By Mordecai Specktor

In the desert
The plan earlier this year was to get out of the snow and freezing cold in Minneapolis for a few days. So, I started checking airfares, flights to destinations in warmer climes. Two of my siblings winter in the Greater Palm Springs area, so I checked some dates for MSP-PSP and found a Sun Country roundtrip for $158.00 – affordable. A few days later, the barebones fare dropped to $138.00. Of course, there are add-on charges for a checked bag (even for carry-ons) and seat selection.

The best laid plans of mice and men occasionally go awry. In early February, the Twin Cities enjoyed some balmy winter weather; in the California desert it was cool and rainy.

My wife and I settled on economical lodgings for five nights in Desert Hot Springs, a down to earth location away from the glitz of Palm Springs, Palm Desert and the other country club-saturated communities to the south.

There were some nice days, and our first outing was to Tahquitz Canyon, a natural wonder on the land of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. The hike from the Tahquitz Visitor Center up to Tahquitz Falls, a 60-foot waterfall – “a place of power,” according to the brochure – is a two-mile loop. It’s a strenuous hike, with numerous tall stone steps. (My wife now refers to me as the “mountain goat.”) Hikers are required to pack in a quantity of drinking water. We saw a redtail hawk and lots of interesting flora of the desert variety.

According to the Agua Caliente oral tradition, Tahquitz was the “first shaman created by Muskat, the Creator of all things.” Tahquitz was benevolent, at first, then over time, “Tahquitz began to use his power for selfish reasons. He began to use his power to harm the Agua Caliente people,” who became angry and banished him to the canyonland where his spirit resides.

We learned more about the Native people while touring the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, which opened last November in downtown Palm Springs. The interactive exhibits trace the history and lifeways of these desert people over hundreds of years, including periods of struggle against Spanish colonists and then depredations by the Americans.

A 2019 article in American Indian, the magazine of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), clarifies some of the tangled history between the U.S. government and the Agua Caliente people. The article, “Section 14: The Agua Caliente Tribe’s Struggle for Sovereignty in Palm Springs, California” (bit.ly/AC-section14), by Arewen Nuttall, tied into a 2019 exhibit at NMAI in Washington, DC.

The author briefly describes the popular tourist destination of Palm Springs, located in the Coachella Valley. In the middle of the 20th century, the town became a quiet haven for Hollywood stars and other celebrities. “In the center of this bustling leisure town is Section 14, the 1 square mile that is the heart of the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation,” Nuttall writes.

In the way of a thumbnail history, in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded lands that became the state of California. The lands around Palm Springs developed as a patchwork of 6-mile squares called townships, which were further divided into square-mile sections. “Palm Springs straddles eight townships, and Section 14 lies adjacent to the city’s downtown,” as per Nuttall.

The U.S. government allocated substantial plots to the Southern Pacific Railroad; and Pres. Ulysses S. Grant designated about 900 acres as the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation. The reservation was expanded, in 1877, to about 31,000 acres in a “checkerboard pattern of land ownership [that] became the foundation for future assaults on Agua Caliente sovereignty.”

The American Indian magazine article details the varied schemes employed by the city of Palm Springs to wrest land in Section 14 from the Indians. Eventually, the corruption was exposed, and the Agua Caliente Band and the city government arrived at a modus vivendi. Next to the tribe’s museum is a spacious new spa, on the site of Séc-he, the hot springs discovered by the Native people. And across the street is the Agua Caliente Casino.

Not every Indian tribe was fated to reside amid a world-famous tourist destination. Driving through Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and Palm Springs, a land of gated communities built on golf courses, one encounters signs proclaiming: “Entering the Agua Caliente Indian Reservation.”

I’ve reached my word quota for this month’s column, but I’ll add that we also visited Joshua Tree National Park. I didn’t realize that this land of wonders in the high desert was the site of jumbo rocks in spectacular arrangements.

Joshua Tree straddles the Colorado Desert, in the eastern part, and the Mojave Desert in the western half. We hiked around the Hall of Horrors and up a one-mile loop to Barker Dam, a remnant of the days when cattle grazing was feasible. I’m looking forward to a return trip to Joshua Tree.