Beneath Palm Springs’ glitzy resorts, upscale shops and miles of golf courses lies a land deeply tied to its Native American roots.
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians at one point inhabited and governed some 2,000 square miles of ancestral land in the Palm Springs area. But in the 1860s, the Federal Government divided up the land in a checkerboard fashion, with parts of the Coachella Valley going to the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Some 20 years later, the tribe was deeded 32,000 acres of the remaining land, establishing the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. Today, 10,700 acres of the reservation lie within the city limits of Palm Springs, while the remaining sections extend out to include portions of Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage and unincorporated Riverside County.
The reservation includes billions of dollars worth of valuable real estate as well as critical desert and mountain habitat.
"The tribe is the mover and shaker of the entire valley," says Michael Hammond, executive director of the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum (www.accmuseum.org) in Palm Springs.
The Agua Caliente tribe owns the Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa in Rancho Mirage and the Spa Resort Casino in Palm Springs, as well as the Indian Canyons Golf Resort. Other Native American casinos in the area include the Spotlight 29 Casino, owned by the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians, while the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians operates Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio and Casino Morongo, 20 minutes west of Palm Springs in Cabazon.
The Palm Springs Convention Center itself is on tribal land, Hammond notes.
"When people come to Palm Springs, they are literally on the reservation no matter where they go," he says. "It’s very different from the preconceived notion of what a reservation is."
A good first step to experience and learn about the local Native American culture is a visit to the museum.
"The exhibition is about the Agua Caliente—the history and issues the tribe has faced," Hammond says.
Groups can arrange for private events at the museum, which can hold up to 75 people. There is talk of a new, larger building between the airport and downtown Palm Springs, though plans are on hold due to the economy. The tribe has already leased the museum over eight acres of land for the facility, according to Hammond.
The museum is also host to the annual Festival of Native Film & Culture at Camelot Theatres in central Palm Springs and presents educational classes, such as Living Traditions, which offers hands-on experiences with Native crafts such as basketry, pottery, musical instrument making, fry bread cooking, mineral pigment making, gourd art and pine needle weaving.
Groups can arrange for private classes or a lecture discussing the tribe’s history and where it stands today.
"We can also talk about Native American history nationwide and what’s going on in Washington—how that affects tribes. We have lectured to as many as 500," Hammond says.
The museum can also organize short guided hikes for groups of up to 30 into Andreas Canyon. The hike includes information on the natural resources and cultural heritage of the site, with a visit to a replica of an ancestral village of the Cahuilla people. The guide can also discuss the flora, fauna and landscape in context with how natural resources were used in daily desert life, such as medicinal plants.
Other cultural museums in the valley include the small Malki Museum (www.malkimuseum.org), one of the first Native American museums in California. Located on the Morongo Indian Reservation, the museum displays art and artifacts of the Indians of the San Gorgonio Pass area, with a focus on preserving the cultural traditions and history of the Cahuilla Indians and other Southern California Indian tribes.
Cabot’s Pueblo Museum (www.cabotsmuseum.org) is housed in a pueblo in Desert Hot Springs, built by explorer Cabot Yerxa. The museum spotlights Cabot’s collection of Native American pottery and early 20th century photographs and artifacts from his Alaskan adventures. The museum grounds, including a picnic area, are landscaped with Native plants. The museum also houses the Pueblo Art Gallery and the famed sculpture Waokiye, a 43-foot-tall Native American monument carved from a 750-year-old Sequoia redwood.
In Palm Desert, the Adagio Galleries (www.adagiogalleries.com) on El Paseo represents well-known contemporary Native American artists, such as R.C. Gorman, considered by many the premier artist among American Indians. The gallery is open to groups.
Hammond suggests groups start at the cultural museum for background, take a short hike in the Andreas Canyon and dine at the Oasis Buffet at the Spa Casino Resort, which serves Native American foods.
"They get the past history and the natural landscape, and can partake of where the tribe is today," Hammond says. "It can all be done in an afternoon."
