“Father Gerónimo
Boscana…defines Acjachema as a pyramidal form of moving matter (Boscana).
Boscana observes further that “Others apply the term to things inanimate, such
as a pile of stones, etc., but the most correct signification of the word is
understood as having relation to a heap of animated things (Boscana 84)… In
traditional Acjachemen thought, however, rocks animate and alive. They pulse
with the vibration of all their minerals, with all their ayelkwi, or
knowledge-power. Rocks hold as much cultural significance as the sky holds
stars. Rocks walk themselves to ceremonies. They sing across valleys. They
burst into fire and they hum to themselves. Through rocks, the ancestors speak
and the spirits appear…
Ancient boundary monument No. XVI was
a simple pile of stones, early 1850s. From Jacobo Blanco’s Memoria de la
Sección Mexicana de la Comisión Internacional de Límites entre México y los
Estados Unidos que Restableció los Monumentos de El Paso al Pacífico. 1901.
...Louie continues to explain his views towards rocks, offering
an example of a rock pile. “Your average person could walk by a pile of rocks
and say ‘Oh that’s a pile of rocks,’” he explains. “A native person could walk
by, and say ‘Look at the ancestors here.’” His words remind me about the story
of Acjachema, the place where the ancestors slept all together. Rocks,
similarly stacked and piled, are ancestors too. I wonder about the ancient rock
cairns that people have occasionally seen in the southern California hills, the
cairns that the Lobos describe in their report. Are these groups of ancestors
perhaps tapping into something deeper, into the story of Acjachema?” ~ From: “A
Celebration of Ceremony Among the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen
Nation,” Julia Edith Rigby (2012)
Chinigchinich by
Friar Geronimo Boscana (tr. by Alfred Robinson) [1846]
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