See and hear the Cahuilla Bird Singers

 

The "bird songs" of Southern California tribes such as the Cahuilla offer descriptions of human and animal migration. Told from the perspective of individual birds flying high above the Earth, the songs tell the story of creation and describe the things seen from the sky: animals, sources of water, and sacred places. In these examples we see that migration and movement were an important part of the lives of California Indians before the arrival of Europeans.