Alvino Siva, who strove to preserve ancient Cahuilla Indian bird songs, culture and language, died of natural causes June 26 at his Banning home. He was 86.
“It’s sad to see him go,” said friend Albert Chacon, of Moreno Valley.
Cahuilla bird songs describe the early days, the lives and movement, of these American Indian people.
“The language and the bird songs, that tells us who we are,” said Sean Milanovich, a member of an Agua Caliente historic preservation committee.
Mr. Siva, a Cahuilla elder and member of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla & Cupeño Indians, helped preserve the songs by teaching them to others, including younger Cahuilla generations. He sang them in the Cahuilla language.
Mr. Siva was one of the few remaining Cahuilla people fluent in the language, according to Daniel McCarthy, a U.S. Forest Service tribal liaison.
Cahuilla culture was important to Mr. Siva.
“Language, too. He was preserving the language,” said his friend, Palm Springs anthropologist Lowell Bean.
“He would say language is the culture,” added another friend, Tim Toenjes, also of Palm Springs.
In a 1999 article in The Press-Enterprise, Mr. Siva said: “When a people lose their language, they lose their identity.”
Milanovich, of Cathedral City, said: “He really tried so much in his final years to try to get that language out there. … He worked with every reservation, every different youth group. He’d go, wherever he was asked.”
Mr. Siva was born March 1, 1923. Originally from the Los Coyotes reservation in northern San Diego County, he grew up in Palm Springs.
Cahuilla was his first language.
Mr. Siva learned bird songs at a young age.
Listening to him sing, “You got the feeling of tradition, the authenticity of it. It had the heart and passion of something that was real,” said his cousin Ernest Siva, of Banning.
Mr. Siva lobbied for a state landmark that pays tribute to a distant cousin, Chief Juan Antonio. Located at the Brookside rest area on Interstate 10 in Calimesa, the marker recognizes that in the 19th century in San Bernardino County, Antonio and his band of Cahuilla Indians protected white settlers’ property from outlaws.
It also notes a Cahuilla belief that the U.S. government sent Army blankets infected with smallpox. This part of the marker was controversial, and Mr. Siva stood up for it.
McCarthy said Mr. Siva “was an honorable man” who tried to balance his life “between the dominant white society and the Cahuilla culture that he grew up in.”
Mr. Siva served in the U.S. Army for 20 years and earned the rank of master drill sergeant. He was a World War II and Korean War veteran.
“He was a very patriotic man,” Bean said.
Mr. Siva is survived by his wife, Pat Siva, sister Katherine Siva Saubel and brother Paul Siva.
Celebration
A celebration of Alvino Siva’s life will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Malki Museum on the Morongo Indian Reservation. It’s a potluck luncheon, and guests are asked to bring a side dish or dessert.
Reach Erin Waldner at 951-763-3473 or ewaldner@PE.com
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