Toypurina: Tongva Leader, Medicine Woman, Rebel

Tired of being subjected to Spanish colonization, medicine woman Toypurina led a revolt against the San Gabriel mission in California on October 25, 1785. This bold picture book highlights an important, lesser-known leader in Indigenous history. Lushly illustrated by Tongva artist Katie Dorame.

Includes educational back matter to enhance the reader’s experience.

Toypurina grew up in the village of Japchivit, where everyone had a role to play. She loved to gather elderberries from the woods, weave baskets, and listen to her grandmother tells stories. But all that changed when the Spanish came.

As Toypurina grew and became medicine woman of her tribe, she learned about the harsh conditions of the San Gabriel mission. Tongva people who lived there were renamed and no longer allowed to speak their native tongue. They were forbidden to perform their dances and ceremonies. They were whipped and mistreated.

Toypurina knew she had to act, so she organized an uprising against the Spanish rule to fight for her people and their way of life. This book, lushly illustrated by Tongva artist Katie Dorame, marks an important event in Indigenous people’s resistance to European colonization and is a testament to Toypurina’s bravery.

Cheyenne M. Stone is a Paiute who lives on the Big Pine Reservation in Inyo County, California, and she is very active in tribal affairs. She practices and teaches jewelry making, basket weaving, and holistic medicine. Additionally, she is an ethnographer who is involved in K-12 education, and she enjoys writing for children.

Glenda Armand has had a long career as both a teacher and school librarian in California, near the San Gabriel Mission that Toypurina rebelled against. She has been an active member of the SCBWI since 1998 and writes picture book biographies about people of color who overcome incredible odds to achieve great things. Her first book, Love Twelve Miles Long, received Lee and Low’s New Voices Award. Her second book, Ira’s Shakespeare Dream, received a starred review from School Library Journal. She is also the author of Song in a Rainstorm: The Story of Musical Prodigy Thomas ＂Blind Tom＂ Wiggins and Black Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Find out more about Glenda at glenda-armand.com.

Katie Dorame is a Tongva artist of mixed ancestry--Indigenous and European American, born in Los Angeles, currently living and working in Oakland. Her work focuses on Indigenous representation, mythology, and Hollywood narratives. Dorame’s work has been exhibited at Shulamit Nazarian in Los Angeles, the National Willa Cather Center in Nebraska, Form & Concept in Santa Fe, and the Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College in New York, in addition to Slash Art, Anglim Trimble, Southern Exposure, Galería de la Raza, Guerrero Gallery, and the Thacher Gallery in San Francisco. She received her MFA from the California College of the Arts and her BA from UCSC. See more of Katie’s work at katiedorame.com.