By Roy Cook
El Cajon: Heritage
of the Americas Museum on the Cuyamaca College campus celebrated their
eleventh birthday. Featured are exhibits, cultural demonstrations, food,
music and dance. The East county museum is a cultural and educational
center featuring the prehistoric and historic objects of the western hemisphere.
Today,
January 31, 2004, there is free admission and plenty of free parking.
Associate director Cheryl Minshew organized the event and invited Native
Americans to participate. The Heritage of the Americas Museum is on the
south side of the Cuyamuca College campus. The museum was financed and
founded by Bernard Lueck and is home to his personal collection of objects
from around the world.
Festival featured
performers this day are: Eric Running Path Dancers. Eric narrated the
performances as Kim Flying Eagle danced the hoop dance. Clay and Anita
Two Bears represented the Elders. Elaine and Billy George, Missisippi
Choctaw presented their beautiful Tribal regalia to the assembly. The
Running Path Plains dance group performed twice: at one and three in the
afternoon. Elaine George RN is also a Native speaker of Choctaw and she
provided information and objects of Southeastern woodlands art in an interior
display. Also displaying inside are Wanda Cook, Mohawk and other Native
American artists.
Jon
Meza Cuero, Tipai Neimii (Wildcat) singer led off the set of songs at
one thirty in the afternoon. We had been scheduled to present at two.
However, the previous group finished and Cheryl said she wanted to hold
the audience. The threat of foul weather had been a concern most of the
morning. The Sun was warm on the desert landscape and garden patio but
when the sharp wind whistled around the corner folks started heading for
the interior of the museum.
Each and every time the Nyemii group comes together to sing these songs
of the Tipai it is a special experience. Jon is a champion Wildcat singer
on both sides of the international boundary. Traditionally the Kumeyaay
Nation has extended from below Ensenada, Baja to Lake Henshaw and from
the Imperial Valley to the ocean. Jon sings of a journey from Tipai Band
To Band. An epic story of emotion, life, humor and significant geographical
locations. We as Wildcat singers: Sam Brown, Viejas Kumeyaay, Roy Cook,
Opata-Osage and Ben Nance, are honored to receive instruction and encouragement
from our teacher: Jon Meza Cuero.
Juan Meza Cuero
is an Echkwechyaaw, a singer of Nyemii (Wildcat, Gato) Tipai song.
In his role as our teacher he is adamant about establishing the
historical character of these Wildcat songs. Jon has often said,
" I learned these songs from my Father when I was seven years of
age. At that time my father was 85 years of age."
One of the constant qualities I have learned as a singer of tribal
songs, and association with tribal singers and lead singers in particular,
is a sense of singer/song territoriality. Many lead singers establish
their 'credentials' to present their repertoire by acknowledging
their debt to those who taught them the songs. Juan is a lead singer
of Wildcat Tipai song.
He has extensive experience with many of the other styles of Tipai
song. Through his life experience and by circumstance and politics,
he is a participant observer of the dynamics at work defining traditional
song style in the Kumeyaay, Ipai, Tipai and extended territory.
As a teacher, Jon strongly emphasizes the need to learn the tune
first. He has often said, "First the song, then the words, and then
what the words mean." History is encoded in ritual. Therefore, if
a people remain in their creation lands they will continue to detail
events and orally weave a tightly woven cultural basket that is
holding those songs and stories, These songs and stories contain
all that is necessary to define that Band, Tribe, Nation. The oral
tradition will provide the structure for the people to remember
who they are, where they came from, and what has happened to them.
If they move, they remember where they were and how they came to
be where they are now.
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Our teacher, Juan
Cuero has seen much in his lifetime. He gently shares his knowledge and
experiences. With his teaching and songs we see intuitions and feel emotions
beyond our experience and expectations. The combined gathering of voices
blend and lift and it seems as if the songs are given wing as they echo
in the canyons. Finally, when the group sings our shared experience of
the moment is as if, there and then, time as it is defined in the western
world has no meaning. At these moments when we are in the song, we are
the song. Very often we grasp unseen experiences filled with emotion and
physically we have felt our heart fill our chest as we sing, and sing
again these beautiful Tipai songs.
Artist information
and booking for performance contact: E-MAIL
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