- [white noise] - [children's voices] Ta dum!
[children laughing]
[melodic music plays]
[birds chirp]
Hello, and welcome to City of Ghosts.
We start every episode with a map of our city.
One with all the names and places we know.
But who came up with those names?
And were there other names before them?
Ones we don't know?
Today's story is different, as you're about to see.
And it starts with our friend Jasper.
- Hi. I'm Jasper. - [birds sing]
I come to this park a lot.
- My house is really close by. - [crickets chirp]
Sometimes, my moms call this our backyard.
There is a lot to do here.
[gentle electronic music plays]
But my favorite thing is to just play outside.
[Jasper] There's a stream…
and trees
and animals.
Stuff like that.
Now, when did you start noticing something strange in the park?
It was a few weeks ago.
I was playing by the trees, and I heard a voice.
I looked around, but there was nobody there.
Just me. And the trees.
Whoa.
Yeah. And no one else hears it. My mom's the only one that believes me.
What did the voice say?
I have no idea. I can't understand it.
Hmm. Suspicious.
[Jordan] So, can you hear the voice right now?
Hmm.
[light rustling]
[birds squawk]
Nope.
What's our game plan here?
Maybe we should talk to people in the park.
- Ooh! Look for other witnesses. - [synth music plays]
[gasping] Find roly-polies.
The bugs?
Yeah.
All in favor?
Aye.
Move the camera that way.
Uh, excuse me.
We're looking for a ghost voice.
Have you seen one?
I can't say that I have.
But there all kinds of voices in this world.
What do you mean?
Well, people have voices, you know, but so do animals,
water, rocks, and plants.
Plants have voices?
Do you talk to them?
I do. All the time.
You know, everything that we see in nature has a personhood.
There are plant people.
There are animal people, rock people, or human people.
Do you talk to ghosts too?
I don't call them ghosts.
They're spirits, but our ancestors are a form of spirits.
What's a ancestor?
An ancestor is somebody in your family
who is no longer living on this earth,
that has passed on.
[gasping] Wait!
[reverberating tone]
[male voice] Okay, so,
my name is Mr. Craig, and my people are the Tongva.
And we've been here for thousands of generations.
Tongva? What's Tongva?
Tongva is a name that we use today,
the Indigenous people of the Los Angeles Basin.
One of the names that most people are familiar with is Gabrielino,
- which comes from the San Gabriel Mission. - [gentle acoustic music plays]
But before the missions,
we had many names that came from the many villages here.
I have ancestors that come from all over the world,
but the ones that I'm very connected to
are the ones that come from this place.
And for us, the Tongva, there's an extension to that
because we also consider some of these first people in our stories,
these nonhuman people,
our ancestors as well.
- Whoa! Like lizards? - Or clouds?
Or roly-polies?
I couldn't tell you what they looked like.
But they knew about us, the human beings, these new creations,
and we were the most vulnerable.
[Mr. Craig] They wanted to transform into something
that would help us survive, and they became the landscape.
The animals, the plants.
Some of 'em went up into the sky and became the constellations.
Some of 'em went underground.
And because of that sacrifice that they made for humans to survive,
we, in turn, owed them something,
and that was to never remove ourselves from nature
and to always take care of it and to ensure that it continues on
for the next generation.
- Excuse me, Mr. Craig? - [music trails off]
I'm Tongva too.
My mom told me.
Well, that's great. You know, it's...
I would like to get to know more about your family.
Calling yourselves Tongva
means that you have a special connection to this land.
- And that's something that's very special. - [wind whistles]
Hey. The voice. Can you hear it?
The voice is talking?
Yeah. You guys don't hear it?
- Nuh-uh. - Uh-uh.
What is the voice saying, Jasper?
[Jasper] It was singing a song.
And now it's saying, "Paar."
Well, that's not a ghost. That voice is an ancestor.
Really?
I don't know too many words in Tongva,
but "paar" is the Tongva word for "water."
Maybe it's a clue.
Well, there's some water that way.
Should we check it out?
[mysterious electronic music plays]
[gasping] Look!
[water trickles]
[sniffing]
It's not ectoplasmic, but it's definitely a clue.
[Jordan] Zelda! Mom said no eating strings.
We've been following this red string now for one million days.
We are running out of food and water. Please send snacks.
I repeat, please send snacks.
Peter, it's been, like, five minutes.
Anyways, we found the end of the string.
[ringing tones]
[Thomas] Aw, nuts.
This clue went nowhere.
Well, I'm not really sure about that.
What do you mean?
I've seen this string somewhere before.
[gasping]
[squawking]
[synth music plays]
So much evidence, but what does it all mean?
You said you've seen the string before. Do you remember where?
Yes, I do, but I think you should talk to my friends about it.
They know a lot.
Are they, like, string detectives?
[laughing]
They might be. They're part of my community.
[squawking and flapping]
- [ringing tone] - [scraping]
[female voice] Before all of the concrete and the car exhaust,
before all of the development
and the extraction,
Tovaangar pulsed luminescent
and fruitful.
[Megan] All who inhabited her were tehoovet, healthy.
- Huhuunar, grizzly bears… - [gentle string music plays]
…roamed through flowered meadows.
