The Cupeño (or Kuupangaxwichem) are a Native American tribe of Southern

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. They traditionally lived about inland and north of the modern day

Mexico–United States border The international border separating Mexico and the United States extends from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from urban areas to deserts. It is the List of ...

in the Peninsular Range of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

. Today their descendants are members of the federally recognized tribes known as the Pala Band of Luiseño Mission Indians, Morongo Band of Cahuilla Mission Indians, and

Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians of the Los Coyotes Reservation is a federally recognized tribe of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians, who were located in California.

History

Several different groups combined to form Cupeño culture around 1000 to 1200 AD. They were closely related to Cahuilla culture.Bean and Smith, 588 The Cupeño people traditionally lived in the mountains in the San José Valley at the headwaters of the San Luis Rey River.Pritzker, 124 Their name in their own language is "Kuupangaxwichem" ("people who slept here")."California Indians and Their Reservations.
SDSU Library and Information Access. (retrieved 18 May 2010) They lived in two autonomous villages, Wilákalpa and Kúpa (or Cupa),Pritzker, 125 located north of present-day

Warner Springs, California Warner Springs is set of springs and a small unincorporated community in northern San Diego County, California. It is on the Pacific Crest Trail. Geography Warner Springs has a post office; its ZIP Code is 92086. It is located near Palomar Obs ...

. Their homelands extended to Agua Caliente, located east of Lake Henshaw in an area now crossed by State Highway 79 near Warner Springs. The Cupeño Indian village site is now abandoned but evidence of its historical importance remains.

Spanish and Mexican occupation

Spaniards entered Cupeño lands in 1795 and took control of the lands by the 19th century. After Mexico achieved independence, its government granted Juan José Warner, a naturalized American-Mexican citizen, nearly of the land on November 28, 1844. Warner, like most other large landholders in California at the time, depended primarily on Indian labor. The villagers of Kúpa provided most of Warner's workforce on his cattle ranch. The Cupeño continued to reside at what the Spanish called Agua Caliente after the American occupation of California in 1847 to 1848, during the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

. They built an adobe ranch house in 1849 and barn in 1857, that were still standing as of 1963. According to Julio Ortega, one of the oldest members of the Cupeño tribe, Warner set aside about of land surrounding the hot springs as the private domain of the Indians. Warner encouraged the Cupeño to construct a stone fence around their village and to keep their livestock separated from that of the ranch. Ortega felt that if the village had created its own boundaries, the Cupeño would still live there today.Morrison, 1962, p.21

American occupation

In observing the Cupeño's living conditions in 1846, W. H. Emory, a brevet major with the

United States Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wo ...

, described the Indians as being held in a state of

serf Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed du ...

dom by Warner, and as being ill-treated. In 1849, Warner was arrested by the American forces for consorting with the Mexican government and was taken to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. In 1851, because of several issues of conflict, Antonio Garra, a Yuma Indian living at Warner's Ranch, tried to organize a coalition of various southern California Indian tribes to drive out all of the

European Americans European Americans are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes both people who descend from the first European settlers in the area of the present-day United States and people who descend from more recent European arrivals. Since th ...

.Bean and Smith, 589 His '

Garra Revolt The Yuma War was the name given to a series of United States military operations conducted in Southern California and what is today southwestern Arizona from 1850 to 1853. The Quechan (also known as Yuma) were the primary opponent of the Unite ...

' failed, and the settlers executed Garra. The Cupeño had attacked Warner and his ranch, burning some buildings. They lost structures at their settlement of Kúpa, too. Warner sent his family to Los Angeles, but continued to operate the ranch with the help of others.

Forced eviction

Following European contact but prior to the time of their eviction, the Cupeños sold milk,

fodder Fodder (), also called provender (), is any agriculture, agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, domestic rabbit, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food ...

, and craftwork to travelers on the Southern Immigrant Trail and passengers on the stagecoaches of the

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service in ...

, that stopped at Warner's Ranch and passed through the valley. The women made lace and took in laundry, which they washed in the hot springs. The men carved wood and manufactured saddle pads for horses. They also raised cattle and cultivated of land. In 1880, after numerous suits and countersuits, European-American John G. Downey acquired all titles to the main portion of Warner's Ranch. In 1892, Downey, the former governor of California and owner of the ranch since 1880, began proceedings to evict the Cupeño from the ranch property. Legal proceedings continued until 1903, when the court ruled in '' Barker v. Harvey'' against the Cupeño. The

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

government offered to buy new land for the Cupeño, but they refused. In 1903, Cecilio Blacktooth, Cupeño chief at Agua Caliente, said: "If you give us the best place in the world, it is not as good as this. This is our home. We cannot live anywhere else; we were born here, and our fathers are buried here."

Cupeño trail of tears

On May 13, 1903, the Cupa Indians were forced to move away, to Pala, California on the San Luis Rey River It has been referred to by the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', academics, and the Pala Band of Mission Indians as the Cupeño trail of tears given the traumatic nature of the event. The forced relocation to the Pala reservation also included "the

Luiseño The Luiseño or Payómkawichum are an Indigenous people of California who, at the time of the first contacts with the Spanish in the 16th century, inhabited the coastal area of southern California, ranging from the present-day southern part of ...

villages at Puerta la Cruz and La Puerta, and the

Kumeyaay The Kumeyaay, also known as 'Iipai-Tiipai or by the historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Uni ...

villages at Mataguay, San José, and San Felipe." It was described by historian Phil Brigandi as "the last of Indian 'removals' in the United States, ending a federal policy of forced relocations that had begun 75 years earlier.

