Barstow kids paint the history of desert people

BARSTOW — Most adults would not be able to say what an atlatl is, but 12-year-old Richard Sappington knows.

Sappington was one of about 20 Barstow-area students who participated in “Native American Voices from the Mojave Desert,” the most recent education and art program put on by Main Street Murals. During the course of the six months of field trips, workshops and art, he learned that before Native Americans began using the bow and arrow, they used a device called the atlatl to fling spears and darts.

“My favorite thing I learned that I didn’t know before is that there wasn’t just bows and arrows for Indians,” he said.

Sappington and his classmates publicly unveiled the results of their work at the Desert Discovery Center on Saturday. With some professional assistance, the students painted a mural that shows Native American people collecting and using desert plants in a Mojave Desert landscape. Jutting out from the mural, a planter holds live desert plant species like the prickly pear and barrel cactus. In front of the planter, the students set “rocks” made of paper mache, painted with replicas of petroglyphs, images carved into rock.

A group of bird singers from the Cahuilla tribe performed a ceremonial dance with rattles made from gourds at the mural’s dedication. Harold Williams, a tribal elder of the Kawaiisu tribe from the Tehachapi area, came to give the art installation his blessing.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

In the process of making the mural, Main Street Murals president Jane Laraman-Brockhurst said, the students talked to tribal elders, archeologists and historians, writers, artists and botanists. They took trips to the Zzyzx Desert Studies Center and to Newberry Cave, where archeologists have found tools, jewelry and other remnants of early man. They practiced throwing an atlatl and grinding corn with a mortar and pestal to make corn and mesquite patties that they cooked over a campfire.

The students said, “Yuck,” when Laraman-Brockhurst mentioned the mesquite juice they sampled, but they gave the learning program a thumbs-up.

“I’m going to definitely come back,” Sappington said.

Eleven-year-old Kristina Webster said that aside from meeting new friends, Newberry Cave was her favorite part of the class.

“I saw old stuff that the Indians used, and I saw petroglyphs,” she said. “It had more of the stuff we were learning about.”

Alisa Parks, 11, gave the Newberry Cave a high recommendation, too, but said her favorite part of the class was learning about how the Native tribes used the desert plants and animals.

Muralist David Brockhurst, who guided the students through the process of making the art installation, was as fascinated as the students by what he learned in the six-month program.

“You go into the desert and you think there’s nothing there,” he said. “(The Native people) think it’s like a supermarket. Every plant, every bird, every animal, every insect has a use.”

Brockhurst laid down the groundwork for the mural and made some of the three-dimensional elements, but other than that, the students had free reign. Giving the kids some creative freedom makes the final product more interesting, he said.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “You can’t just draw something and say, ‘Hey, let’s color it in.’”

Next up for Main Street Murals is a project focusing on the Ice Age, Brockhurst said. To find out more or enroll a student in the program, call Jane Laraman-Brockhurst at 760-257-1052.

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or abby_sewell@link.freedom.com

To see the mural

To see the “Native American Voices from the Mojave Desert” art installation, visit the Desert Discovery Center at 831 Barstow Road. The mural is located on the back patio. Inside the discovery center, an exhibition shows photographs and stories of what the students learned in the process of making the art piece.

Another Native American-themed mural by Main Street Murals, on Main Street and Barstow Road, will be dedicated May 31. The dedication will also kick off Main Street Murals’ free walking tours to be held at 9 a.m. the last Saturday of each month except for August.
For more informationcall Jane Laraman-Brockhurst at 760-257-1052.