Winter Solstice 2011
2011 We hooked up with a group of Natural History Canyoneers and hiked to the ancient observatory with them. It was awesome. JC and Svea Docents KIIC
The Kumeyaay-Ipai Interpretive Center of Pauwai is a 5-acre site rich in Kumeyaay-Ipai local history. The City of Poway began acquiring the various parcels which comprise the Center beginning in 1987 to preserve the site as a significant American Indian cultural site. The Friends of the Kumeyaay, the San Pasqual Band of Indians, and the City of Poway have worked together to develop a vision for the property and to start on the development of a replica Kumeyaay Village. Docents also offer interpretive tours to educate the public in the heritage practices of the ancient Kumeyaay.
CALENDAR
Sat., June 9, 2012 Knapping Atl-Atl Dart Points 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM @ KIIC
Robert's Ranch Hike lead by Steve Harvey USFS
KIIC Weekly Reports
5-13-2012 KIIC Docent Report
An excuse to eat: saying goodbye to our first college interns whose semester work at CSU San Marcos has closed. Under the direction of our KIIC Librarian and Artifacts Curator, the two have measured, weighed, identified and curated every piece in the building, turning it all into a digital data base. Yae 'ehan (a big thank you!). We celebrated with Subway sandwiches. Three tours were given this week; about a dozen guests came on Saturday, including third graders, and a robust group from Troop 479 began work on an 'ewaa as the project for an Eagle Scout candidate.
5-6-12 KIIC Docent Report
KIIC goes world wide! At the request of the archaeologist with San Diego Archaeology Center, several photographs have been submitted of the morteros at the site's milling area. One photograph has already been e-mailed to the University of Haifa in Israel for a data base of similar milling stations around the world, since most ancient people seem to have used milling areas for seeds, acorns and other material. Three school tours AND the bi monthly meeting of docents set the tone for a busy May beginning. Good discussion and pre planning for next school year, as well as setting the date for the end of tour year barbecue (4-7 p.m. May 31 Thursday) rounded out the meeting. Saturday bustled with docent projects, from tending the poppy field to filling the dumpster with non native plants. The college interns are completing their effort to list, measure and weigh every artifact in the building. Guests included a mother and first grader.
4-26-12-
Coffee and home baked breads greeted two dozen adult students arriving at 8 a.m. for the field trip portion of Geology for Archaeologists a class being cosponsored by KIIC and the San Diego Archaeological Center. Five KIIC docents are enrolled. An SDSU professor is the instructor. Four hours and 75 miles later they returned with rock samples (rhyolite, garnets, tonolite, granite and more) and detailed experience with the millions of years before humans lived in Poway, and used local rock for tool making and finding springs of water. Other docents educated regular Saturday visitors in the cultural ways that the Poway village site supported two thousand years ago. Spectacular blooms this month made it possible to feature the broad plant life which Kumeyaay people used to sustain life. Due to State Testing there were no school tours this week. The monthly meeting of the Friends of the Kumeyaay was held, attended by Rgr. Annie Ransom and Director Belinda Romero.
4-1-12 KIIC Docent Report
This professionally enhanced photograph (shot by Greg Erickson and digitally sharpened by Jim Respess) has been hung in a place of honor at the Dorothy Tavui Memorial Library. The pictograph is of a Bernardo Maze Style, unique to this area, and logo of the presenting group, the San Diego Rock Art Assn., which meets bi-monthly in the KIIC Education Building. The picto itself is just outside Poway city limits. At least three other sites within Poway utilize a maze feature. Currently the age of such rock paintings cannot be determined: they likely are centuries old, and may have been the work of a single wandering shaman. Three dozen visitors arrived this Saturday, beginning with a lively and attentive pack of Cub Scouts and parents, who also made a small donation. On Monday afternoon a tour was given to three rangers from the Ocotillo Wells State Off Highway Recreation Area who had been in town presenting natural history info for all the third graders at Highland Ranch Elementary, who regularly tour KIIC. Two school tours were also given this week. For a third weekend a small group of supervised teen agers toiled Saturday afternoon, removing non-native weeds. Publicity continues for Docent Training to begin at 7 p.m. Wed., April 11 in the KIIC Education Center. Due to the holiday weekend, and docent family obligations, the KIIC site will not be open Saturday April 7.
In photo below you see that our Jaleh stopped by on her spring break from Berkeley (along with brother Josh) and Susan and Sandee; with the picture-hanging man Bob popping in the doorway.
3-25-12 KIIC Docent Report
Three tours were given this week: two for third graders, and another for 21 adults who traveled in from the Anza Borrego Desert State Park Visitor Center where they are docents. And they came through mountains which still had a little snow on them. Six KIIC docents filled them in on Poway's Kumeyaay, related to the Kumeyaay who lived in the southern part of Borrego, before taking them on a hike of the grounds. Their donations came to almost $100. Rain at the site last week total 1.2 inches and wind blew the top layer of thatching from the 'ewaa. NOTE: Full thatching was last done in hundred degree weather Summer 2006. Quite a good record! The monthly meeting of the Friends of the Kumeyaay attended by Ranger Annie Ransom, opened with a gift and presentation, in appreciation, from the San Diego Rock Art Assn. which meets bi-monthly at the KIIC building. The gift is a large framed photograph of a Bernardo style pictograph unique to this area of Southern California, chosen as the logo for the RRA group. Planning continues for Docent Training to begin 7 p.m. Wed., April 11 in the KIIC Education Center.
