American Indian Studies

A group of Cahuilla Indians occupying a reservation in and around the city of Palm Springs, in Riverside County. Also known as the Agua Caliente Band of Mission Indians of the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. Total area is 31,610 acres. Tribal Enrollment is around 365. Total Population on the reservation is around 21,358 (Census 2000). Approximately 6,700 acres of the reservation lie within the city limits of Palm Springs, making the Agua Caliente band the city's largest landowner. In 1992 the tribe bought the Spa Hotel and Mineral Springs, an internationally renowned resort. The tribe also owns a network of canyons just southwest of Palm Springs called Indian Canyons, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and which is a popular tourist destination.

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has two casinos: the Spa Resort Casino in downtown Palm Springs, and the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage. Other forms of entertainment, education, and shopping offered for visitors include hiking, picnicking, and horseback riding in the Indian Canyons, hiking tours, the visitors' center with film and displays in Tahquitz Canyon, and the mineral springs spa and health facilities at the Spa Resort Hotel. The Agua Caliente Cultural Museum in downtown Palm Springs offers films, exhibitions, traditional cultural activities and classes, and lecture programs. The tribe maintains a visitors' information center at the north end of Palm Springs. The Agua Caliente Cultural Museum has a library and research center with materials on the Agua Caliente, other Cahuilla bands, and other Native American indigenous peoples. It is open by appointment to the public. Museum staff can assist with research. The Agua Caliente Cultural Museum is located at 219 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, CA 92262 in the Village Green Heritage Center; telephone number is (760) 323-0151. Museum Administration Offices are at 471 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way, Palm Springs, CA 92262. Telephone number is (760) 788-1079.
The Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians is active in land planning and environmental and cultural resource protection and preservation. The Tribal Administration offices are located at 600 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way, Palm Springs, CA 92262. The phone number is (760) 325-3400 or (800) 790-3398.

The Augustine Reservation of Cahuilla Indians is a one-square mile tract of land, about 500 acres, in the lower Coachella valley, in Riverside County, southern California, near the community of Thermal. Nearby is the neighboring Cabazon Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians. The Reservation land had been unoccupied for more than 50 years, and the reservation had become an illegal dumping ground for household garbage, trash, appliances, animal carcasses, commercial waste, car batteries, and thousands of tires. In 1994, the U.S. Environmental Service, the California Conservation Corps, the California Integrated Waste Management Board, and the Riverside County Sheriff's office began assisting the Augustine Band in developing a cleanup plan. In 1996, Maryann Martin, the Chairperson of the Band, became the first member to establish residency on the reservation since the mid-1950's. The cleanup will be expensive and gradual, it seems. It is estimated that the cost of removing all waste, grading soil, and revegetating the site will be around $500,000. For further information on the cleanup effort, contact Karen Kupcha at (760) 365-1373.

Ancestors of Augustine Tribal members were Desert Cahuilla Indians who occupied the upper Colorado and Mojave Desert areas, including the Coachella Valley and Santa Rosa Mountains. The Augustine Band of Mission Indians was established by Executive Order on December 29,1981. The original Augustine Membership Roll of 11 persons was prepared and approved by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs on April 13, 1956. The last surviving member, Roberta Ann Augustine, died on May 9, 1987, leaving three children and two grandchildren. Maryann Martin, one of her descendants, is the current Tribal Chairperson. Historically, the Cahuilla were divided into two moieties or groups of clans: the Wildcat and Coyote. They were further divided into approximately a dozen patrilineal clans, each having its own name, territory and common ancestry. In addition to the Augustine Band, other Cahuilla tribes in Southern California are the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs, the Cabazon Band, the Ramona Band of Mission Indians near Anza, and the Morongo Band of Mission Indians.

