Family : Reviving a Lost World : Santa Fe Springs pays homage to its past by building a Native American Village.

A few days after his election to the Santa Fe Springs City Council, George Minnehan paid a visit to Heritage Park. The park was established in 1988 to represent the history of Santa FeSprings, but one piece of the city’s history was missing--a big piece. There was no mention of the original people, the Tongvas.

Minnehan, a Native American, first suggested that the park host a powwow. It was a hit, so Minnehan pushed further. Five years later, Minnehan’s second suggestion is complete: An entire prehistoric Tongva village has been constructed as a permanent exhibit.

“The park represents so many people who lived on this land, but [it] was silent about the Native Americans who lived here,” said Minnehan, who’s now the mayor. “This exhibit completes the picture.”

On Saturday, an opening ceremony for the new Native American Village will feature performers, crafts, storytellers and demonstrations of what daily life was like for the Tongva people.

Too often, Native American villages are constructed by museums, said Margaret Hammon, cultural arts administrator of the park. Usually there’s not much input from the Native Americans themselves, who take religious ceremonies and their duty to honor their ancestors quite seriously. Plans for the Native American Village, however, were discussed with theTongva nation. The details were painstakingly researched, right down to which native plants to use in construction of the ki, a 32-foot, dome-shaped dwelling that is the village’s centerpiece.

Ed Nunez, public works coordinator, was instrumental in ensuring the village’s authenticity. He even ventured out to Whittier Narrows to pick tule and willow, in keeping with the effort to build the ki the way the Tongva people would have 1,000 years ago.

When Nunez required expert advice on the project, he needed to look no farther than across the kitchen table. Nunez’s wife, Jacque, and three children are members of the Acjachemen tribe from Orange County (named Juanenos by the Spanish), a sister tribe to the Tongva.

“We can look at this village and feel proud,” said Jacque Nunez, who had many brainstorming sessions with her husband about the project. “My children will see the village and know that this is indicative of their own people; they know this is what their village would look like.”

Villages like the one constructed at Heritage Park once dotted the Los Angeles and Orange County basins. For thousands of years, the Tongva people thrived here, with a network of streams and plenty of game to sustain them, and sophisticated trade routes from the San Gabriel Mountains foothills to the southern coast in Orange County.

Today, there are no pure-blooded Tongva people left, Hammon said. Few traces of the people remain in modern-day Southern California, other than bits and pieces of the language, which includes words such as “Cahuenga,” “Cucamonga” and “Topanga.”

When the Spanish arrived in the 1700s, they were bent on conversion and subsequently changed the Tongva way of life (along with their name, to Gabrielinos). They changed the Tongva diet, which was a healthy one, Hammon said--and the Tongva were told that their common practice of bathing in the hot springs was immoral. (The hot springs later disappeared after oil was pumped from the ground.) The fatal blow, however, came with European diseases, which all but obliterated the tribe.

The village will be a teaching tool, relating how the early residents lived off the land before the Spanish arrived. Grasses, for instance, were extremely important to the tribe. They were used in the construction of the home and to weave the baskets that carried their food and their babies. Basket weaving and stripping bark (used to build canoes) are among the tasks park officials hope to demonstrate on a regular basis.

“I think people forget how sophisticated California Indians were; we’ve been here thousands of years,” Nunez said. “People who see this will have a new respect, and see that they worked hard, how everyone worked together like a family.”

On Saturday, the village will be abuzz with the demonstrations and more, including tribal ceremonies and performances by the Tongva Nation Dancers. Artifacts found on the site will be on display and kids can make artifacts of their own, by drilling shells and making bead necklaces. An Indian taco lunch will be available for $5.

Although Jacque Nunez has worked at Mission San Juan Capistrano in a structure built by her ancestors, she believes Heritage Park is honoring her people in a unique way. “Here’s a real village, with a creek, a granary and a sweat lodge,” she said. “Children will see how Native Americans contributed and that every culture and heritage is important. . . . It can only build self-esteem and pride of our Native American children.”

BE THERE

Native American Village, Heritage Park, 12100 Mora Drive, Santa Fe Springs. Opening ceremonies, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. Free. (562) 946-6476.