3-4-12 KIIC Docent Report
Wooly blue curls, red penstemons, yellow brittlebush, lavender lilac, white and yellow matilija poppie, sand orange monkey flowers! All bursting into bloom at KIIC at this moment. No need to drive out to Borrego this year. See our Poway hillside as did the first residents of Poway so long ago. Open to the public from 9 to noon every Saturday. The college interns from CSU San Marcos are photographing case by case all artifacts. Each is removed, weighed and photographed with a ruler in the picture. Items are then labeled for entry into the data base, with accompanying photo. Docents are gearing up for visits in coming months from the docents of Anza Borrego Desert State Park and Bataquitos Lagoon.
Our interns are Felicia Titus and Frank Turner
2-26-12 KIIC Docent Report
What an exciting day Monday Feb. 20 for the Kumeyaay-Ipai Interpretive Center and this wonderful heritage site. San Pasqual elder Dave Toler (framed in doorway) brought "presence" to this gathering of 17 active members. Lead by a nationally recognized facilitator, Roger Riolo CIG NAI (InterpTRAIN) trainer of interpreters for national parks, extensive progress was made to identify the "heart and soul" of reaching out to the public, to share the many aspects of this site; from botany to archaeology, culture and site management, to planning funding for the future and moving to a greater digital and internet identity and access. Docents who work time even took off time or gave up their holiday to participate, including the mother of our junior docent. Lots of third graders and parents visited this past Saturday. Three school tours given this week.
2-12-12 KIIC Docent Report
Wow, KIIC needs a flagpole! At the November Dedication of the Dorothy Tavui Memorial Library a visitor noted that although a Scout contingent sharply presented the United States flag, there was no flag of the Kumeyaay Nation. This week Kumeyaay Community College gave the Friends of the Kumeyaay a flag of the Kumeyaay-Diegueno Nation bearing the logos of 12 reservations. Look for a flag raising later this spring. More workers continue to clear brush and rocks from the area where five or so 'ewaa (huts) are planned to replicate a village. Eagle Scout candidates and their teams have already built two cattail thatched units, with frames ready for two more. This Saturday a Scout troop threw their shoulders into the cleanup work with great results. Seven docents attended a lecture Sunday night on the local pictograph style called Rancho Bernardo, being presented by one of their own, to the San Diego Rock Art Assn., which meets in the KIIC Education Center. More than a dozen sites in and around Poway contain this striking “motif.” Prospective docents and tour guides are invited to begin training at 7 p.m. Wed., April 11 here at the KIIC Education Building.
2-5-12 KIIC Docent Report
Unusual one of a kind thank-yous arrived this week from a Deer Canyon class which visited two weeks ago. Three docents were elated to receive carefully written and crafted letters which not only were well written and reflected each student’s own tour highlights, but were art projects featuring pop-ups of site items: from quivers to acorns and ‘ewaa. For the second week in a row, a KIIC docent spoke to an adult group about the Kumeyaay people. This time the president of the Friends of the Kumeyaay talked history to Poway residents at the Poway Valley Senior Center. They have asked him to come back with even more history. Saturday brought more than two dozen visitors. A docent set out at least a dozen young yucca plants to grow on the site’s west side. Tiny plants of California poppy are beginning to emerge and got a good sprinkle. One school tour was given this week. In April a docent training series will begin.
1-22-2012 KIIC Due to the continued growth and popularity of the third grade tour program, the Friends of the Kumeyaay have decided to launch a recruiting campaign for docents. At its monthly board of directors’ meeting, members chose April to invite the community to preview the training. The date will allow prospective tour guides/docents to come along on school tours as part of their training. City staff attended. One of the current tour guides lectured on Friday to a slightly more mature audience, about the first peoples on whose ancient lands our homes are built. Her lecture about the period “pre-contact” to 1870, kicked off a Timeline speakers’ series sponsored by the Rancho Bernardo Historical Society. Some 30 people attended. Three schools visited this week, including a Pomerado Elementary group and chaperones who walked over. Due to rain the site was shuttered on Saturday.
1-8-12 KIIC Docent Report The weather has made it a pleasure to be outside working on the site: clearing rubble from the replica village site; attacking weeds; setting out metates; photographing the new metates and manos; and of course, leading tours. Saturday, almost a dozen docents came to work and a dozen excited visitors arrived with great questions, and then about closing time, another dozen came and got the full tour regardless. Indoor work included more Library cataloging and photography for curation. The trove of 21 metates from around San Diego county (collected in the 1930s and 1940s) have been distributed for activ use by third graders in the ‘ewaa; and in front of the two smaller replica ‘ewaas.
