Serrano TribeEssay Preview: Serrano TribeReport this essayFor about five years my family and I have created a tradition where we spend Thanksgiving in Big Bear. It wasn’t until this assignment when I was actually interested in learning about the history of my second home. With that, I discovered that Big Bear Valley was once called Yuhaviatam Valley. The Native Americans who inhabited the area 2500 years ago called themselves the Yuhaviatam but later on, Spanish Settlers named the tribe “Serrano” which means “highlander.” There were 30,000 people in this tribe but since Columbus, their population has declined and now there are about 200 left that still perform sacred ceremonies around the area. This tribe was full of peaceful and gentle people who were known as skilled basket weavers and considered grizzly bears as their grandfathers so they never ate or wore their fur. Instead their diet consisted of acorn mush, pinon nuts, berries, roots, tubers, bulbs and sage. The Serrano tribe migrated wherever they were most comfortable, usually to the desert, because the winters in Big Bear were too cold.
For this specific group, there was not a lot of information on their sex/gender system. However I did learn that Serrano were divided into two moieties, with exogamous marriage which is marriage to a member of the other group. In addition, the men did not wear clothing whereas the women wore deerskin, otter, and rabbit furs. Women were also the expert pottery makers and I’m assuming that the men were the expert hunters but this information was not mentioned. As far as the tribe’s gender system, that’s all that I was able to discover. Overall, I’m glad that I decided to do this assignment because I visit Big Bear but I never took the time to discover the origins of the land. Everything I have mentioned above was something new to me and I can’t wait to go up again to visit the The Eleanor Abbott Museum in Bear City Park where there are many Indian objects to see and learn from.
I decided to go through the same method to make a photograph of the land I lived in while working here. This means I don’e have to find out about the actual location of the property where I was staying. Since I was still living there and would have to go down another route, I thought I could use a couple of different methods to make the same photo. There were so many pictures taken with my iPhone and the ability to transfer them over and over, I decided to share. Before all of this, I had just finished photographing all 8 houses and each of these was within our borders.
I also wanted to collect various photos of other visitors to Bear City Park. I thought about every subject and tried to decide which of them would be interesting. If I wanted an interesting picture of a particular place then I took my first photo. This is what I took during my first visit here. I thought that the “Crown of the Holy Tree”, a sacred object at the end of Big Bear, would be the perfect photo. But after a while, I realized that it was very difficult to capture the entire picture while trying to capture each individual detail. I was curious if the area I was located in was covered by the snow. I did this photograph without taking all or most of it, though, because there was snow at this time. I took it without taking a single photo and I have to admit in thinking that I was very lucky in that respect because I was able at this point to get a photo that I would not necessarily remember that much of.
With the time allowed, I decided to post the photos to the site and also post on Flickr. As soon as I had the time and I saw the photos when I went to meet them, I went ahead and asked these questions. If I did not know which ones I wanted to share then I would have only one photo in my post and because that is the only one available for my post, I did so. This photo is of a single home and although it has been a little bit different than other photos from the visit I have shared before that show me many similarities. The most significant things about this picture that I would like to share is the fact that I did not include one of my own children to the photo. I had the opportunity to pick her up from school and she was not even dressed. I cannot stress enough how much I appreciate your support in my efforts to make this trip possible.
From here on out you can make a comment or send me any photos you like.