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Transcription: [00:00:10]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 1"}
With that, I guess, I'll turn it over to --
[00:00:14]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
I want to ask Valana Hyde to say something we heard Greg talk just a little bit about; the tribal museum
[00:00:24]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
There is a great deal to say about the tribal museum effort, and, and, and the tribal cultural efforts.
[00:00:29]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
One of the keystones of preservation of culture is a preservation of language, and I would like to ask Valana Hyde, an elder in Luiseno community, whose really been a major figure in that attempt at language preservation, to talk just a little bit about the effort at language preservation at Luiseno.
[00:00:51]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
I don't know how -- How are -- Are you all going, ah -- I'm sorry. Do you want to speak first, or ask ask Valana to talk about that? How do you want to do that Patty?
[00:01:07]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
Well, I think it is important for people to know --

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
This is Louise Jefredo
[00:01:11]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
I think it is important for people to know, basically, who we are and where we come from.
[00:01:15]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
We are native Californians, and at one time, California was the most diverse culturally and the most populace group, um, of the 10 native culture areas in the U.S., and at the time of contact in 1769, we were altogether, the state populace, the population, excuse me, was 310,000.
[00:01:41]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
In 1920, there were 20,000 left, so (static) was the Spanish name that was given to us.
[00:01:47]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
But when we went under the mission system, we were all taken from our original areas; and the Luiseño, at one time, um, lived in what is now San Diego.
[00:01:56]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
And we lived in every ecological niche, from coastal to inland, to mountains, to valleys; everything.
[00:02:03]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
And we were quite spread out, and at time of contact, there were 10,000 of us, and by 1900, there were about 500.
[00:02:11]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
So that's kind of what we have been up against, and we have been trying to preserve our culture in light of our past history.
[00:02:18]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
And um, we are lucky to have people like Valana who still speak the language; and she is one of the few who does, and who knows about the older traditions.
[00:02:28]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
So what we are trying to do now is, basically, to have people like Valana, who can teach and pass things on; cause we are lucky.
[00:02:37]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
Cause out of a lot of Californian groups, there aren't that many groups who are fortunate enough to have someone like Valana who still speaks the language.
[00:02:45]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
She is one of the few that I know of speaks Luiseño. I think there are only two other elders who speak it as fluently and as well as as she does.
[00:02:52]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
And with that, I'd like to have Patty talk about what they are doing now on the Rincon reservation in terms of cultural conservation, or preservation, and maybe Valana will talk about what she is doing with language.
[00:03:06]

{SPEAKER name="Louise Jefredo"}
She is working on a dictionary now; an English-Luiseno dictionary. And this is Patty, she is from the Rincon reservation.
[00:03:14]

{SPEAKER name="Patty"}
Hello, uh, our, uh, our reservation is located in San Diego county.
[00:03:22]

{SPEAKER name="Patty"}
Our, uh, band has a membership of approx -- a little over 500.
[00:03:28]

{SPEAKER name="Patty"}
Our reservation is 4,000 acres. Uh,--
{SILENCE}
[00:03:38]

{SPEAKER name="Patty"}
About, well, I'm glad that this program, um, for culture conservation, I'm glad that we could come here and share our ideas and the goals that we have in mind, to go back and teach our people the languages, the songs, some of the different uses of the plant life, and we want to start a class in the Fall to start teaching our younger people, and preserve the ways we have left.
[00:04:14]


Transcription Notes:
Reopened. Didn't do "speaker" part correctly. There are actually three speakers. The first is a man, then two other women. The Luiseño of California - an American Indian group of people - with a unique language. Rincon is the name of the school.