T Minus 67 Days: We Are Muwekma!

Last night, at our first dance rehearsal, the tribe finally voted on a name, and I am proud to say that we are now officially the Muwekma Hair Tribe of San Jose. Muwekma is the name that the nation of Native Americans who live in the San Francisco Bay area use to refer to themselves.

It is interesting to note that the original San Francisco Hair tribe in 1970 which performed at the Orpheum Theater was the Ohlone tribe. That is the name used by most Americans to refer to the Native Americas of the Bay area, but it is actually the name of their principal language and indeed encompasses groups of Native Americans as far away as San Juan Batista and Big Sur. In the Ohlone language, Muwekma means "Our People".

The tribe considered a lot of names including Costanoan which is the third name used to refer to the Muwekma people. Costanoan was the name given by the Spanish missionaries to the Native Americans of this area. Another name we considered was Costenos (the Native American derivation of the Spanish-given name Costanoan).

We also considered names of some of the regional tribes in the area (all part of the Muwekma) including Solchequis (the name of a local tribe that was located near the Santa Clara Mission), Chochenyo (an East Bay tribe), Ramaytush (San Francisco to San Mateo tribe), Tamyen or Tamien (a tribe in the area of Coyote Creek near San Jose), Awaswas (Santa Cruz) and others.

During our discussion, tribe member Esther Selk pointed out that while there are many local tribe names, our tribe consists of members from all over the Bay area and she thought that Muwekma was the most appropriate name. Most of the rest of the tribe agreed.

An interesting sidenote is that the Muwekma tribe is currently attempting to secure recognition from the Federal government of their status as a surviving Native American tribe. Their status was stripped from them in the early 20th century by bureaucrats in Sacramento at the Bureau of Indian Affairs who were trying to reduce the number of different tribes they had to deal with. You can learn more about the Muwekma and their efforts to be recognized at their website.

Rehearsal progress update:

May 7

We had another great music rehearsal, covering the title song Hair and Walking In Space. We also went back and reviewed most of the previous songs we had learned. Great progress on the music front and the tribe sounds awesome!

May 8
Choreographer extraordinaire Dudley Brooks took the helm last night and started with a variety of physical exercises intended to prepare the tribe for some of the things he will be asking of them during the music numbers. Some of the exercises included supporting each other's weight, moving while on top of someone else's back, then having the person underneath move also. He also initiated jumping exercises which then transitioned into full body lifts and pyramids. He also did some free-form dance involving upper body movement (head, shoulder and hair, an essential element of this show!), and also did something called the waterfall in which people moved over others and it looked just like, well, a waterfall! We will process some video that we took of the exercises and put it up on the blog soon.

We are still looking for a few more tribe members, including a Hud, but it looks like we may have some progress on all fronts. Hopefully, we will announce the rest of the tribe by early next week.

Until next time, namaste!