Lost Language Also Returning to Mission : Indians: Near-dead Juaneno tongue spoken by Father Serra’s original converts is revived for a special Swallows Day Mass.

For half a century, Evelyne Villegas-Lobo saved six tattered loose-leaf pages bearing scribbled words from the language spoken by her mother, a Juaneno Indian. These were simply mementos of a dead past, she figured.

But a few years ago, Villegas-Lobo turned the pages over to anthropologists and members of her tribe. Their curiosity piqued by the odd mix of syllables, they quietly began to research the obscure Indian language, which historians feared had been gradually lost since Spanish priests built Mission San Juan Capistrano in 1776 and converted the Juanenos to Christianity.

To their glee, tribal leaders discovered that shards of the language had been preserved through songs, prayers and oral history.

Today, for the first time in the 216-year-old history of the mission, Acagchemem (pronounced Ha-SHAY-mem) will be spoken during the traditional St. Joseph’s Day Mass.

For some locals, the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer in Acagchemem threatens to overshadow the day’s big event--the traditional ringing of the mission bells to welcome the swallows to their spring nesting grounds.

But few are complaining.

“I would feel very proud to hear this language spoken inside this hallowed church,” Villegas-Lobo said. “This language represents the very heart of me. It’ll be like hearing my grandmother speaking once again.”

The history of the mission and the Juanenos has been intertwined ever since Father Junipero Serra tapped the Indians to build the now-historic structure.

At one time, the tribe occupied an area stretching from Laguna Beach in the north to Oceanside in the south and as far east as Lake Elsinore. Today, about 1,500 remain in California, with 300 in southern Orange County, tribal leaders say.

Inclusion of the language and other Juaneno rituals in this year’s Swallows Day Mass is a sign that a deep rift between the natives and the mission is healing, tribal leaders and mission officials said Wednesday.

Two years ago, the Juanenos gathered outside the mission on Swallows Day to protest what they say was their diminishing role there following the firing of the mission’s business manager, a Juaneno Indian.

Tribal leaders and mission officials have been meeting during the past months to resolve the tensions between the groups.

As a sign of reconciliation, tribal leaders and Msgr. Paul Martin will attend a peace-pipe ceremony at the pastor’s house before the Mass.

“All the troubles are not fully resolved, but we like what we’re hearing from Father Martin,” said David Belardes, chairman of the Tribal Council of the Juaneno Band of Indians. “The mission is our home away from home. Our people have lived there, been baptized and buried there, and we always want our traditions to be honored and recognized there.”

Steven Holtkamp, a spokesman for Msgr. Martin, said the pastor is pleased that the liturgy spoken during the ceremony today will include people whose ancestors “were the original converts of Father Serra.”

“Our church is for everyone, and the original converts do share a special place here,” Holtkamp said.

That Acagchemem will be spoken during the ceremony has some historians puzzled--but equally ecstatic.

“I thought it was a lost language,” said Pamela Gibson, a historian who has written three books on the history of this mission town. “It’s fantastic, and however they did it is an amazing contribution to the entire ceremony.”

Using Villegas-Lobo’s pages as a crude sort of base text, tribal members inquired among other Juanenos whether they remembered any words or phrases from the languages spoken by their parents and grandparents, Belardes said.

Some elders remembered the Acagchemem words for the Lord’s Prayer, which Monica Arcy of Riverside will recite today. Arcy will also dress in traditional costume to perform Indian rituals during the church ceremony.

“It’s an overwhelming feeling,” Arcy said. “Tears come to my eyes because I realize that I will speaking to the Creator in the language He gave my ancestors. That’s a beautiful experience.”

Jerry Nieblas, a Juaneno Indian and a manager of admission services at the mission, said the Juanenos hope that the St. Joseph’s Day Mass will one day become a “truly Native American ceremony.”

“The rituals practiced by our ancestors and Catholicism are very similar,” Nieblas said. “We have time for fist-waving, but now we are working together through a gradual process to introduce our customs to others.”

Villegas-Lobo, a lifelong resident of the city who was given the honorary title of Matriarch of San Juan Capistrano, said she was heartened by the inclusion of Juaneno rites in the Mass.

“Our parents and grandparents always taught us that we should not aim to own anything,” Villegas-Lobo said, “that we should preserve the environment for the next generation. I feel good that now the little children can benefit from what we’ve preserved.”

Swallows Return

Ceremonies in San Juan Capistrano today surround the spring return of swallows to the mission.

The Lore

* Cliff swallows winter in South America, most commonly in Brazil and Argentina. They range to Mexico and throughout most of North America, as far as Canada and Alaska, in the spring.

* Swallows are slender, about 5-6 inches long. They have rust-colored rump patches, bluish-rust colors about the head and a squarish gray tail.

* They build gourd-shaped mud nests under eaves and in crevices at the mission and other natural and man-made structures. There are major colonies at Disneyland and under the Campus Drive bridge in the San Joaquin Marsh in Irvine.

* They catch insects while in flight and are helpful in controlling mosquitoes.

Their Legend

* Swallows Day has been celebrated at the Mission San Juan Capistrano on March 19 for 65 years.

* The date coincides with St. Joseph’s Day, a religious holiday established in the 15th Century by Pope Sixtus IV to honor the spouse of the Virgin Mary.

* Legend says that swallows migrating north from Argentina arrive at the mission on that day. They actually arrive a few days earlier or later.

* No one knows exactly how many years the swallows have returned. But a record of their presence was noted in a diary kept by a padre in 1777, the mission’s first year.

Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times