About

From Don's original “About” section: The purpose of this website is to document and share some of the spiritual communications of the Kumeyaay and Tipai Native Americans portrayed in their pictographs and petroglyphs. We are fortunate that these paintings survived the cultural genocide of the Kumeyaay way of life. This art reflects a state of intimate, natural resourcefulness and respect, that mankind rarely achieves. Some expressions are seemingly simple and others are quite elaborate. Nearly all of them have never been previously published and most have not even been observed by professionals who specialize in this field. A good portion are no longer visible with ordinary vision or digital photography. They are rapidly disappearing, mostly from natural causes. Others may not have been seen in hundreds of years. We welcome you to walk through prehistory and ancient history with the Tipai Shaman and artists who created a remarkable culture in which they and their habitat thrived harmoniously.

Our book was featured on the award-winning series that carefully and compassionately explores the Kumeyaay culture past and present. Elsa Sevilla reviews the rock art in our first book in conjunction with commentary by Kumeyaay elders. Also, various archaeologists in our group provide a scientific context as to what we know about these Shamanistic communications. Elsa's review of many aspects of Kumeyaay life is completely engaging and all programs in her series, Historic Places, are educational and highly recommended for anyone interested in Native Americana.

To view the episode, please click here: https://www.pbs.org/video/government-and-family-structures-fts2qk/

I first met Don thanks to my good friend, Rick Colman. He recommended me to Don because he was helping him get his first La Rumorosa book together and Don needed a book designer. 

Don and I talked a few times over the phone, then I met Don in person on a trip to San Diego where he took Rick and I out to a couple of easy-to-get-to rock art sites. Later on, Rick took me down to El Vallecito archaeological zone, outside the town of La Rumorosa to see the pictographs there.

Don’s enthusiasm for the Kumeyaay was contagious. He even got me excited about DStretch, which initially I totally dismissed. But working with Don on his books (I designed both volumes) and seeing the before and after DStretched images, sold me on the process. I continue to use it to this day on pictographs (and sometimes petroglyphs) in my area of the southwest.

Although Don and I bonded over our love for Native American culture, especially their rock art, we soon found many other points of interests that we shared, especially reggae music. And then, after realizing our shared Italian heritage, we became “Cuzs”. 

Almost every time Don and I worked on his two La Rumorosa books, or later on discussing his other passion projects, he would end up inviting me to visit and stay with him in San Diego. Like we often do in our lives, I would say “yes, that would be great” and then life would get in the way and time would pass and I would not find the time to make that visit happen.

Then, in February of 2025, life again got in the way again when I heard from Don’s good friend, Anthony, that Don had passed away.

I wished I had found the time to take Don up on his offer to visit. As Chaucer once said, “Time and tide waits for no man.”

This website honors the memory of Don Liponi. He did his best to spotlight the Kumeyaay culture and its people, to tell their story and to provide them a platform to tell their story the way they wanted the world to hear it.