SURVIVING THROUGH THE DAYS "ch24"

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24. A Harvest of Songs from Villiana Calac Hyde

LUISEÑO 1988–1992VILLIANA CALAC HYDE, SINGER AND TRANSLATORERIC ELLIOTT, COLLECTOR

INTRODUCTION BY ERIC ELLIOTT

The following song texts were selected from Yumáyk Yumáyk (Hyde and Elliott 1994), a compilation of personal memoirs and historical texts narrated in Luiseño by Villiana Hyde.^[1] Luiseño is a member of the Cupan branch of the Takic subfamily of the Uto-Aztecan family of languages. The Uto-Aztecan family includes languages spoken from the American Northwest to Central America. The Cupan languages were all spoken within the boundaries of modern California. Within the Cupan languages, Luiseño is most closely related to the now-extinct Cupeño language.

Born Villiana Calac, Mrs. Villiana Hyde was a native speaker of Luiseño and a proud member of the Luiseño community at the Rincón Reservation of San Diego County. In Luiseño orthography the name “Calac” is spelled “Qáálaq” and literally means ‘(the earth) caves in’. In complete contrast to the literal meaning of the family name, the Calac

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family has a long history of never “caving in,” but rather of standing tall and providing the community and the world beyond with prominent leaders.

True to the Calac family tradition of serving the community, Mrs. Hyde found her niche early on as historian and linguist. Forbidden to speak Luiseño at Sherman Indian School in Riverside, California, Mrs. Hyde became painfully aware at a young age that her language and culture were in peril. As a young woman she gained an acute understanding of what it means for a language and culture to die. Mrs. Hyde's own mother-in-law was a native speaker of Cupeño, Luiseño's closest geographic and linguistic neighbor. The Cupeño people, including Mrs. Hyde's mother-in-law, had been forcibly evicted from their home at Warner Springs. Mrs. Hyde watched as her mother-in-law, now living among Diegueño and Luiseño speakers, saw her language and culture fade into extinction as the few remaining Cupeño speakers passed away around her.

Mrs. Hyde thus had a clear understanding of the ominous task of preserving her language and culture for future generations. Her formal career as a linguist began in the 1960s, when she first collaborated with Professors Margaret Langdon and Ronald Langacker of the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). This work eventually culminated in the publication of Mrs. Hyde's first book, An Introduction to the Luiseño Language (1971). Among those who collaborated with Mrs. Hyde on the Introduction were Langacker and the linguists Pamela Munro and Susan Steele, all of whom have continued their linguistic research on Luiseño language to the present day.

As an undergraduate student at the University of California, Irvine, I had the good fortune to stumble onto Mrs. Hyde's Introduction to the Luiseño Language. Long fascinated by the indigenous languages of California, I also happened to sign up for a class on Amerindian languages oered by Professor Mary Key, a linguist who had spent decades working on various American Indian languages of Mexico and South America. Professor Key encouraged my interest in Native American languages, opening up her office and personal linguistic library to me. When I showed up with Mrs. Hyde's Introduction, Professor Key further encouraged me to contact Mrs. Hyde and Professor Margaret Langdon of the Department of Linguistics at UCSD.

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At the time, Mrs. Hyde's telephone number was listed in the directory. I simply called up directory assistance, got her number, telephoned Mrs. Hyde, and asked her whether she would teach me more about her language. Mrs. Hyde graciously agreed. Armed only with the Introduction, my tape recorder, and William Bright's Luiseño Dictionary, I drove to Mrs. Hyde's house. Our technique was simple. I would ask Mrs. Hyde about a particular subject of interest. She would tell me details on tape in Luiseño. I would take the tape home, transcribe the Luiseño, analyze it morphologically, translate it into English as best I could, and bring the work back to Mrs. Hyde for editing. At first, the work was painstakingly slow. Mrs. Hyde, who opened up her home to me most Saturdays, thought nothing of working from nine o'clock in the morning until as late as five o'clock at night.

