Cahuilla, perhaps derived from the Spanish kawiya, or "master." The Cahuilla refer to themselves as Iviatim, or speakers of their native language.
Location The Cahuilla lived generally southwest of the Bernardino Mountains in the eighteenth century. They ranged over a territory including several distinct environmental zones, from mountain ranges to canyons to desert (11,000 feet to 273 feet). Today they live on ten reservations in southern California.
Population The Cahuilla population may have numbered as many as 10,000 in the seventeenth century, with roughly 5,000 remaining by the late eighteenth century. In 1990, the total Indian population of all reservations on which Cahuilla lived, including those they shared with other peoples, was 1,276.
Language Cahuilla was a language from the Cupan subgroup of the Takic division of the Uto-Aztecan language family.
Historical Information
History New diseases and elements of Spanish culture probably preceded the physical arrival of the Spanish, which occurred when the Juan Bautista de Anza expedition arrived in 1774. The Cahuilla were at first hostile to the Spanish. Since most routes to the Pacific at that time were by sea, the two groups had little ongoing contact, except that a few Cahuillas were baptized at nearby missions.
By the early nineteenth century, some Cahuillas worked seasonally on Spanish cattle ranches, and aspects of Spanish culture such as cattle, wage labor, clothing, and language had significantly changed the traditional Cahuilla lifestyle. The latter maintained their autonomy until the severe smallpox epidemic of 1863. After 1877, they moved slowly on to reservations. Although self-supporting, they grew increasingly dependent on the Americans.
After 1891 the federal government took a much more active role in their lives. Government schools trained Cahuillas to perform menial tasks; influential Protestant missionaries suppressed native religion and culture; allotment under the Dawes Act (1886) destroyed their agricultural capabilities; and Indian Service personnel controlled their political activities, under protest. From roughly 1891 through the 1930s, Cahuillas farmed, raised cattle, worked for wages, sold peat and asbestos, and leased their lands for income. Lack of water was a chronic obstacle to economic activities. Their tourist industry, especially that of the Agua Caliente Band, also dates from the 1920s.
Following World War II, partial termination and the severe curtailment of government services forced the Cahuilla to take a much more active role in their welfare. Renewed federal programs in the 1960s in combination with a vitalized tribal political structure led to a general increase in the quality of life for most Cahuillas.
Religion The Cahuilla recognized a supreme power, neither good nor bad, but unpredictable. According to their worldview, the entire universe and everything in it was interconnected. Cahuillas performed a large number of rituals. The most significant ones were an annual mourning ceremony, the eagle ceremony (honoring a dead chief or shaman), rite-of-passage rituals, and food-related rituals. Song cycles were a key part of Cahuilla ritual. They sought to reaffirm the people’s place in the universe and their connections with the past and with all things. Ceremonial implements included rattles, headdresses, wands, eagle-feathered skirts, and especially the mdyswut, a ceremonial bundle.
Government The Cahuillas lived in about 50 villages aboriginally. The political unit was the clan, or group of between three and ten lineages. Each clan had a leader, usually hereditary, called the net. This person had religious, economic, and diplomatic as well as political responsibilities. The net also had an assistant.
Hdwayniks knew and sang the ceremonial songs, including the long song cycles. Shamans (always male) had much power, including curing, through the control of supernatural power. They also controlled the weather; guarded against evil spirits; and, with the nets, exercised political authority. Strong as it was, however, the shaman’s authority was only maintained by regular public displays of power.
Customs The Cahuilla recognized two societal divisions, Wildcat and Coyote, each composed of a number of patrilineal clans. Female doctors complemented male shamans as curers; their methods included the use of medicinal plants and other knowledge. When a person died, the spirit was believed to travel to the land of the dead; from there, it could still be involved in the lives of the living. Old age was venerated, largely because old people taught the traditional ways and values, which were themselves venerated.
Reciprocity and sharing were two defining values. The Cahuillas frowned upon hasty behavior; conversely, it was appropriate to do things slowly, deliberately, and cautiously. They enjoyed regular interaction, including intermarriage, with other Indian groups such as the Gabrieleno and Serrano.
Although each extended family had a village site and resource area, land away from the village could be owned by anyone. Mens’ games were based on endurance and the ability to withstand physical punishment. Women’s games included footraces, juggling, cat’s cradle, top spinning, jackstones, and balancing objects. People often bet on games.
Cahuilla songs contained tribal history and cosmology, and they accompanied all activities. Singing was common. Bathing and cleanliness in general were important. Spouses were selected by parents from the opposite division. Divorce was difficult to obtain. Everyone observed specific rules of deference and behavior toward other people.
Dwellings Dome-shaped shelters were constructed of brush. Rectangular houses were generally made of thatch. Other structures included acorn granaries, mens’ sweat houses, and ceremonial lodges.
Diet Six varieties of acorns constituted a key food source. Other gathered food included pine nuts, mesquite and screwbeans, and a huge variety of cactus, seeds, berries, roots, and greens. Other plants were used in construction and for medicinal purposes. Rabbits, deer, antelope, rodents, mountain sheep, reptiles, and fowl were all hunted, and fish were taken. Meat was roasted, boiled, or sun-dried in strips, with the bones then cracked for marrow or ground and mixed with other foods. Blood was drunk fresh or cooked and stored. Some Cahuilla bands practiced agriculture, although this was a less important activity.
