Religous Espression
Under Construction
A general belief held by the people of the Desert Interior was that all of the environment, including all features of the landscape and the plants and animals that inhabited it, spoke of events of an earlier time when the land was not yet home to humans and animals talked and acted like people. Daily life was filled with experiences of supernatural meaning, and spirits regularly communicated with people, usually through dreams, some of which were actively sought, while other spirts came unbidden. A deer behaving curiously or a whirlwind might portend the future, warming of impending danger. In some parts of the Desert Interior,such as the Owens Valley, and in the basin and range areas of the eastern interior deserts, there was little organized religion. Instead, religous beliefs were highly personalized, each individual having a protecting guardian spirit (such as a mountain or an animal) received in visions in youth.
However, for some, this contact was more intimate and direct. A few exceptionally gifted individuals sought active dialogue with the supernatural and became shamans. As part-time professionals they interceded on behalf of those less able to communicate with, but nevertheless in need of help from, the spiritual world, generally in connection with medical problems. Powerful shamans could change from human to animal form, sometimes appearing as bears. However, a dark side lurked within this power, and shamans occasionally turned to it exclusively, using their powers to sicken and kill for whim, envy, or personal gain.
The religion of many of the Desert Interior people mirrored their interaction between environment and adaptation. There was a lack of formalization and an emphasis on personal (rather than shared) spirits and ritual, and in this way it paralleled the individual and family autonomy grown of a lifeway that demanded this for survival. For many of the Desert Interior groups, the hereafter and the ultimate destination of a person's spirit were of little concern. To assure that the souls of the dead would cause no trouble for the living, personal effects of the deceased were burned and her or his name was not spoken or used to name another person.
In other parts of the Desert Interior, religion was much more formalized. There were special ceremonies held for girls and boys when they reached adolescence; community wide mourning ceremonies, held to honor and commemmorate all who had died since the last mourning ceremony; eagle-killing ceremonies; and special shamans-contests. Almost every village had a large ceremonial house which was the religious center for each lineage or clan (two or possible more lineages joined to one another through ties of descent from a common ancestral founder, marriage, economic reciprocity and through joint particpation in rituals). Lineages shared the ceremonial house and the sacred bundle, the raison d'etre for many of the Desert Interior groups. Sacred bundles generally contained all ceremonial paraphernalia of the group, and were usually taken care of by a religio-political specialist.
For more detailed information on religious expression for specific groups, choose from the following:
Eastern Mono | Kawaiisu | Chemehuevi | Serrano | Kitanemuk
Tataviam | Vanyume | Cahuilla | Kupa | Tipai
Eastern Mono -
Kawaiisu -
Chemehuevi -
SERRANO - Serrano cosmogony and cosmography closely parallels that of the Cahuilla and Kupa. There are twin creator gods, a creation myth told in "epic poem" style, each local group having its own origin story, water babies whose crying foretells death, supernatural beings of various kinds and on various heirarchically arranged power-access levels, an Orpheus-like myth, mythical deer that no one can kill, and tales relating the adventures (and misadventures) of Coyote, a tragicomic trickster-transformer culture hero.
Serrano shamans, like most southern California shamans, were psychically predisposed for possessions and acquired their various powers through dreaming, assisted by ingesting datura. Shamans were mainly curers, healing their patients through a combination of sucking out the disease-causing agents and administgering herbal remedies.
When Serrano boys and girls of prominent families reached adolescence special ceremonies were held for each. The girls' ceremony included "pit roasting," ingestion of bitter herbs, observation of certain dietary restrictions, and instructions on how to be good wives. The boys' ceremony included boys of prominent families as well as boys who had outstanding personalities. Datura was prepared in secret, ingested by the boys who then danced around a fire in the ceremonial house until falling into a trance. While sleeping the boys had visions that were later interpreted by the shamans and used as sign posts for the boys' future lives.
Special mouning ceremonies were held for the deceased. Within one month the deceased's family held a one night ceremony of singing and dancing and at which certain possessions of the deceased were burned. Annually, a seven-day community-wide mourning ceremony was held. This was the most complex Serrano ceremony. At various times over the seven days, other ceremonies took place. On the evening of the thrid day the sacred bundle was brought forth and shown to the assembled lineages and clans. On the fifth night the Eagle-Killing Ceremony, which symbolized the continuity of lineages and clans, took place. By permitting itself to be "killed" by people the eagle assured them of life after death. The ceremony also provided a means of obtaining eagle feathers which would be used later in decorating the images of the dead.
On the sixth day, the mourning families constructed images of the dead, which were nearly life size, made of tule, and dressed in clothes of the deceased. That evening an Eagle Dance was held (much like that of the Cahuilla, Luiseño, and Gabrielino) in which a dancer dressed in eagle feathers whirled around the ceremonial house simulating the movements of the eagle.
KITANEMUK - Kitanemuk mythology was a mixture of elements, many of which had their origin among the Chumash to the west, the Gabrielino to the southwest, and the Yokuts of the southern San Joaquin Valley. The Kitanemuk believed that the universe was originally created by a being who formed earth and sky and made the First People, who included the ancestors of the present birds and animals, the most important of which were five brothers and a sister. And it was from these six siblings that the ancestors of the Kitanemuk were descended.
Although a Kitanemuk girl were through a period of ceremonial isolation at her first menses, there was no public ritual to acknowledge her entrance into the adult female Kitanemuk world, nor was she given datura. Boys, on the other hand, were initiated into adulthood by drinking an infusion of datura so that they might acquire supernatural power, usually in the form of a dream-helper who would be his friend and protector.