Mrs. Hyde and I ended up collaborating for more than eight years. Our work has thus far yielded Yumáyk Yumáyk (‘long, long ago’), and we also have a dictionary and grammar in the making. Mrs. Hyde passed away in 1994, several weeks before Yumáyk Yumáyk was published. Mrs. Hyde was a good friend to me. She was also an ideal linguistic consultant. With her passing I lost a friend and also the possibility of further data collection or further clarification of material already gathered. The following excerpts from Yumáyk Yumáyk are therefore presented raw, as they appeared in the original—that is, with no further interpretation or explanation on my part. Mrs. Hyde provided explanations where she felt them necessary in Yumáyk Yumáyk. As with any culture's history, or as with any individual's own life story, there will always be facets of that history that are more readily comprehensible to outsiders, and other aspects that are less transparent. In order to fully understand the culture of a given community or individual, one has to be a member of that culture. I am not a member of the Luiseño-speaking culture presented in Yumáyk Yumáyk, a culture where speaking Luiseño and having one's gallstones removed by a shaman (Hyde and Elliott 1994:175–84) were as natural to Mrs. Hyde as speaking English and going to the dentist for a filling is to me. Yet, the more one reads of Mrs. Hyde's life and times, the better picture one forms of her culture, which really did exist not so long ago. It is my hope that these selections will provide readers with a glimpse of the grace and beauty of the language and culture that Mrs. Hyde worked so hard to document.

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NOTE

1. Song numbers here refer to text numbers in Hyde and Elliott's Yumáyk Yumáyk (1994). For the sake of reference, they have not been renumbered for this volume. The titles of songs given in Luiseño, in the absence of an explanatory phrase at the beginning, may be translated with reference to the first line of the song itself.—HWL

A HARVEST OF SONGS FROM VILLIANA CALAC HYDE

BADGER SONG (#138)

	These are the ones who looked down
	These are the ones who peered down

	The badger and the vulture, long ago
	These ones [are] the vulture …

	Look at his stained hand with a ring around it
	Look at his speckled hand

	These are the ones who looked down
	These are the ones who peered down

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	I speak of my [own] spirit
	I try to speak of my heart

	I try to speak of my spirit
	I try to speak of my heart

“They too looked down. And that's why they look that way. That badger saw, he looked down.”

[*] These explanations were provided by Mrs. Hyde and are not part of the song itself. The remaining lines of the song are apparently lost.

KÁÁMALA SONG (#145)

	Child, ?á$kat's song:
	The ones inside her rolled and moved
	The ones in her chest,
	the ones in her chest rolled and moved
	The ones inside her,
	their beloved sons, rolled and moved

TEMÉÉNGANISH SONG (#149)

THE DAWN SONG
[†] “They would sing this song toward dawn,” Mrs. Hyde explained. (The star names chuyúkmal and kayá'mal may refer to animals. The Vulture Star is Arcturus.)

	I speak of the East
	I speak of the East
	I tell my story, of how I was dying
	In the first little month called Táwsanmaytal

	The chuyúkmal star, the kayá'mal star
	Made growling sounds
	They opened their mouths when I was dying
	In the first little month called Táwsanmaytal

The bullfrog and the angleworm …

I speak of the Antares star of the East

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	I speak of the Vulture star of the East
	I tell my story of the East
	I tell my story of the East

LULLABY IN IMITATION OF A CRICKET CHIRPING (#153)

THE CRICKET'S SONG

	The oak trees are standing there
	The oak trees are standing there
	In the house, in the house, in the house

PÍ'MUKVOL SONG (#162)

DEATH SONG
[*] The song has two parts, as numbered.

