Katherine Siva Saubel, the one of the last fluent speakers of the Cahuilla (pronounced ka-wee-yah) language, has died:
Katherine Siva Saubel, an elder of the Cahuilla Indian tribe of Southern California, once described herself as “just a voice in the wilderness all by myself.” She meant that she had few people with whom she could speak the Cahuilla language or sing the songs that conveyed her people’s ancient stories.
“My race,” she told The Times in 2000, “is dying.”
Now Saubel, long its feistiest guardian, has died.
“It’s a huge loss … the end of an era,” said Nathalie Colin, an ethno-historian at the Malki Museum near Banning, which Saubel co-founded more than 45 years ago to preserve Cahuilla history and traditions.
Saubel, 91, died of natural causes Tuesday at her home on the Morongo Reservation near Banning, said her nephew, Kevin Siva.
The Cahuilla language is a language of the Uto-Aztecan family and was once spoken over a substantial portion of central California. Dr. Saubel was clearly a remarkable individual.
When anyone dies it’s like burning a library and Dr. Saubel very much brings that to mind.
This breaks my heart.
I wonder if the Cahuillas can marry each other and make enough babies to replace themselves and grow?
Those childrens’ primary language should be Cahuilla.
What a tremendous loss. I have a residual shame of being a white person when I read things like this.