DANCERS TO CELEBRATE CHUMASH CUSTOMS AT ANNUAL FESTIVAL.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

Mati Waiya and Choy S'lo will bring the dances of their Chumash ancestors to the Antelope Valley Indian Museum.

Wearing feathered skirts, headdresses and hairpins, their bodies painted, the pair will dance the blackbird dance, the hawk dance, the dolphin dance and the snake dance, using movements taught them by elders who themselves were taught by their own elders.

``They're connected to a story, in terms of the relationship to that animal or bird or creature,'' Waiya said of the dances. ``We relate to the subjects in the dance.

``Every time we dance, everything we do is a deep, deep relationship on what you're doing,'' he said. ``We keep true to ourselves and to our culture, with what we're doing.''

The Chumash Dolphin Dancers will be part of the eighth annual American Indian Celebration at Piute Butte, which marks the opening of the Antelope Valley Indian Museum for fall, winter and spring weekends. Lacking air conditioning, the museum is closed during the summer.

The festival will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the museum, originally a private home built into the rocks of the butte in 1928 as a Swiss-style chalet, at 15701 E. Ave. M.

Admission is $5 for adults and $1 for children ages 6 to 12. Proceeds go toward restoring and labeling museum artifacts that are now in storage and have never been displayed.

With booths selling American Indian food and demonstrations on making spears, working leather, and crafting dream catchers and children's moccasins, the festival's main focus is on American Indian dancers, artisans and storytellers.

Waiya, a Saticoy native who lives in Thousand Oaks with his wife and two children, works as a building contractor when he is not dancing or giving talks about Chumash life to schoolchildren and other groups.

A coastal people who lived from what is now Malibu to San Luis Obispo and the Channel Islands, the Chumash are now often thought to be extinct, Waiya said. But several thousand live in Southern California, often trying to blend in with mainstream American society.

When he was a boy, Waiya said, following Chumash traditions - ``these pagan rituals'' - was not accepted. His grandmother would talk a little, but wouldn't get into too much detail, he said.

As he got older, he began doing research for himself, through books, oral traditions and elders. About eight years ago, he began dancing with the Dolphin Dancers, who had started about seven years previously.

All the dances they do are traditional, he said, and as he gains experience, the dancing acquires deeper meaning.

``You're given a basic outline, and there's certain ways a dance is done,'' he said. ``After doing it over and over and getting deeper into it, you dance in a different plateau of understanding. Sometimes you don't even see the people around you, you're so deep into dancing.''

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Photo: (color) The eighth annual American Indian Celebratio n at Piute Butte is set for this weekend.

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