Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, January 9, 2021

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Mountain View News Saturday, January 9, 2021 

CHRISTOPHER Nyerges

REACH FOR THE SKY AND 
THE MOON!

Meet Sky and Luna! Two 
beautiful girls! They are 
currently being fostered, but 
they need a home of their own 
to thrive. They are chipped 
and vaccinated. Sky is more 
outgoing. She still is not 
comfortable with being picked 
up and held, but she loves to 
play and she will approach you for attention.. She likes to get 
into everything and explores everything. When she is hungry she is not shy and will let you 
know that she wants to eat. Luna is still very shy and will run under the bed. Although when she 
is in her bed she will allow herself to be petted. They do love to play, especially at night, and they 
chase each other. They both like to cuddle and love sitting on they desk when the foster’s son is 
working on his computer. The foster’s 6 year old granddaughter played with them when she was 
over and ran around the house with their feather toys and they would run after her. They had 
been originally owned by the foster’s sister, and the change in their environment has affected 
them. They don’t understand what happened to “their house.” This is likely the reason for their 
shyness. Once they are in a patient forever home, perhaps being the only pets, they will hide 
at first, but hopefully with treats, sweet talk, and patience, they may warm up and feel “home.” 
Born 2018. See more pictures, adoption information and application on our website at the More 
Cats page at www.lifelineforpets.org.


RESPECTED TONGVA ELDER, 

BARBARA ANN DRAKE

February 2, 1940-November 18, 2020


TONGVA ELDER BARBARA DRAKE

With great sadness, I report that on November 18 
of 2020, Barbara Drake, a respected elder of the 
Gabrielino/Tongva passed away. 

I met Barbara when I was lecturing at REI in San 
Dimas in the late 1980s. In my lectures, I showed 
native uses of plants, and how the past indigenous peoples of this area 
–her people – made fire with wood, and wove sandals, and created
all their everyday needs from the plants, rocks, shells, and trees of the
landscape.

Barbara and I became quick friends. She enjoyed my hands-on and 
visual way of teaching, and she tapped me to teach many workshops 
in the Title VII Indian Education programs that she organized at the 
time for San Bernardino Schools, where I participated in teaching 
students, and families in some cases, how to make traditional yucca 
sandals, how to use the native plants for food, and how to make fire 
with the hand drill. 

I would visit Barbara up at Indian Springs Ranch, and interviewed her for my “Enter the Forest” book 
and for Wilderness Way magazine. One winter solstice, in the early 2000s, Barbara invited me up to Haramokngna 
Indian Center, at Red Box in the Angeles Forest. About 70 Indians were expected, but because 
of the heavy snow, most chose to not come. Only a dozen people who actually showed up for the outdoor 
ceremony honoring the winter solstice in the cold snow. It was very special time for me, an intimate occasion 
in the snow, and around a fire.

Barbara actively participated in the Leadership in Environmental Education Program (LEEP), where she 
introduced hundreds of children to Tongva perspectives on the environment. She was one of the founding 
members of Mother Earth Clan, Cultural Keepers, and the Chia Cafe Collective. The Chia Café Collective 
eventually produced a book of that name, where Barbara and a handful of other native teachers shared their 
knowledge of cooking with traditional native foods.

When I attended Barbara’s various lectures on native culture at the Southwest Museum, Eaton Canyon, and 
elsewhere, I was often surprised that she would frequently call on me in the audience to answer questions, or 
to comment upon the current supply of native foods in the wilds. She typically began her talks by pointing 
out how Southern California seemed so park-like to the early Spanish explorers, who mistakenly believed 
the landscape was “natural” and “wild.” “Guess what?” Barbara would ask her audience. “We – our people 
–kept and preserved the land that way,” and she’d go on to describe the many methods of land management
that were practiced by the early people of this area.