= Reactions

= On the morning of the removal Roscinda Nolásquez, who was eleven years old at the time, recalled the last morning at Cupa. Orders were shouted in English at the Cupeño: “We were so scared. We didn’t know what he was saying. We didn’t know what was going on. We saw old people running back and forth. We cried, too, because we were afraid.” She recalls that morning trying to ensure that her cats would not be left behind, which she managed to find. In 1903, an article for the '' Los Angeles Herald'' described it as such: “The springs proved the Indians’ undoing. White men wanted them, and now, after years of impatient waiting, they have possession. No matter the legal aspect of the case, the act is deplorable. It is one of the saddest sequels to the white man’s first notice to the ativeson the Atlantic coast to move on. They have been moving on ever since.” An article for the '' Los Angeles Daily Times'' featured the headline: "Indians Bundled Away Like Cattle To Pala." Two weeks after the forced relocation, American journalist

Grant Wallace Grant Wallace (1868–1954) was an American journalist, artist, screenwriter, Esperantist and occultist. He wrote short stories and screen plays, including two black and white silent movies. Early life Grant Wallace was born on February 10, 18 ...

wrote, “Many of the older people were still ‘muy triste....’ Every other tent or brush ramada was still a ‘house of tears,’ for their love of home is stronger than with us.” The houses provided by the U.S. government were Ducker Patent Portable Houses; described in a report to the Indian Office as "very unsatisfactory," some of which quickly fell into disrepair or collapsed. In 1922, the Henshaw Dam was built, which significantly worsened the flow of the San Luis Rey River that ran through the relocation site.

Present-day

Indians at the present-day reservations of Los Coyotes, San Ygnacio, Santa Ysabel, and

Mesa Grande Sce:dagĭ Mu:val Va’aki (formerly known as Mesa Grande Cultural Park), in Mesa, Arizona, preserves a group of Hohokam structures constructed during the Classic Period. The ruins were occupied between AD 1100 and 1400 ( Pueblo II – Puebl ...

are among descendants of the Warner Springs Cupeño. Many Cupeño believe that their land at Kúpa will be returned to them. They are seeking legal relief to that end. The Cupa site serves as a rallying point for the land claims movement of contemporary Indian people, particularly their effort to regain cultural and religious areas.

Culture

The tribe is divided into two moieties, the Coyote and Wildcat, which are divided into several

patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...

clans A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, a clan may claim descent from a founding member or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity. Many societie ...

. Clans are led by hereditary male clan leaders and assistant leaders. Marriages were traditionally arranged. Traditional foods included acorns, cactus fruit, seeds, berries, deer, quail, rabbits, and other small game. The Cupa Cultural Center was founded in 1974 in Pala and underwent a major expansion in 2005. The center exhibits artwork; hosts classes and activities such as basket making and beading; and offers Cupeño language classes. During the first weekend of every May, Cupa Days is celebrated at the cultural center. Southern California Indian Linguistic Groups

Southern California Indian Linguistic Groups

Language

The

Cupeño language The Cupeño language is an extinct Uto-Aztecan language, once spoken by the Cupeño people of southern California, United States. Roscinda Nolasquez (d. 1987) was the last native speaker of Cupeño. The Cupeño people now speak English. The nati ...

belongs to the Cupan group, which includes the

Cahuilla The Cahuilla, also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California. ...

and

Luiseño language The Luiseño language is a Uto-Aztecan language of California spoken by the Luiseño, a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people who at the time of first contact with the Spanish in the 16th century inhabited the coastal ar ...

s. This grouping is of the

Takic The Takic languages are a putative group of Uto-Aztecan languages historically spoken by a number of Indigenous peoples of California, Indigenous peoples of Southern California. Takic is grouped with the Tübatulabal language, Tubatulabal, Hopi la ...

branch within the

Uto-Aztecan The Uto-Aztecan languages are a family of native American languages, consisting of over thirty languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found almost entirely in the Western United States and Mexico. The name of the language family reflects the common ...

family of languages. Roscinda Nolásquez (1892–1987), of Mexican Yaqui descent, is considered the last truly fluent Cupeño speaker. The language today is widely regarded as being extinct. In 1994, linguist

Leanne Hinton Leanne Hinton (born 28 September 1941) is an American linguist and emerita professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. Education and career Hinton received her PhD in 1977 from UC San Diego, with a dissertation entitl ...

estimated one to five people still spoke Cupeño, and nine people in the 1990 US census said they spoke the language. Educational materials for the language exist and young people still learn to sing in Cupeño, particularly Bird Songs.Hinton, 29, 42

Population

Alfred L. Kroeber estimated the 1770 population of the Cupeño as 500. Lowell John Bean and Charles R. Smith put the total in 1795 between 500 and 750. By 1910, the Cupeño population had dropped to 150, according to Kroeber. Later estimates have suggested that there were fewer than 150 Cupeño in 1973, but about 200 in 2000.

Notes

References

* Bean, Lowell John, and Charles R. Smith. "Cupeño". Heizer, Robert F., volume ed. '' Handbook of North American Indians: California, Volume 8.'' pp. 91–98. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. . * Hinton, Leanne. ''Flutes of Fire: Essays on California Indian Languages''. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1994. * Pritzker, Barry M. ''A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. .

External links

Pala Band of Mission Indians
official website

''Barker v. Harvey'' (1901) - US Supreme Court decision evicting the ''Cupeño''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cupeno Native American tribes in California Mission Indians Uto-Aztecan peoples