The committee promotes and sponsors presentations of Cahuilla culture, history, traditional knowledge and lifeway. The committee has sponsored presentations of Cahuilla Bird Songs, stories, language, basket making and Native foods.
Cahuilla women skillfully create beautiful baskets. More than this, these women imbue a part of their spirit into these baskets. Women elegantly illustrate their culture and lifeways in these baskets. Cahuilla woman were and are today skilled basket makers. They weave exquisite baskets from materials native to the mountains and deserts in which they live. These materials are gathered and include suul/deer grass, seily/juncus and selet/sumac. Some designs contain patterns or objects that have special meaning to the maker or tribal community. For example, the swastika can be a symbol for good luck and symbolize the circle of life, birth, growth, and death. Also, the eagle, double arrow point, and figure 8 are prominent symbols and can signify good luck. Some designs have more apparent meanings such as snakes, people, plants, animals, mountains, stars, and lightning. Other designs include aesthetically pleasing patterns. Today these baskets are prized expressions of culture cared for by Cahuilla families and in exhibits in many museums.
The hot springs at the village of Paui has been used by the Mountain Cahuilla people since the beginning times. Paui means living water in the Cahuilla language. For the Cahuilla the spring is a living entity, a source of life, healing, and power. The hot spring is a center for community life. The waters of the hot springs are used for healing as well as bathing. When the people wanted to do anything to a spring, clean a spring, they gave a food offering and prayed to the spirits of the spring. Springs were sources of great power and powerful spirit beings called Nukatem were found in the spring. Cahuilla medicine men could access this power by praying to the spring and going down into the spring. In the 1930’s the Indian Irrigation Service constructed a reservoir at the spring. To this day Cahuilla families continue to use the spring. The sacred nature of the springs requires that all who visit act with due care and respect.