Donated metates and manos
12-31-11 KIIC Docent Report
Maybe it was the end-of-the-year bagels, cream cheese andcoffee . . . or just a desire to do good . . . nine docents came, 18 visitorsarrived, five high schools kids needed community service hours, two high schoolkids had projects to do, an elementary music teacher was putting together anindigenous music unit, and an Escondido resident donated almost two dozenmetates! Goodness, year-endmagic. The high school volunteersraked, prepped and cast a half-acre for poppy seed planting; the site botanistplanted fledging Tecate cypress and knob cone pine trees; and two docentssweated and hefted some 20 metates (plus manos) from a home owner re designinghis backyard. The new Tavui Memorial Library was a wealth of information forthe elementary music teacher. One school tour is in the offing for the week asPUSD returns to classwork.
12-17-2011 KIIC Docent Report
Icicles at the Kumeyaay Ctr.! It is true that it gets cold in central Poway. On Saturday the building’s temperature on entering was 51 degrees. Better was the icy 6 inch stalactite formed at a drippy faucet on site. Brrrr, now that was cold. Some 15 visitors of all ages, braved the cold for a shot at learning about Poway’s first residents. As usual the recent rain uncovered a few choice artifacts, another reason this archaeological site is not open for general wandering, except with a trained docent. Docents enrolled in Kumeyaay Language class completed their semester final exam of 75 questions plus keeping up their end of a five minute conversation, in Kumeyaay, about sea creatures. Leaning into the center of the picture while conversing in Kumeyaay are two KIIC docents enrolled in the language class (long sleeved shirt and fellow with curly hair). That would be Kalani on the left; and Suzanne on the right.
12-05-2011 KIIC Docent Report
After a group of eight spent five hours on Saturday morning at Pomerado Hospital rather than the site, it is “safe to say” that visitors have a well-trained leader on any event at the Kumeyaay Ipai Interpretive Center where all 15 docents are AED/CPR and First Aid certified, following the Red Cross training regimen of their five hours. Two chilly school tours last week ushered in a full month of visits. Sunday the regional San Diego Rock Art group used the facility for their bi monthly potluck and PowerPoint, this time by renown expert Ken Hedges about images at the Tecate, Mexico area of La Rumarosa, in a known Kumeyaay area.
Nov. 13, 2011 KIIC Docent Report
A fabulous week, marked by excellent networking and staff support, for the dedication of a Memorial Library in honor of Elder Dorothy Tavui of the San Pasqual Band of Kumeyaay Indians. More than 50 guests on Tuesday watched a traditional blessing ceremony by birdsingers at the Kumeyaay Ipai Interpretive Center. City officials, Poway residents and many tribal members joined the Friends of the Kumeyaay for an important day which also marked the third anniversary of having a building on site and the City’s proclamation recognizing November as national Native American Heritage Month. City staff rallied to deliver canopies, a public address system and other materials. A light lunch was served afterwards. Two school tours this week included one from Pomerado Elementary, which did the traditional native thing . . . they walked over, with the support of nine parent chaperones. Rain kept the site closed on Saturday
POWAY: Kumeyaay center opens library dedicated to San Pasqual elder
Visitors to the Kumeyaay-Ipai Interpretive Center in Poway now have a room where they can study rock art, Native American food and local plants.
On Tuesday morning, the Friends of the Kumeyaay and officials from the city of Poway dedicated the Dorothy M. Tavui Library at the center in a ceremony that included an official proclamation and American Indian bird dancers from the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians.
"This is quite a spiritual day," Poway City Councilman Jim Cunningham said as he prepared to read a proclamation opening the library and recognizing November as Native American Heritage Month."You'd only have to meet Dorothy once to know she was quite a spirit, quite a woman," Cunningham said about Tavui, a San Pasqual tribal elder who died in 2010. Suzanne Emery, a docent at the center, which opened three years ago, recalled Tavui as a San Pasqual elder who frequently helped organizers with facts about Kumeyaay culture.
Tavui was a San Pasqual tribal chairwoman in the early 1990s. Dave Toler, a San Pasqual tribal representative, said Tavui left an impression on everyone she met."She was very much devoted to the culture and she was also devoted to land conservancy," he said. Inside the new library, visitors can sit at a stone counter and go online with the center's computer to do research. While it has only about 100 books now, docents at the center said they hope to continue to increase the collection. Books include six binders about local plants by center volunteer Gerald Green, who took photos and wrote the text for the volumes.
The library, which is open 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, also includes books by photographer Edward Curtis, 1868-1952, who took pictures of many American Indians in the 19th century. Other books include "Stranger in a Strange Land" by archeologist Richard Carrico, professor of American Indian Studies at San Diego State University, and "Pushed Into the Rocks" by Florence Shipek.
Other books explore basketry and American Indian cuisine. The library includes several copies of "Seaweed, Salmon and Manzanita Cider," which contain recipes for food and beverages using local plants. The center is at 13104 Ipai Waaypuk Trail, formerly Silver Lake Drive, in Poway. The street's name was changed at the suggestion of Tavui.
Call staff writer Gary Warth at 760-740-5410.
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