Key Technology The Cahuilla used a variety of natural materials for their technological needs, including willow or mesquite wood (bows and arrows), grasses (cooking, storage, and carrying baskets), stone (mortars, pestles, manos and metates, arrow straighteners), wood (mortars), clay (pottery for cooking, storage, eating, and pipes), pine pitch (to seal storage bins for food preservation), and mescal (fibers for rope). Other technological innovations included hunting nets, snares and traps, baking ovens or pits, and musical instruments such as elder flutes, whistles, panpipes, and rattles.
Trade The Cocopah-Maricopa Trail, a major trade route, bisected Cahuilla territory. Two other trade routes, the Santa Fe and the Yuman, passed close by. Cahuillas traded mostly with the Mojave,Halchidoma, Ipai, Tipai, Luiseno, Serrano, and Gabrieleno. The Cahuilla traded food products, furs, hides, obsidian, and salt for shell beads, minerals such as turquoise and tourmaline, Joshua tree blossoms, axes, and other crafts. Rituals and songs were also exchanged.
Notable Arts Petroglyphs, perhaps beginning as early as 1000 B.C.E., depicted big game hunting. Pictographs, associated with the girls’ puberty ceremony, began in the fifteenth century.
Transportation Baskets were used to transport goods.
Dress Women wore basket hats as well as skirts of mescal bark, tule, or skins. Men wore breechclouts of the same material when they wore anything at all. Both men and women wore sandals of mescal fibers soaked in mud and tied with mescal fibers or buckskin. Babies wore mesquite-bark diapers. Blankets or woven rabbit-skin robes were used for warmth.
Six varieties of acorns constituted a key food source for the Cahuilla. This woman is stocking her elevated granary of acorns in the rocky mountains of southwestern California, circa 1900.
War and Weapons Cahuillas fought other Cahuillas as a last resort, usually over economic disputes. Weapons included war clubs and poison-tipped arrows.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations Cahuilla reservations include Agua Caliente (1896; 23,173 acres; Riverside County; 1957 constitution and by-laws), Augustine (1893; 502 acres; Thermal County), Cabazon (1876;1,382 acres; Indio and Riverside Counties; 20 Indians; democratically elected tribal council); Cahuilla (1875; 18,884 acres; Riverside County), Los Coyotes (1889; Cahuilla and Cupeno; 25,049.63 acres; San Diego County), Morongo (1908; 32,362 acres; Cahuilla, Serrano, and Cupeno, Riverside County), Ramona (1893; 560 acres; Riverside County), Santa Rosa (1907; 11,092.6 acres; Kings County), and Torres-Martinez (1876; 24,024 acres; Imperial and Riverside Counties). Each is administered by elected business committees and/or tribal councils in conjunction with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and is connected to the others in various formal and informal ways. None have Indian Reorganization Act constitutions.
Economy Important activities include cattle raising, farming, billboard and land leasing, and general off-reservation employment opportunities. Agua Caliente has extensive real estate holdings. The Cabazon Band operates the Fantasy Springs Casino and owns an industrial park; they have no unemployment, though income is fairly low. In general, the Cahuillas’ land is far from markets, water, and jobs. Most of the reservations have job development plans. The unemployment rate at Torres-Martines was 78 percent in 1995. There is also some basket making for the tourist trade.
Legal Status The Agua Caliente Band of Mission Indians of the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation; the Augustine Band of Mission Indians of the Augustine Indian Reservation; the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians of the Cabazon Indian Reservation; the Cahuilla Band of Mission Indians of the Cahuilla Reservation; the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians of the Los Coyotes Reservation; the Morongo Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians of the Morongo Reservation; the Ramona Band or Village of Cahuilla Mission Indians; the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians of the Santa Rosa Reservation; and the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians are federally recognized tribal entities.
Daily Life Some traditions remain alive, although much diminished, such as the funeral ritual, foods, and kin relationships, as do values like reciprocity. Ceremonies have been greatly modified, but the patterns remain, as do traditional games, relationships with the supernatural, wagering, and songs. People, especially the young, are learning the living language. Most Cahuillas are Catholic. Institutions include the Malki Museum of Cahuilla Culture at Morongo Reservation, the Morongo Indian Health Clinic, and the Torres-Martinez Historical Society. Cahuillas are relatively well educated. Two intertribal powwows are held annually. Tribal autonomy remains an issue, as does resource management and Indian burials. Recently, Cahuillas have been forced to consider the issue of hazardous waste disposal on their lands. An Agua Caliente Cultural Museum is planned for Palm Springs.
Among the Cabazon Band, children receive education grants to attend public or private schools off the reservation. The casino plays a major role in their lives. The people are building 1,000 houses on their reservation.
At Torres-Martinez, extended families often live together. Children attend public school but also learn traditional songs and dances. Seniors meet regularly, and many converse in their native language. Diabetes and substance abuse are significant social problems. Neither the clans nor many traditional ceremonies remain. Most people live in trailers or Housing and Urban Development/BIA housing, little of which is suitable for the desert. Illegally dumped toxic sludge is a local environmental threat and the object of ongoing blockades and other protests.
