Former Los Coyotes Chairwoman Dies at Age 91; She Supported Barstow Casino Plans but Grew Intolerant of Detroiter Michael Malik

Los Coyotes Elder Katherine Siva Saubel
Keeper of Cahuilla Culture, Language

Katherine Siva Saubel, a former chairwoman of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians has died at age 92.  She was one of the last fluent speakers of the Cahuilla (Kah-WEE'-yuh) Indian language, who helped document the lore of the Southern California tribe.

Her nephew, Kevin Siva, tells the Los Angeles Times she died Nov. 1 at her home on the Morongo reservation near Banning.

Saubel was born in 1920 on the Los Coyotes reservation in San Diego County and was the eighth of her parents’ eleven children.  When she was four, her family relocated to the Palm Springs area where it is believed she was the first Native American woman to graduate from Palm Springs High School.

She married Mariano Saubel, a resident of the Morongo Reservation, in 1940.  They were married 45 years and the parents of a son. 

Saubel worked with researchers to produce a Cahuilla dictionary and grammar book and preserved the songs and medicinal lore of the threatened culture. In 1964, she helped launch the Malki Museum near Banning, the first nonprofit museum found and managed by American Indians on a reservation.

The Cahuilla (pronounced ka-wee-yah), once one of the largest California Indian tribes, are concentrated in Riverside and San Diego counties. Among the more prominent Cahuilla bands are the Morongo and the Agua Caliente band in Palm Springs.

In 1998, as an activist, Saubel brought electricity to the Los Coyotes Reservation near Warner Springs in San Diego County. She would later be embroiled in a bitter fight to eject certain tribal members from the Reservation.

Then, for the better part of the first decade of the new millennium, Saubel served as Los Coyotes’ Chairwoman.  In partnership with Barwest LLC, a Detroit-based casino syndicate organized by Marian Ilitch and Michael Malik, she attempted to establish an off-reservation casino for the Los Coyotes Indians in Barstow (CA), midway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. 

After experiencing a string of failed schemes and disappointing setbacks, Saubel grew increasingly frustrated with and skeptical of Mike Malik.  When she could no longer take his bullying and intimidation she simply terminated Los Coyotes’ exclusivity agreement with Barwest.  Malik was furious.  Saubel told reporters Malik was ‘The Devil’ and alleged he was responsible for ‘seducing’ younger members of the Los Coyotes tribe. 

Subsequently, Malik and his operatives had Saubel removed as Los Coyotes’ chairwoman.  As her replacement he recruited the young and inexperienced Shane Chapparosa, one of the younger members of the tribe whom Saubel had accused Malik of seducing.

Saubel received an honorary PhD in philosophy from La Sierra University, Riverside, California, and was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor bestowed by theUniversity of California at the University of California, Riverside.

Funeral mass and burial for Dr. Saubel are scheduled for Nov. 8 at St. Mary’s Indian Mission and St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery in Banning.

Among the various tributes to Dr. Saubel:

• Banning Beaumont Patch: Malki Museum Closed Tuesday to Honor Co-Founder, Katherine Siva Saubel, PhD
• Gannett:   Native American culture expert dies at 91
• Idyllwild Town Crier: Dr. Katherine Siva Saubel passed away Tuesday, Nov. 1
• Indianz.com:  Katherine Siva Saubel, Los Coyotes scholar, passes on at 91
• Los Angeles Times:  Katherine Siva Saubel, preserver of Cahuilla culture, dies at 91
• Malki Museum:  Memories Celebrating Dr. Katherine Siva Saubel
• Riverside P-E:  Katherine Siva Saubel remembered for her accomplishments
• Sacramento Bee:  So. Calif. Indian activist Katherine Saubel dies
• The Desert Sun: Cahuilla elder, icon Katherine Siva Saubel dies

National Women’s Hall of Fame

Wikipedia

Malki Museum History

Official Web site of San Bernardino County names five tribes with historical ties to the region

as presented on the "History" page of San Bernardino County's official Web site:

click thumbnail to go to official Web Page

from OFFICIAL WEB SITE of SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY
San Bernardino County History
Paleo-Indian sites dating from c. 10,000 BC show that the San Bernardino county area has been inhabited for at least 12,000 years. Artifacts in the Calico area suggest much earlier human occupation, but this has not been confirmed. In the past three thousand years various Indian tribes flourished in the area: the Gabrielenos occupied the West Valley; the Serranos lived in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains; the Vanyumes lived along the Mojave River; the Mohave lived along the Colorado River; and in the 1500s the Chemehuevi moved into the Mojave Desert...

There is no mention of the Big Lagoon Rancheria (Humboldt County) or the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians(San Diego County); nor of the Cahuilla or Cupeno Indians who have ancestral lands primarily in modern day Riverside and San Diego Counties generally to the south of San Bernardino County and the coastal side of the San Bernardino Mountains range.

Cahuilla traditional territory was south of the San Bernardino Mountains

from the Salton Sea Ecosystem Restoration Draft PEIR, February 14, 2007:

click map for larger image

CAHUILLA
The Cahuilla territory was near the geographic center of Southern California. It was bounded to the north by the San Bernardino Mountains, to the south by Borrego Springs and the Chocolate Mountains, to the east by the Colorado Desert, and to the west by the San Jacinto Plain and the eastern slopes of the Palomar Mountains (Bean, 1978).

The Cahuilla used a wide range of wild resources, such as acorns and piñon nuts, deer, desert bighorn sheep, rabbits, fish, and quail. The Cahuilla settlements were generally located at high elevations in well-watered canyons or on fans near streams and springs and at lower elevations near natural springs (Moratto, 1984). The Cahuilla had well-developed trade networks with neighboring Serrano, and Diegueño groups and cultivated corn, beans, squashes, and melons (Bean,1978).

CUPEÑO
The Cupeño occupied a small mountainous area about 10 miles in diameter at the headway of San Luis Rey River (Bean and Smith, 1978a). The Cupeño used a wide range of wild resources, such as acorns and piñon nuts, deer, desert bighorn sheep, rabbits, fish, and quail.

The historic village of Cupa, also called Warner Springs Ranch or Agua Caliente Village, is located east of Lake Henshaw on State Highway 79 near Warner Springs, California. The 200 acre (0.8 km²) Cupeño Indian village site is now abandoned, but evidence of its historical importance remains. The beautiful valley of Agua Caliente in which the village was situated lies at an altitude of 3,000 feet (1000 m), and is home for many kinds of wildlife, native shrubs, grass, and evergreen oaks.

NOTE: over the years, Lowell Bean has been a frequent scholarly collaborator with Catherine Siva Saubel, currently Spokeswoman for the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians of the Los Coyotes Reservation. Saubel is a resident of the Morongo Reservation in Riverside County and founder and Chairwoman of the Malki Museum at Morongo.

Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians makes its home on the southernmost of Cahuilla Reservations

click map for larger view

Today there are nine reservations in Southern California spanning Imperial, Riverside and San Diego counties that are home to bands of Cahuilla. They are:

• Agua Caliente
• Augustine
• Cabazon
• Cahuilla
• Los Coyotes
• Morongo
• Ramona
• Santa Rosa
• Torres Martinez

The Los Coyotes Reservation (home to both Cahuilla and Cupeno people) is the most southern of the nine Cahuilla reservations; located in north eastern San Diego County.