Totoomshar, oak trees, flourished,
and Totoogvetam,
the Tongva people,
filled their baskets to their brims with kwakwaar, acorns.
We all ate well.
Shahoovenax,
respect, was ma'eete, abundant,
and reciprocity ran through all life.
We tended to what we took,
and we took only what we needed.
[Megan] We made offerings,
and sometimes, we offered ourselves.
[Megan] In the colonization of Tovaangar and Totoogvetam,
- the land filled up with many people. - [wood clacking]
Most were from far away.
Many of them were people who did not practice shahoovenax.
- Those people took and they took… - [wood clacking]
…until Tovaangar was 'achuumechom, sick.
To heal, Tovaangar needed cleansing.
To heal, Totoogvetam needed cleansing, too.
I didn't know a lot of those words.
Maybe I'll learn them when I'm in college or something.
Those were words in the Tongva language.
[Megan] We weren't allowed to speak our language,
- so we say our language has been sleeping. - [melodic music plays]
But now that people are starting to speak it again,
it's waking up.
[music trails off]
[squawking and flapping]
Can you tell us about this red string?
So, when I work with this red yarn,
it's about the messy moments in life,
and by "messy," I mean,
moments of possibility.
- So, the red yarn becomes these sinews… - [acoustic music plays]
…which I think of as connective tissue in a body
that isn't a straight line.
It wraps and it turns and it's not clear,
but it's so important to holding everything together.
[Mercedes] One experience with a ceremony I had
with my father and some of my family,
all the sage was wrapped in red string.
It was a gift from another Native person.
We were preparing our ancestors to be reburied,
and we were trying to honor them.
For me, making art is a way to kind of make peace
and to honor those people.
I like the idea that maybe I'm creating these maps
of location and maps to honor these people.
Maybe I could make a map too.
Uh… Where are we, again?
Most people call this Los Angeles,
but its Tongva name is Tovaangar.
[Mercedes] And over there, where downtown is,
was once a large village called Yaanga.
I would love to experience Los Angeles River before it was paved in.
[Mercedes] And maybe we're going in that direction, and it's getting back
to where it was.
I think of that spot where it meets the ocean
and how important that place is
because it can support so much life.
It can support so many different types of plants and animals.
And that is abundance.
[music trails off]
[birds chirp]
[Thomas] Are you okay, Jasper?
The voice is singing again.
It's so clear.
[Jasper] I feel like I can almost touch it.
But none of you can hear it.
And I still can't understand anything it's saying.
Hey, Jasper.
I have an idea.
How about you repeat what you hear, and I'll try to translate it?
Okay.
[Megan] We can record it, and if there are words I don't know,
I can look them up later.
♪ Hmm, hmm, hmm ♪
[in Tongvan] ♪ Every pebble, a planet ♪
[in English] "Every pebble, a planet."
[in Tongvan] ♪ Every stone, a grave ♪
[in English] "Every stone, a grave."
[in Tongvan] ♪ Time is the universe ♪
[Jasper and female voice] ♪ Birthed to us all ♪
[in English] Jasper, I can hear the voice.
[Jasper and female voice in Tongvan] ♪ Every pebble, a planet ♪
♪ Every stone, a grave… ♪
[in English] I can hear it too.
- I hear it now. - I can hear.
[female voice in Tongvan] ♪ Birthed to us all ♪
[squawking]
[female voice] Miyiiha, Jasper.
Nooné tayíy hunúka'.
- Why did you come here? - [music plays]
So, you know, Jasper, when I first saw you,
I knew that you were family.
And I called out to you, and at first, you couldn't hear me at all.
So I had to leave you clues.
Now everybody can hear us, and they can see that we're family.
By learning the language, there is nothing but hope
for the Tongva people, for the Tongva lands.
[female voice] Every blade of grass, every cloud, every wisp of wind is lonely,
lonely for the communication that is supposed to happen
between the human beings and all else.
That speaking of a word,
even if it's one word, one at a time, until there's a sentence.
Even trying to speak
awakens everyone that's been lonely
and alone and needing the language
to wake them up, to say, "It's all right. Somebody knows you're here."
[female voice] When I heard other people singing my song,
I felt my heart burst with happiness.
And for that moment, while I was listening,
there had been no sorrows in the world.
[female voice] This river is life,
even though quite a bit of it is now closed up with concrete.
But the river is still there at the right times, in the right ways.
So it's still taking care of the people who can hear it.
[female voice] All these people you meet,
and all the lessons that you learn about how the world really works
- and who lives in it… - [squawking]
…that's your gift for the future, that you can never forget who you are.
When times change, you will never be lost
because you will always know what holds you
and who holds you.
And that will be your ancestors and the people around you,
more than you've ever known, that you are not alone.
[Zelda] We're fixing our map
so we can learn all the Tongva names.
Craig invited us to a picnic.
- [Jasper] Everyone made different food. - [music plays]
There's so many foods that I can think of,
but I think the one that always resonates with me is acorn
because it's a food that sustained my ancestors for such a long time.
[squawking]
Neshuun'e 'aweeshko.
That means, "My heart is happy."
♪ Wee totaa 'ooxoram ♪
♪ Wee totaa xamee'evet ♪
♪ Horuura' xaa heteek 'eyooyook ♪
[squawking]
[song in Tongva continues]