Cahuilla Elder Katherine Saubel

eighty year old kathryn sagal is the chairwoman of the lowest kind of his tribe of coup we indians in northern san diego county but most of her life she's lived here on them are ongoing indian reservation on the outskirts of banning ninety miles east of la sabol is one of only a handful of cool we indians alive today who grew up speaking their native language and knowing the traditional ways she remembers the old days as we drive around the reservation which is tucked in a windy pass between the senate or danielle and san jacinto mountains when i first came here all these people are here they all talk to each other in their language and now there's no nothing no one to talk to know i think there's only one employee a speaker now here in rubble yes this is a marriage the church is called st mary's catholic indian nation and ron go was still known as the wrong girl band of mission indians even though the ancestors of most of the people here live far enough inland to escape enslavement by the spanish padres most

californians know very little about the brutal repression of the mission here and catherine sobel says ignorance of california indian history is almost total when it comes to the century and a half since california joined the united states standing outside the gift shop at the morocco casino she points out the trinkets for sale none of these things in this way are from california they're mostly former arizona are the planes or wherever and as he's an indian city where he'll find indians never that didn't know they know did we have only swim own language you read about the navajos you read about that all other indians that you never read anything about the california sabo has dedicated herself to preserving the history and the culture of the cool we're much of her life's work can be found at the multi museum a tiny one room brick building across the road from her house subway and a friend founded the museum in nineteen sixty four when they noticed me and serrano traditions are slipping away as tribal elders passed on she started this you know the

museum and and he said oh i we have to say something like that for the people for the young people really in that time to also we've started through a right to publish books a lot of these books were written by indian people themselves on the south side of the museum overlooking the ten freeway and the desert hills outlet mall is a small garden of native lance is one of our favorite foods to which we can find any more is isabel cactus see we ate them the bugs on top sabo is no botanist has written about the ways that we're used to get their food medicine and much of their material culture from local plants she says many of these plants were nearly wiped out by livestock introduced by the spanish as we drive past a dry creek bed sabol talks about how miranda look back in the nineteen thirties there was nothing here and in the reservation they had a book of orchards that airman orchards and lehman peach orchards and vineyards and now its all time when they put that aqueduct through

everything the water drop down and i think you know they lost their water from near the rural people the story i'm wrong goes water woes is typical of how indians were treated after california became a state in eighteen fifty as was the case with many california reservations were wrong girl was established and parched and water would become even scarcer here in the nineteen forties when the metropolitan water district diverted much of the region's water to los angeles in the early days of statehood newcomers took indian water and land with impunity denied their civil and property rights indians had little recourse when indians fought back against white incursions or stole carol because they were desperately poor and hungry the state of california sanctioned brutal retaliation to hire period of the california gold rush was utter chaos central forty literally collapsed professor edward his steeler teaches history at sonoma state university the steel who was luis daniel anker we're estimates a

hundred thousand california indians most of them in the north were enslaved murdered kidnapped or just disappeared during the first two years of the gold rush citizen militia groups were responsible for most of the violence these groups were death squads that went on killing indians in and they use the indigent lot to take the children and the wives of the use of these hapless indians and enslave them the state reimbursed these military forays for costs incurred pay over a million dollars and the converse reimbursed the state eventually the indenture law was one of a series of measures the california legislature enacted in the eighteen fifties for quote the protection of the indians another law known as the da vinci act was used by whites in southern california to forcing indians to work for up to a year without compensation indians who couldn't prove they were employed would be arrested have their bail paid by a local citizen and then would be bound over to work for him back at the museum catherine sobel shows off maltese collection of basket other cultural

items and old photographs she says it seems like everything the state and federal government did was aimed at destroying indian people and their culture a lot of things that was supposed to be an issue do that indeed people you know when they made their treaties with us was forced to give us hundred and sixty acres of land which we never got we'll just got especially here they got only five acres and we didn't get anything at all when they made his resignation it was supposed to be twenty four miles were twenty four miles and there's not twenty four miles here what happened to the rest of a ridge the federal government made a modest attempt to secure land for california indians in treaties they negotiated in the eighteen fifties but state legislators backed by the public convinced the senate to shelve the treaty's the california lawmakers also asked congress to remove california indians to oklahoma slivers of land were eventually set aside for indian reservations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in nineteen nineteen with the founding of the nation indian federation indians in southern california began to organize for their

rights they started this because we didn't have any voice you know to darwin as a white man with the unions got together and they formed the federation and that but they were never allowed to meet anywhere if they did the garment the police would come in there they can tailor disrupt the meetings the federation agitated against government policies designed to entice or co worse indians into abandoning their tribes and their cultures and his picture looks like it's from nineteen twenty two and there's my father right there so he was a member yes and i was too was a time before are we became citizens in our own country this is a time if we weren't allowed to vote to warn about the vote of nineteen twenty four when we were made to citizens of this united states but all this time with white were just like foreigners in their own country and work is the us grandfather was also a member of the nation indian federation which targeted the bureau of indian affairs for the first eleven years

of the federation they call for the dismantling of european affairs called for the serving of reservation boundaries the protection and your water rights and to guarantee the right of indians to govern themselves they have representatives and they created a carol old government olive oil one record or exiled off on every reservation a split developed and many reservations between those who were paid better be iaea or acquiesce to the agency's demands and federation followers who rebelled it divided many families where some people are simply too poor to turn away the government supporters bureau of indian affairs heavy handed the truism head cause nothing but chaos and misery and allies of california indians and the consequences of not following the agents advice consequences would be a sudden cutoff of regimes in the next election so forcibly union of valor your ballots were counted the nation union federation along with other reform groups pushed the government to honor the broken treaties eventually there were two settlements the first

in nineteen forty four paid indians a hundred and fifty dollars each the second in nineteen sixty eight paid six hundred and eighty dollars many indians were outraged by the paltry amount some like a steel refused to cash their checks but most couldn't afford not to catherine someone remembers then the check i rode back when i signed it i said this does not include that the mineral rights of the water rights of our people this is for the lab by the nineteen sixties a national indian civil rights movement succeeded in for the most part getting the government to respect tribal self governance gradually more indians began to embrace the native identity the government had failed to suppress over the years young people who've wanted to learn who we are traditions have turned to catherine samba lantern museum she says more can we as heaven and the old ways of her memories will live at multi for generations to come near the end of our visit sobel passes in front of a photo of an older man with a strong presence but a slightly worried or perhaps weary look

for men it's from how swings as the peter chino it was one of the most part of comments the less common died in nineteen eighty nine that's a big house here says there are one house i ride behind that there are some inland to lean too behind their where they kept the sacred bundle of the cooley people and that's the heart of our religion but i don't know what's the most important thing that you want outsiders and i'm curious to know about for years well i mean i you know i really wanted to know that we are still here we are still here is california news for kpcc and is it also set the oil on them or wrong or reservation