An Athabascan group who inhabited the hills and oak savannahs of the coast range in the northwestern corner of California. Cahto is Northern Pomo for "lake," referring to an important Cahto village site, which in their language is Djilbi. The Cahto are sometimes referred to as Kaipomo Indians. Their language relates them distantly to the Athabascan peoples of the interior of Alaska and northern Canada, as well as to the Navajos and Apaches of the Southwest. In the early 18th century, around 1,100 Cahtos lived in their region in approximately 50 village sites. Their land today is the Laytonville Rancheria, with about 129 Cahto-Pomo people living there in 1990. A few Cahto also live on the Round Valley Reservation. However, most Cahtos today live in Mendocino County.

These people were traditionally located in the inland areas of southern California, generally south of the San Bernardino Mountains. The Cahuilla refer to themselves as Iviatim. The word Cahuilla is thought to have come from the tribal word Kawiya, meaning "master." They were divided into small groups or tribelets in the foothills, mountain regions, and partly in the desert lands east of the Sierra divide, into two broad groups called the Coyote and the Wildcat. They lived in about 50 villages aboriginally. The Cahuilla population may have numbered as many as 10,000 in the 17th century, with about 5,000 remaining by the late 18th century. Their language is from the Cupan subgroup of the Takic division of the Uto-Aztecan language family, which extends into the Southwest and central Mexico. Today Cahuilla people live on the reservations of Agua Caliente, Augustine, Cabazon, Cahuilla, Los Coyotes, Morongo, Ramona, Santa Rosa, Soboba, and Torres-Martinez. These are all bands of Mission Indians. In 1990, the total Indian population of all reservations on which Cahuilla lived was 1,276.

These Indian people originally occupied lands in southern California in the area of present-day Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties. The Coastal Chumash were living in their traditional territory by approximately 1000 A.D. Traditionally, they lived in villages along the Pacific coast from San Luis Obispo to Malibu Canyon and inland as far as the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley. The Chumash are sometimes referred to as the Santa Barbara Indians. However, each Chumash regional group has its own name. They are composed of the Barbareno, Ynezeno, Ventureno, Obispeno, Purisimeno, and the Interior Chumash. At the time of first Spanish contact in 1542, the Chumash were one of the largest and most highly developed California tribes. Their traditional language is no longer spoken (the last native speaker of a Chumash language died in 1965), but was one of five closely related Hokan languages. Those along the coast obtained their food mainly from the sea, for which they developed sea-going canoes. They were the only California tribe to depend largely on ocean fishing for subsistence. The Chumash are known for their technological skill in constructing ocean-going canoes. They hunted on and around the Channel Islands as well as along the coast. The Chumash Tribe is also known for its aesthetic contributions in the form of baskets and shell and steatite objects. Five Spanish missions were established in Chumash territory, and soon the Chumash population was decimated, largely due to the introduction of European diseases. Population estimates of the Chumash before the Spanish arrived was as high as 22,000. In the late 18th century, Chumash population was between roughly 10,000 and 18,000. By 1831, the number of mission-registered Chumash numbered only 2,788. Today, about 213 Chumash people live on the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation, the only Chumash reservation, and others live in cities along the southern California coast.

Also known as Kuupangaxwichem. Cupeño is Spanish for "a person who comes from Kupa." These people traditionally occupied land where the present-day Warner's Ranch is located - 50 miles inland and 50 miles north of the current Mexican border, in the foothills of the Coast Range, in the mountainous area at the headwaters of the San Luis Rey River and the San Jose de Valle Valley. Their language belongs to the Cupan subgroup of the Takic family of the Uto-Aztecan languages, and is closely related to the Cahuilla language. A few people still speak the language today. Fewer than 750 Cupeños lived in their region in the mid-18th century. Today, most Cupeño people live on the Pala Reservation while some also live on the Morongo Reservation. By 1973 fewer than 150 people claimed Cupeño descent. Cupeño customs were derived from neighboring Cahuilla, Luiseño, and Ipai over the past 800 years or so. Around the turn of the 20th century, the Cupeños (250 or so) were forced by the government of California to move from their homes at Warner's Hot Springs to the Pala Reservation (which was Luiseño), awarding title to the Cupeño homeland at Warner's Springs to a man who was once governor of California. In 1903 a 3,438-acre ranch was purchased for the Cupeño at Pala Valley, now known as New Pala.