Tongva Cultural WorkshopsSept. 8th, 15th, 29th & Oct. 13 200710am-12noon

All workshops are free-of-charge and open to all ages

Stories/Songs/Basket Making workshop
September 15 @ 10am-12noon
October 3 @ 10am- 12noon

Stories/Songs/Regalia Materials workshop
September 8 @ 10am-12noon
September 29 @ 10am-12noon

About the Tongva Cultural Workshops
Farmlab offers a series of workshops to honor November as Native American Heritage month. These workshops will be led by the descendants of the Tongva people, of the Los Angeles basin area.

The programs will include a brief cultural history, storytelling and songs, a presentation of regalia materials, and will culminate with a hands-on cultural artifacts project.

The instrruments and baskets created during each of the four workshops will then be used during upcoming ceremonies that Farmlab is co-hosting, or otherwise participating in.

Those ceremonies include: La Ofrenda (more info. coming soon) -- and in particular an ancestral pole ceremony to be held during a November 2, 2007 Sunrise Ceremony; and a living sand sculpture ceremony, to be held in the Puvunga village, in long beach, on november 17, 2007.

Materials will be available for all the workshops.

A Note About "Stories/Songs/Basket Making" workshop
The Ti'at Society/Traditional Council of Pimu leads this two-part workshop.

A Note About Stories/Songs/Regalia Materials workshop
The September 29 workshop will consist of, "Shell Bead Bracelets & Shell Rattles" -- making shell bead bracelets from cordage and sanded down shells.

About the Workshop Organizers
Cindi Moar Alvitre has been Director of Ti’at Society since its inception in the late 1980s. She is a Tongva descendant of the Moompetam (Salt Water Clan). She is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of World Arts and Culture, specializing in folklore, traditional medicine and California Indians. She is a lecturer at California State University Long Beach in American Indian Studies and has been a cultural/environmental educator and activist for nearly three decades.

Alvitre is the mother of four children, aged 34, 32, 27 & 24, and the grandmother of two. She was the organizer and first woman chair of the Gabrieleno-Tongva Tribal Council, and is currently the chair of the Traditional Council of Pimu. As the daughter of the late Bernard "Nino" Alvitre, for nearly 30 years Cindi Alvitre has continued the family's tradition of social activism. She has represented her community domestically and internationally in a number of different venues including opening for Nobel Laureates, Rigoberta Menchu Tum and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She was the first woman paddler on the Moomat Ahiko, and continues in her love of paddling both outrigger and kayaks. She continues to dedicate her life to the preservation and protection of the Tongva culture.

Craig T is a descendant of the Yaavitam (Yaanga/Los Angeles) and the Komiikravitam (Komiikrangna/Santa Monica Canyon) ancestral communities of the Tongva in the Los Angeles Basin. He has spent much of his adult life freelancing as a cultural educator in Arts & Education presenting to schools, cultural centers and docent training at museums. He has an intensive knowledge and experience in the traditional tribal mediums of shell and soapstone. Recently, he has been exploring the world of digital media arts and computer graphic design. Much of what is expressed in his artwork is his cultural background and life experiences as an indigenous person.

"Wa'at Guata Tayiy Hunuka….remember our ancestors."