Kim Marcus Shares Cahuilla Stories for Life

Friends of The Idyllwild Library hosted Cahuilla and Serrano elder and ceremonial leader Kim Marcus for a sharing on February 25th. Kim is an enrolled member of the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians. The word Cahuilla means master or powerful ones. As ceremonial leader, Kim preserves ancient rituals, and customs, and together with his wife Barbara, from the Kalispel tribe, he also teaches the value of harvesting ancient foods for their nutritional value.

Kim was warmly greeted as were his ancestral stories and explanations of tribal world views. During his talk Kim passed around many ceremonial artifacts and tools, throwing sticks and arrow straighteners, ceremonial gourd rattles, a skirt made from palm frond leaves, baskets and pottery used for storage. “All are significant tools for Native life still in use today. To us they are living entities and represent the rhythms of life,” he said. In fact, Kim brought a quiver and two arrows to gift attendees as door prizes.

“Thank you for inviting me here. It’s important we sit together to talk and listen to each other, because although my road may be different than yours and I might be a little darker, I am still your brother.

“I just want to know how much time do I have? Back on the res. when we get together, we joke, it’s informal, we accept each other, things are approached lightly. We build a fire and there is no time; we talk until no one adds wood to the fire.

“My Serrano lineage originated from Twentynine Palms, once called Marra and my lineages are from Morongo and San Manuel. My uncle, Ernie Siva, is the only remaining Serrano speaker.  When he passes away there will be no more fluent Serrano speakers, and the orthodox Serrano language will be extinct.”

“I was raised by my parents, and both my father Clarence Marcus, and my grandmother, Marcella Tortes spoke fluent Orthodox Cahuilla. There are only six or seven elders that speak Cahuilla.  My grandfather Louis Marcus spoke fluent orthodox Serrano.”

“My father was a Shaman; he could travel between worlds, but his mother was fearful that one day he would not travel back. So, she arranged for a couple shaman to remove his power, leaving only a little bit at my grandfather’s insistence. As my father’s life continued, the power left within him showed up in many ways. He could often be heard singing to the dragonflies by the water, and they would land on him,” Kim recollects.

Kim feels like when he sings his father’s song to the dragonflies, and one lands on him it means his spirit is in right relationship with himself, the animals, the land, its people and the universe. If none land and they fly away, then he must take inventory. Something is wrong. He knows there is work to do on himself.

“Since yesterday morning,” said Kim. I’ve been performing ceremonial rituals and singing all night. Families of the deceased come to me and ask if I can officiate a wake ceremony that entails rituals and singing all night. The rite of passage ceremony for the dead is one of the most sacred rites for Cahuilla people. Our songs, rituals and ceremonies form the backbone of our spiritual practice and cultural identity.” said Kim.

“Singing is how we pray and so we are saying at death ‘travel, move on and rest in peace.’ In our creation story death came, and the Creator said ‘it’s okay – the world would get too full if there is no death. And besides, you come back to me.’ We sing, we ask the ancestors to carry each spirit up to Milky Way and it goes home. We know it’s a journey…our life doesn’t end,” he said.

“The Cahuilla Bird Songs are a cycle of songs that recite the creation and the journey or travels of the Cahuilla people. In the beginning of the bird songs we sing about: let’s get up “chem kwe’eqe neh” and “neh Chiyat “ with my bundle of feathers or headdress.”

“The Cahuilla are connected to the land throughout this region. Ownership was never a concept – we are caretakers of the land. We visit many places to gather power including here. San Jacinto mountain is “taqwish hemkii” home of taqwish and also “ayakiietch.”

“Suicide rock is is called ‘tekvet’ hawks home. You’ve heard about the San Gorgonio mountains or “qwerrikietch” in Serrano and Seven Sisters Trail and Yuri east of San Bernardino, these are all places for us to gather power,” he said.

“We use the term medicine to mean many things. It can mean wisdom, power or insight, all of which are healing to us. We seek power from our ancestors, the universe, and earth to help us grow and be in right relations to everything in this world. To us everything is alive, has purpose and deserves our gratitude and respect as we share this world. Love is the way of the Cahuilla,” said Kim.

“Shaman or ‘puul’ are our healers, guides, spiritual teachers, and medium between the people and the spiritual realm. Their wisdom is sought by the tribe throughout life, so our people remain valued. It’s how our community endures.”

“Shaman would travel great distances to the peak of this mountain where water would flow for about 10 feet and then go back into the Earth. They would sit for months meditating and calmly listening to the ripples of the water to learn the medicine taught by water and they would come back with special songs and nobody outside our tribe could sing them, because that was our power medicine. This is the way they learned to teach us how to flow in life in a sacred way.”

Kim stated, “Originally in the beginning of creation we were given great power by our creator and the whole world was a place of power.  We were given spiritual laws of life and we lost a lot of power due to practicing different laws and different religions.”

In the video Kim showed, he sang songs and spoke about “Chexaya am” the Seven Sisters and their journey. “They lived on earth with us in the beginning of creation times. They grew their families on earth and decided they were going to leave this earth and they accessed their power and started building steps amongst the hills and mountains and started climbing to the heavens and became the stars or Seven Sisters.  They were followed by a spiritual being “qweyexivis” tarantula,” he explained.

Kim also shared that drawings on rocks are their written language. His interpretation of the pictographs in Idyllwild was compelling. “In the pictures we talk about the constellations, the Milky Way and our worldview. The sideways figure eight is our eternity symbol. The image of Seven Sisters mountain shows the creator’s greatness. You will see coyotes, ancestors and holy ones in the pictographs. The Great Spirit is also depicted on a pictograph, the diamond images are very sacred to the Cahuilla’s.”

“Annually, all the young girls, boys and babies from tribes in the area traveled to Idyllwild. Upon arrival they were separated, and the elder women would educate and teach the girls what it is to be a woman. They were advised to be like “Elka Menyil” the beautiful moon maiden. She was our teacher about life, how to behave, how to treat the world, animals and plants, and how to treat each other.”

Kim said, “the elder men would take all the boys and instruct them what it is to be young men, and they would tell them stories, rituals of rights, customs and traditions, and they would explain the creation story.”

“And they would also initiate the babies. Right from when you are a baby, you are valued by community. This is how we honor each child. In later years, they would take a photograph of the ceremony, you were given a copy as proof of your belonging and value,” he added.

“We instruct the children and young men to be warriors for all that is good. You accept a life of courage because you know death doesn’t stop here. Life continues, we travel, we follow a path through the Milky Way.”

When asked how we can support the Cahuilla? Kim reminds us the collective trauma of colonization and ethnic cleansing is still with Indians. “Vote and support government funding for Indian education, health services, drug abuse treatment, diabetes and heart disease clinics.” Kim has been a proponent of Native American nutrition in Riverside and San Bernadino since 1980, founding the Commodities food program and as a counselor, therapist and Cahuilla language specialist. Formerly, Kim was Elder in Residence with California Indian Nations College and Cal State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Now semi-retired Kim currently resides on the Santa Rosa Reservation and teaches Cahuilla language to elementary students.