	1
	The mááxwala hawk, the wasíímal hawk
	They left speaking of their spirits, of their hearts
	They left singing of their spirits, of their hearts

	2
	The qáwqaw bird, the kingbird and the wasíímal hawk
	They left speaking of their spirits, of their hearts

PA'LÁÁKWISH SONG (#165)

THE PA'LÁÁKWISH BIRD'S SONG

	My nephew, get your arrow
	To shoot and kill someone

CHALÁÁWAAT SONG (#167)

THE CHALÁÁWAAT (“STANDING UP”) DANCE

	I suppose I've survived the first little month
	I suppose I've survived the first big month

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	Oh, I am surviving through the days
	I am surviving through the days

PIWÍÍSH SONG (#170)

THE MILKY WAY SONG (SECOND PART)
[] The phrase makes me spark* is a poetic idiom meaning “keeps me awake.” The word rattle at the beginning of lines 3 and 4 translates literally as “my little fire.”

	It keeps waking me up
	It keeps waking me up
	It makes me spark
	My rattle, my turtleshell rattle
	My rattle keeps me awake

QAXÁÁL QAXÁÁWUT SONG (#171)

	The valley quail and the mountain quail singed their hair [†] This is not the whole of the “Qaxáál Qaxááwut” song. The two stanzas presented here represent two separate parts of the song. Neither part begins the complete song, but they are not necessarily sequential either.
	They cut o their hair, with tears and lamentations
	They singed their hair
	The mountain quail singed o his hair
	The mountain quail singed o his hair
	They cut o their hair, with tears and lamentations

	The flicker bird and the roadrunner
	They cut o their hair, with tears and lamentations
	They singed their hair
	The flicker bird singed o his hair
	The roadrunner singed o his hair
	They cut o their hair, with tears and lamentations

PÍ' TÓÓWISH HULÚYKA SONG (#174)

	And the spirit landed
	And the little dove landed

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	And it stopped to warn
	And so it wandered around to warn

	And the coyote landed
	And it stopped to warn
	And so it wandered around to warn

	The owl landed
	And the fox landed
	And it stopped to warn
	And so it wandered around to warn

	The screech owl landed
	And the péépimal bird landed
	And it stopped to warn
	And so it wandered around to warn

	The páátapi duck landed
	And the nóóchaqi duck landed
	And it stopped to warn
	And so it wandered around to warn

	The pááwnat bird landed
	And the killdeer bird landed
	And it stopped to warn
	And so it wandered around to warn

TÓÓWISH MIXÉÉL SONG (#178)

	The spirit, the dove
	This spirit [cried] over me
	This dove [cried] over me
	And so it cried over our future death
	Over my future death
	Over my future disappearance
	Over my future disappearance
	The fox [cried] over me …

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WUNÁL PÍ' TUMÁMKAWISH SONG (#181)

	There was an earthquake in the north
	Our future death rumbled
	My storehouse was shaken up
	Our hearts rumbled
	Our future death rumbled
	My darkness was shaken
	My darkness was shaken
	Our future death rumbled

	There was an earthquake in the north
	Our future death rumbled
	My storehouse was shaken up
	Our hearts rumbled
	Our future death rumbled
	My darkness was shaken
	My darkness was shaken
	Our future death rumbled

[Singer begins dancing]

	Our future death rumbled
	My storehouse was shaken up
	Our house rumbled
	My darkness was shaken
	My darkness was shaken
	Our house rumbled

SECOND KÁÁMALA SONG (#182)

THE CHILD SONG

	The dust from the area around Pááyaxchi
	Billowed up from their feet as they walked along
	And erred along the way

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CHALÁWYAX MILA MÓÓTA SONG (#190)

	The gopher danced the chaláwyax [] The chaláwyax* and yúngish are dances. The gopher and meadow mouse's father is Móyla Wuyóót (the Moon). The vocables héé héé at the end of the song work in much the same way that the word amen does—by “sending the song to heaven.”
	The meadow mouse danced
	They danced the chaláwyax and the yúngish
	After their father
	They danced when their father died
	They danced all night
	They danced, héé, héé, amen …