Helen and I had the great pleasure of visiting Barbara, and donating plants and tools to her project of the 
Tongva Living History Garden, located 15 minutes away from Pomona College at the Chaffey Community 
Cultural Center in Upland. The Garden explored three distinct eras and their plants of the Inland Empire: 
the Tongva Era, the Rancho Era, and the Citrus Era. Students worked closely with Barbara Drake in the 
garden, learning about traditional Native uses of plants.

As has been commented by so many, she was loved by all, never spoke ill of anyone, and always brought 
a positive light to her interactions with students, staff, and community members, always seeking to unite 
rather than divide.

Born in West Los Angeles in 1940 to Tongva mother Dolores Lola Lassos and Anglo father Charles Milton 
Scott, Barbara Drake (née Barbara Ann Scott) was raised exclusively on her mother’s traditional plant-based 
medicines until she was in her teens. Barbara was an enrolled member of The Gabrieleño/Tongva San Gabriel 
Band of Mission Indians and served as Tribal Secretary for many years. She worked in Indian Education 
Title VII for San Bernardino Schools, before coming to Pitzer College in 1993 to lecture on ethno-ecology. 
Her Tongva name was Kwi Tokor, meaning Acorn Woman.

Barbara Drake is survived by her husband of sixty years, Gary Drake, two children, and numerous extended 
family members.


Pet of the Week

 
Eight-year-old Raya came to us after her human passed 
away. In spite of everything she’s been through, Raya 
is relaxed and calm. She loves attention and will head 
butt you for more. And when you pet her, you can hear 
her hearty purr. This sweet kitty is looking for a second 
chance at a forever home, and will bring lots of love to 
your life!

 The adoption fee for cats is $100. All cat adoptions 
include spay or neuter, microchip, and age-appropriate 
vaccines.

 New adopters will receive a complimentary health-and-
wellness exam from VCA Animal Hospitals, as well as a 
goody bag filled with information about how to care for 
your pet.

 View photos of adoptable pets and schedule a virtual adoption appointment at 
pasadenahumane.org. Adoptions are by appointment only, and new adoption 
appointments are available every Sunday at 10:00 a.m. for the following week.

 Pets may not be available for adoption and cannot be held for potential adopters by 
phone calls or email.


All Things By Jeff Brown


A month before the first American died of the coronavirus, scientists already had designed the 
vaccine .In a Massachusetts lab last January 13th, Moderna research-ers used the genetic sequence 
of the virus, made public by China, to design an mRNA molecule that teachers the immune system 
to recognize and neutralize it. By Feb, their vaccine had actually been made and shipped to 
the National Insti-tutes of Health to start clinical trials. This largely unknown time line shows that 
while development of coronavirus vaccines was astonishingly rapid, approval was painstaking: 
More than 300,000 Americans died and 16 million were infected while a nearly miraculous solution 
underwent testing and approval. “For the entire span of the pandemic in this country,” David 
Wallace-Wells said last weekend in New York Magazine, “We have the tools to prevent it.” But for 
sound reasons of safety and ethics, science and government did not authorize their use until now. 
In this darkest winter in recent history, the vaccines promise a spring.

They are a triumph of the Enlightenment, values of science, reason, and evidence-all now under 
assault in a new Dark Ages in which demagogues and conspiracy theorist spread disinformation 
and distrust. Despite various attempts to claim cred-it, the vaccine would not exist without 
international cooperation. Moderna’s vac-cine employs technology created by Hungarian born 
scientists Katalin Kariko,and the company is run by a team of researchers and entrepreneurs from 
around the world. The Pfizer vaccine was created by second generation Turkish immigrants to 
Germany,Ugur Sachin and Ozlem Tureci, and has been pushed past the finish line by company 
CEO Albert Bourla, an immigrant from Greece. The pandemic of 2020 will not be the last crises 
endangering humanity. What we’ve relearned in this traumatic year is that all we hold dear is 
fragile, and that science, community, and empathy light the road forward. William Falk, Editor-
in-chief “The Week”


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