Lifeways

The Cahuilla lived in small villages of both dome-shaped and rectangular dwellings, covered with brush or thatch, typically placed near a water supply. They also built sun shelters without walls. The tribe as a whole was organized into two groups known as moieties—Coyote and Wildcat—consisting of various politically autonomous clans. The dozen or so clans each controlled a territory of several hundred square miles. Clans gathered for ceremonies, one of them being the nukil during which the dead were honored with an oral recitation of the clan’s belief system and history. In the Cahuilla creation myth, the Creator is know as Mukat.

The Cahuilla collected as many as 200 plants for food, medicine, and building materials. Among the food sources were acorns, pinon nuts, mesquite beans, and cactus buds. With bows and arrows, throwing sticks, clubs, and traps, they hunted bighorn sheep, mountain goats, deer, antelope, and smaller mammals, especially rabbits. Living in the desert, their hunting-gathering way of life resembled that of GREAT BASIN INDIANS to the east and north, such as the PAIUTE, another Uto-Aztecan-speaking people, and some SOUTHWEST INDI ANS to the east, such as the YUMA (quechan) and MOJAVE. They also practiced some farming of corn, beans, and squash. The Cahuilla were skilled in making baskets, typically using the coiling method to weave them. They also made pottery, a skill perhaps taught to them by the Paiute.