09 Sep Where the World Began
Another place sacred to the Tongva is Puvunga, believed to be the “place of emergence” where the world began. It is the birthplace of the prophet, Chingishmish, who taught the people how to feed themselves. Puvunga is also the site of burial grounds and a formerly thriving village.
If you walk behind the Earl Miller Japanese Garden on the campus of Cal State Long Beach, you’ll come to a clearing by a spring surrounded by grassy fields. There you’ll find totem poles and medicine wheels. The day we visited Native people were meeting, and we spoke briefly with Anna who was quite welcoming. A little boy named Goyo was listening to us, and at one point he announced,” We are warriors for Mother Earth.”
As warriors, the Tongva have repeatedly had to go to war for this land to be recognized as a holy site. Developers have tried to build a strip mall at the location, and the University has attempted to nullify their designation on the National Register of Historic Places. Most of the archaeological sites spread all over the campus have been destroyed.
From the parking lot, if you walk in the direction of a lone pine tree and cross the road you drove in on, you’ll find a circle of stones with the word Puvunga on them. When the remains of an Indian burial were found here, the body was dug up and put into a drawer in the archaeology department. When people found out about there was a protest, and the sacred bones were buried then at the circle. The spot is not marked and is not easy to find unless you look for it.
Although there may not be a lot to see at Puvunga, it is beautiful to make the trip to honor this sacred land. To stop and breathe in its rich history while standing in the midst of quiet nature, who knows? Maybe this is where the world began.
© 2020 Catherine Auman
This is an excerpt from Catherine Auman’s book Guide to Spiritual L.A.: The Irreverent, the Awake, and the True
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