Cahuilla Tribe Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Cahuilla Tribe - Essay Example However there was a continuous fall in the number of the neophytes and there was a decline in the power of the mission due to this, more over due to the reason that the Mexican government was taken over by the Spanish government. The situation of the Indians deteriorated even more due to the transfer of the country to United States of America and with the discovery of gold in the country in 1848 caused immigrants to rush to the country which had a negative effect on the Indians, even the states that had not been reached by the Spaniards were effected. Since this period the history of Indian of United States had changed completely and they had faced termination and depravity. Though reservations were made for almost all tribes, most of the survivors still live all around the country on land that they have bought or as squatters. As a result of ethnological investigation rather than the facts recognized by them, the tribal concept in most of the areas of the country is the one that is imposed on them. Rather than a ceremonial or governmental base it has a dialectic base; however this is the best option unless each village group is treated as a tribe which is not a practical alternative. From an ordinary point of view it is to be understood as to what constitutes a tribe, the method that is used as of now is highly artificial. Under such situation it is not quite suitable to follow a strictly alphabetic system, in order to enter tribes that were defined by their names under more widespread names as part of bigger groups and their names, they got certified names such as Norther, Yuki, and Paiute rather than the names Coast Yuki and Norther Paiute. Several Indian tribes have settled in the state of California, one such tribe is the Cahuilla tribe. This tribe has occupied California for the last 2000 years. They inhabit an area of around 2400 square miles. The long-established territory of Cahuilla was close to the geographic center of the South of California. The area occupied by the Cahuilla tribe was bounded to the south by the Chocolate Mountains and the Borrego Springs and bounded to the north by San Bernardino Mountains, to the west by the San Jacinto Plain, and finally to the east by the Palomar Mountains. Historians believe that a huge water body which is now called Lake Cahuilla existed when the Cahuillas first moved to the Coachella Valley. However, this lake which was formed by the Colorado River dried sometime before the 1700, because of the shifts in the course of the river. Later, in the year 1905 a much smaller lake called Salton Sea was created in the same place due to a break in a levee. Anthropologists have historically divided the Cahuilla into Pass, Mountain, and Desert groups. Bands of Cahuilla people have situated in Riverside, San Diego, and Imperial counties have acknowledged homes to nine Southern California Reservations. Many Cahuillas have married non-Cahuillas. Many of the Cahuillas today have a mixed history, particularly African American and Spanish. Yet there are people who have grown up in the tribe's way and those who recognize with the Cahuillian culture can qualify for an official membership to the tribe according to the internal rules of the tribe. Like most other tribes, the Cahuillas lived on agriculture by using native plants. One such tree which was harvested by the Cahuilla is the California Fan