A 40-foot-tall buckeye — among the first trees to be planted in the UC Davis Arboretum 85 years ago — broke apart. Juan Ávila Hernandez, a member of the Committee to Honor the Patwin and Native Americans, noticed and set in motion a replacement project culminating in a tree-planting ceremony on March 4, 2022. Three saplings will vie to be the buckeye that takes over the spot overlooking the Native American Contemplative Garden.
A moving musical work with contributions from UC Davis music and Native American studies studentswillexplore California’s complicated relationship with water, drawing on Native origin stories in which water is an important player. It will be performed in several locations in the UC Davis Arboretum along Putah Creek.
For his graduate research comparing languages around the world, Lewis Lawyer couldn’t find a single published reference book on Patwin, an endangered language once spoken in hundreds of Northern California communities, including what is now Davis. So, on his way to completing his UC Davis doctorate, Lawyer wrote one. With the release of "A Grammar of Patwin," the findings of his dissertation are now available to scholars as well as to Patwin/Wintun people working to revitalize their ancestral language.