Like the Serrano, the Kitanemuk held both family and a community-wide mourning ceremonies, the former held over a period of several days immediately following a person's death, the later usually held at four- or five-year intervals because of the expenses involved. They lasted a week and were held in a special horseshoe-shaped brush covered arbor (or ramada ) built near the village. On the morning of the final day of the ceremony, an effigy was built which contained personal belongings of all who had died since the last mourning ceremony. The effigy had a human form and the body, made of cloth, was covered by strings of beads. After being carried around a special fire pit, it was thrown it and burned.
TATAVIAM - Little is known about the religion of the Tataviam.
VANYUME - Nothing is known about the religion of the Vanyume.
CAHUILLA - Cahuilla cosmology recognized the existence of a supernatural power or energy source, perceived as the creative force of a systematic but potentially unstable and unpredictable universe. The presence of power explained all unusual talents or unusual events and differences in cultural attainment, and all phenomena that contained power were capable of negative and postive actions.
Ritual was a constant factor in the life of every Cahuilla--always directly ahead or immediately finished. Some rituals were scheduled and routine, while others were of a sporadic and situation nature. Of the 10 or more types of ritual, the most significant were the annual mourning ceremony, eagle ceremony, certain rites of passage, and rituals aimed at improving subsistence resources. The central focus of most of these rituals was the performance of cosmologically oriented song cycles that placed the universe in perspective and reaffirmed the relationship of the Cahuilla to the sacred past, present, one another, and to all things.
Among the most revered and simultaneously feared members of a Cahuilla community were the puvulam, or shamans. These individuals, always male, through the manipualtion of supernaturally acquired power were responsible for dealing with intermittent disaster and personal trauma. They cured illness (naturally or supernaturally caused), divined, controlled natural phenomena such as rain, created food, witched, and acted as guardians during ceremonies (keeping away ghosts, malevolent spirits, evil beings or evil power).
Among the Desert Cahulla the status was not hereditary, and a number of practitioners might belong to a single clan. A shaman often was a man who had been ill frequently as a child, and the healer who treated him had become aware of the child's potential as a curer, magician, and seer. As a young man the novice dreamed of a song that became a tangible manifestation of his inordinate powers. Mukat, one of the twin Creator Beings of the Cahuilla, was responsible for implanting the dreams and guardian spirits identified with shamans. A novice danced before the people of his clan for three nights and afterward was qualified to pursue his calling. In his dreams he eventually learned other songs, dances, feats of magic, bewitching methods, herbal cures for particular ailments, as well as harmful or curative spells.
TIPAI - Like several other southern California nations, the Tipai held public coming-of-age and mourning ceremonies. Guests came from other Tipai clans to honor a group of individuals of similar status--adolescent girls (less often boys) during puberty ceremonies and persons dying since the last image burning ceremony during the mourning ceremony.
Ceremonialism. The girls' puberty ceremony, sometimes called the "roasting" rite, was to promote a girl's future welfare and her self-confidence as a woman. Tow or more girls, at or near puberty, remained a week, except for chaperoned trips to relieve themselves, in a pit with fragrant branches carpeting heated rocks. After a purifying tobacco drink, a girl lay face down, with face painted flack, basketry cap and garland on her head, human-hair bracelet, and scratching stick. A warmed, crescentic stone between her legs supposedly insured easier future motherhood. Elderly women, who also gave practrical instruction, danced around the pit as they sang song cycles or new songs.
The girls' "roasting" rite was absent among the Imperial Valley and some western Baja California Tipais. Instead, Mesican Tipai girls, after private observances, met at public rites to be tattooed while boys had their nasal septums pierced. Only boys in Imperial Valley had a public ceremony; mountain Tipai boy had their septums pierced during a mourning ceremony or girls'rite.
The major clan event among the Tipai was the keruk , or image-burning ceremony, held to commemorate clan members--female, male, old, young--who had died since the last keruk was held. The keruk was usually held in late summer or fall, after years of accumulating food, goods, and ceremonial regalia. During the course of the four-to-eight day ceremony, male and female guests danced around a fire built before the ceremonial shelter. Painted and ornamented, the guests danced, holding aloft images of the dead as the keruk's hosts scattered gifts. Each image was a slifelike as possible, had a matting framework, plumped with grass, and was painted and finely dressed with traditional decorations. Finally, at dawn, images, ceremonial regalia, and new goods were piled in a pit or in the shelter and burned.
Shamanism. The Tipai say that a shaman was born as such. Such individuals were believed to possess the ability to transform themselves into their guardian animal. Around the 1850s, the Tipais learned toloache customs from the Ipais; subsequently, some Tipais regarded toloache initiates as shamans by virtue of their status as toloache initiates (eligible to participate in shamans' dances as well as possessors of ritual knowledge). However, most Tipai who took toloache did so to learn a specific song series or to get luck, usually in gambling.
Curing was effected by sucked blood or the disease causing object, either with the mouth or through a pipe; be kneading and pressing; and by blowing tobacco smoke. There also were doctors who concentrated, or specialized, in herbalism, dream interpretation, and hunting large game. There were also some bear doctors as well as shamans who could turn themselves into eagles, and weather makers. Shamans suspected of using their power to harm or kill others were done away with.
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To comment on this page please send email to Chuck Smith at crsmith@cabrillo.cc.ca.us.
Page last updated: 23 August 1999