Rite of Passage: Presenting at an Academic Meeting

On Saturday I gave my first professional academic presentation at the annual Society for California Archaeology meeting in Burbank, California. It was a synopsis and visual presentation of research I have been doing on the relationship between an archaeological site in coastal San Diego and the interregional exchange system of southern California. It is rooted in my previous research on shell beads in the inter-village exchange system of the Chumash economy in Santa Barbara. This research made up the bulk of my thesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Basically, there was a complex economy in prehistoric California that functioned to articulate different environments and regions into a system of constant flows of raw materials, food, crafted goods, and last but not least... money. This money was produced mostly on the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. It was manufactured from gathered shells of the species Olivella biplicata, haliotis rufescens (red abalone), and mytilus (mussel).  Shell beads were not, however, solely used as money. They could also be used for decorative purposes, burials, and other rituals and rites of passage. The power of this Chumash shell bead industry became dominant in the interregional exchange system of southern California around 1100 C.E (Common Era) and continued to dominate until the arrival of the Spanish in the 18th century. 

We found a lot of these beads at a site in San Diego and the research we did into these beads is what made up the substance of a paper we published and which I presented on at the Society for California Archaeology meeting. 

First Wall Scribbling

This morning, I was walking home from the coffee shop with my nephew. We had just shared a huge Belgian waffle, smothered with fresh strawberries, sliced bananas, and mountains of whipped cream. Holding his little hand as we crossed the street I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. "A guitar!" 

Just a few nights ago, I was noodling around on my guitar, listening to Fela Kuti while my brother pounded out tight, modest melodies on his keyboard. It was one of Fela's political manifestos - one of those Fela Kuti songs where he is enraged about the plunder of Nigeria and the horrifying consequences of colonialism. Yet he is expressing this rage in a sort of sustained and contained manner; an expression of reconciliation through honesty. But it has this infectious, reggae/jazz fusion type of beat overlaid with this gorgeous swampish organ and wild saxophone. It is great music to space out to and jam along with. My nephew had been staring attentively at us as we searched for the key and built tidy little structures around the skeleton of the song. 

My nephew finally went into the other room and pulled out a beater of a guitar, dragging it across the floor and then sitting next to it. As my brother and I jammed out quietly along with Fela, my nephew started to crouch over the neck of the guitar and press the strings into the fretboard. With his other hand, he carved out notes on the keyboard. He was smiling and giggling, the song progressing further and further into the ever-infectious realms of the song.  

What was cool was that here we were, in San Diego, in 2008 - listening to Nigerian afro-beat from decades ago, and playing along with it. Not only were we playing along with it, but we were playing along with it across generations of our ancestry. Here was something that made so much sense to me after having lived in West Africa for two and a half years, that it almost made me feel like I was back in the little rainforest village of Guaman, sitting at the chief's house and drinking palm wine, envious of the kinship bonds that existed between the chief, his brothers, his cousins, his nephews....

For a few minutes the world felt like such a smaller, more sensible place.