Fieldtrips
Indian Rock
Spring 2003

Hidden Meadows
Fall 2003

The Glens
Fall 2003

Legend Rock
Fall 2003

Camp Pendleton
Spring 2002

Gathering Juncus
Spring 2002

Field Tripping
Spring 2002
PDF version: fast connection

Waterfall
Fall 2003

Waterfall
Text by Deborah Small

As we gather the juncus, the juncus gathers us . . .

It’s a beautiful spring day. Abe Sanchez, Diania Caudell and Marian Walkingstick are Native American basket weavers, and we’re hiking in the San Diego back country to gather Juncus textilis, one of the most important traditional basketry plants. The dirt road to the site is deeply eroded, almost impassable by a 4-wheel drive, so we walk from the main road.

To reach the creek where the juncus grows, we first must walk by an area where people have dumped their derelict appliances, unstuffed couches, a smashed satellite dish, an outdated computer monitor, disintegrating cardboard boxes, non-disintegrating plastic bags, and crushed Miller-Lite cans. There’s even a dismembered Camero with glass from its shattered windshield scattered everywhere. Beyond the Camero a stand of canyon sunflowers, rare to find in the wild anymore.

The stench from a rotting carcass overwhelms the normally fragrant aroma of sage scrub. In the larger scheme of things, this dump is a minor transgression, but it’s also emblematic of a profound disconnection from the land, an utter indifference to its wild beauty.

Beyond the dump, the path to the creek bed is lined with black sage, sycamore and live oak trees. Rampant wild grape vines crawl up the trees and wild blackberry vines carpet the ground and streambanks. We spot a rogue non-native calla lily escaped from someone’s backyard. From the enormous sycamores, last season’s leaves are strewn everywhere. We hear the intermittent croak of an invisible frog and birdsong above the sound of the water flowing in the creek.

We opt to walk upstream in the creekbed. It’s more stable in the shallow water than on the slippery rocks. We can also more easily sidestep the ever-present and prolific poison oak. We note a rogue non-native geranium growing on the streambank as we climb over boulders and fallen sycamore limbs that block our path.

In the May heat, it’s surprisingly cool. Everything thrives in this freshwater riparian ecosystem with its lush canopy of oaks, sycamores, and willows shading the creek. We’re dressed head-to-toe to protect ourselves from poison oak. Marian wears her goofy aviator hat.

I stop to photograph a lizard sitting above the stream on old juncus needles and sycamore leaves.

Dark green juncus overhangs the stream bank in great profusion. We’re like explorers in tropical jungles, hacking our way through the dense overgrowth.

This is AWESOME!. This is SO SWEET!

Abe, Diania, and Marian are ecstatic. This is incredible juncus.

Two hundred twenty-five species of juncus are found worldwide, but the Juncus textilis we’re harvesting grows only in California. Juncus is from Latin meaning to join or bind, referring to the indigenous use of the plant.

It’s difficult to pick up the voices of Abe, Diania, or Marian on video over the sound of the stream. It’s a first for me—shooting video footage while standing ankle-deep in water on a shifting and unstable surface. I’m careful not drop the video camera as I climb over the boulders and under the downed sycamore branches in the streambed.

After walking about a quarter of a mile, we come to a beautiful seasonal waterfall where we scramble up the rocks and sit down. We’re totally enveloped in the lush green sound of water cascading down the rocks.

Diania speculates that this area might be a traditional gathering site for juncus, a critically important plant that profoundly helped shape Luiseño culture. In Southern California, it’s very difficult to find undisturbed stands of juncus. Loss of habitat from development and the invasion of non-native species have greatly diminished the riparian ecosystems that support thickets of juncus.

It’s also extremely difficult to find areas where juncus is not subjected to the spraying of pesticides and herbicides by government agencies and private landowners. This is, of course, a serious threat to the continuance of this vitally important cultural tradition.

Our particular juncus stand is completely hidden from view. There are no signs that it was harvested in years.

“This is like HEAVEN!” Marian tells us. It’s hard to hear each other over the sound of the stream, so we just listen to the very welcome sound of water flowing after the worst drought year recorded in Southern California history.

Abe climbs the rocks above the waterfall. “Careful Abe,” we tell him. The rocks are slippery from the water and lichen, and they’re steep as well. Abe wears his signature field trip hat that he wove with juncus and deergrass. His bold and intricate basketry designs are inspired from Chumash baskets. Deer alternate with mountain sheep as they circle his hat, and he’s woven a fret-like design on the rim.

In the streambed, the water’s surface collects in ponds animated by tiny black skater bugs that ripple the surface of the still water. Abe wove five of these exuberant skater bugs in a circular pattern on the top of his hat. A master basket weaver, Abe teaches basketry to indigenous people of many different tribal affiliations throughout California.

Our pants are now wet to our knees as we carefully make our way back downstream. Abe doesn’t want to stop harvesting yet, so Diania and Marian join him. They try to avoid the poison oak intertwined everywhere in the stalks of juncus. “Leaves of three. Let it be.” Marian and Abe wear gloves to protect themselves. Diania isn’t wearing gloves. She’s busying taking photographs. So am I. I can’t seem to frame a photograph of juncus without poison oak showing up in my viewfinder.

Here, the juncus is thinner and stronger than others we’ve harvested in the area. “Good for string,” Abe tells us. He speaks of the value of gathering from different areas, how each kind of juncus is by basket weavers for a different purpose. Abe is impressed with the rich brown color at the lower end of the juncus stalk. It’s this segment that he’ll use to create the intricate designs woven into his baskets.

After harvesting enough juncus for future baskets, Abe places the collective bundle on his shoulder to walk downstream.

Abe, Diania and Marian are all members of CIBA, the California Indian Basket weavers Association whose mission is to preserve, promote and perpetuate California Indian basket weaving traditions. In their commitment to the indigenous cultural tradition of basket weaving, Abe, Diania and Marian are vital to the on-going California Native basket weaving revival.

This revival is of critical importance. Until recently, traditional California basket weaving was an endangered art. Yet basketry touched indigenous people’s lives completely and were critical to their survival—baskets were considered the most important tool in Native Californians’ technological repertoire. They used baskets for cooking, sifting acorn meal and serving food, storing water and household goods. They wove harvesting baskets, seed beaters, winnowing baskets, granaries, burden baskets, fish-trapping and fish-netting baskets, cradle-board baskets, intricately woven gift and ceremonial baskets. Some of their houses and ramadas were essentially large woven baskets.

In Southern California, Juncus textilis, along with deergrass (Muhlenbergi rigens), yucca (Yucca whipplei), sumac (Rhus trilobata) and willow (Salix exigua), were used to weave these different kinds of baskets.

As basket weavers, Abe, Diania, and Marian’s are intimately woven into the land. Gathering juncus is part of a sacramental cycle, the renewal of a cultural practice hundreds of years old. Gathering juncus not only honors the ancestors, but it also involves cultivating a profound respect for species other than our own. For Abe, Diania, and Marian, basket weaving is a luminous thread that connects them to the larger struggles for indigenous environmental, cultural, and linguistic restoration.

Before we hike back to the car at the end of our collecting trip, we give thanks for the wild tenacity of this remnant stand of juncus and the generosity of the natural world. We give thanks to the ancestors, and to each other.