understanding the Gold Rush through Native eyes.
A feast, prepared by the lovely Lindsie Bear, included Indian lettuce salads with strawberries and sourgrass, Yurok smoked salmon, venison jerky, chia brittle, acorn bread with local honey and blackberry jam, seaweed, huckleberry lemonade, stick tea, elderberry and champagne floats; a mixture of the old a new, a metaphor in the largest meanings.
We ate under strings of rainbow colored lights inside the old wooden interior of Heyday’s and News from Native California’s office. Words in Native languages scribbled on parchment paper on the walls hung from the walls. Chochenyo words directed folks around the office: to the restroom, to go outside to hear speakers.
We laughed that Friday night, cried at points, people were genuinely moved. Stories were told with raging emotion, songs were sung, poetry was read, and the marvelous thing is it was entirely in indigenous languages to California. Some folks translated, some did not… they didn’t need to, some things are not meant to be translated.
Malcolm Margolin told the crowd of a time he heard speakers of California Indian languages have a sense a sense of dread and sadness, but last night, he stated so eloquently, was fun, boisterous, even sexy.
We peered into a words and worlds of beauty, it was a glimpse of something so new, and so old at the same time. I am grateful, so grateful, this night materialized into something wonderful and gorgeous. Illuminating like the twinkling lights across the room, strung and woven together, refusing to ever be extinguished.
