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| The Cahuilla are a group of Native Americans that have inhabited California for more than 2000 years, originally covering an area of about 2,400 square miles (6,200 km²). Oral legends suggest that when the Cahuilla first moved into the Coachella Valley a large body of water now called Lake Cahuilla was in existence. Fed by the Colorado River, it dried up sometime before 1700, following one of the repeated shifts in the river's changed course. In 1905 a break in a levee created the much smaller Salton Sea in the same location. The Cahuilla have been historically divided into "Mountain," "Desert," and "Pass" groups by anthropologists. There are 9 reservations in Southern California: Agua Caliente, Augustine (the smallest federally recognized Native American tribe of 6 persons in the 2000's), Cabazon, Cahuilla, Los Coyotes, Morongo, Ramona, Santa Rosa, and Torres Martinez. Their language is of the Uto-Aztecan family. A 1990 census revealed 35 speakers in an ethnic population of 800. It is nearly extinct, since most speakers are middle-aged or older. - Wikipedia.org |
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