Bakersfield.com

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Two hundred twenty years ago, Lake Mohave filled the California desert to depths exceeding 200 feet, with a drainage of 3,500 square miles. Buena Vista and Kern Lake, near what is now Bakersfield, covered nearly 100 square miles to depths exceeding 50 feet.

The Kawaiisu Tribe travelled these lakes in tule boats, watercraft made from a tubular tule reed (seh-vi) that grows in marshy areas.

Last week, students at California State University, Bakersfield built a Kawaiisu Tule boat (paaga seh-vi) and took it for a ride on campus in a pond north of the dorms. They used tule reeds collected in the Kern River Valley near Lake Isabella. The students are enrolled in a course thru the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The class is called California Tribal Arts and is taught by Kawaiisu elder David Laughing Horse Robinson. Students experience the traditions of California Indians as they have been practiced for more than 10,000 years. Indigenous math, painting, basketry and archery are taught in the old way of the Kawaiisu People.

The course meets Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30-7 p.m. in the Performing Arts building on the CSUB campus.