NEIGHBORS / SHORT TAKES : Ceremonial Tribute : A moving photo of late Chumash elder, Vincent Tumamait, will be dedicated in his memory and donated to the Ojai museum.

When Stella Martin heard in August that Ojai Chumash elder Vincent Tumamait had died, she cried. Then she took action.

Martin, an Ojai graphic artist, looked at a photo she had of Tumamait and decided to honor him with it by donating it to the Ojai Valley Museum. It will be unveiled there at a private family ceremony Friday.

“It just has such power,” Martin said of the photo. “It’s one of those pictures you try a lifetime to get. He has his hands up. You just see the spirit coming down. It gives you goose bumps.”

The photo was taken earlier this year by Oxnard’s Juan Carlo at the Eagle Point Powwow at Lake Casitas. Another photo taken by Carlo will be given to the Tumamait family during the museum ceremony.

Martin was joined in this tribute by Michael Ward, an adopted son of Tumamait, who drew illustrations resembling cave paintings on the matting that borders the photos. Dick Wixon, owner of the Eagle Point Gallery in Ojai and Art of the Ages in Thousand Oaks, donated the oak frames.

Wixon, by the way, is a member of the Native American Intertribal Assn. of Ventura County, which has established a $1,000 scholarship in Tumamait’s name to be awarded annually to an American Indian high school graduate from Ventura or Santa Barbara counties.

Martin, a former schoolteacher, thinks this is highly appropriate. “He shared, he went to schools, he told stories to people to keep the heritage going,” she said of Tumamait. “I don’t think I met another person who had such a pure soul. He was just a gentle, gentle person.”

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While many locals were busy with Halloween festivities last Saturday, one group was getting a jump on another holiday.

Members of the tri-county chapter of the Society of Mayflower Descendants met at the Montecito Country Club for their annual last-Saturday-of-October Thanksgiving luncheon. Nine of the members are from Ventura County.

Note: The invitation did suggest that members dress up as pilgrims.

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Tracy Benedict, owner of the Bookaneer bookstore in Thousand Oaks, called it love at first sight. And it may very well have been. The relationship is 1 1/2 years old and going strong.

“I went to an Irish fair and saw someone playing the harp,” she said. “And I fell in love.” Not with the harpist, but with the Celtic harp being played. “I got a harp that day, and I’ve been semi-obsessed ever since.”

Benedict, who has a solid musical background, learned to play the harp without much trouble. She now plays pieces from her extensive repertoire each day at the store. Customers may hear anything from traditional jigs to music from “The Phantom of the Opera.”

Speaking of customers, Benedict said the mix of book reading and harp playing “is a marriage made in heaven.” “It’s very relaxing,” she said. “It doesn’t intrude on people’s concentration. It’s ideal for background, but if they want to concentrate on it they can. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”

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We were flipping through the latest course bulletin for the Learning Tree University in Thousand Oaks and noticed a class called: “Sky and Cloud Techniques Workshop.” We had to read on.

It is designed to teach students how to paint clouds and sky on walls, ceilings, furniture and other surfaces. The course description said students would learn to “create a painted sampling of cumulonimbus, high cirrus and stormy cumulus” and would get a chance to delve into the “cirrostratus, altocumulus and stratus” cloud types.

The two-session workshop begins next Monday. We suggest bringing an umbrella.

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Good luck to Danny Robinson of Ventura, who is scheduled to compete in a triathlon in Catalina on Saturday. He’ll be doing it on an artificial leg.

The prosthesis, attached to his left leg below the knee, comes from Channel Islands Prosthetics-Orthotics. It’s a new, improved leg with a gel liner and a carbon composite shin and foot that makes for added power, or force.