EXHIBITIONS

Museum exhibits portray the history and culture of the Agua Caliente and other indigenous peoples.

Dream of the Blue Frog (Wahaatukicnikic Tetayaw) explores the history and lore of the Agua Caliente Hot Spring.

Created by a powerful elder as a perpetually-enduring place of healing, the Hot Spring in traditional times represented an intermediary meeting point between the physical world and a supernatural underworld imbued with i’va’a (power) -- the basic generative force from which all things were created. Beneath its waters was a subterranean world populated by nukatem (powerful sacred beings), remnants from the beginning of time with the ability to accomplish both good and evil. Cahuilla shamans communicated with these nukatem and from them obtained power and knowledge.

The Agua Caliente Hot Spring’s curative waters soon came to be known to the outside world. Stagecoaches, followed by the Southern Pacific Railroad, began bringing tourists to the Spring where they might cured of their ailments. Known as Sec-he (“boiling water”) to Cahuilla-speaking people and as Agua Caliente (“hot water”) to early Spanish-speaking expeditions to the area, the popularity of Spring would serve as a foundation for the City of Palm Springs and the tourist industry that endures today.

Cahuilla Cowboys – Making Our Marks, explores how cattle and horses were an important source of livelihood for the Cahuilla people. They were well established in ranching when the first settlers arrived.

The first “cowboys” were Indians: Long ago – before the “American Cowboy”, there were Native cowboys. Beginning in mission times in the 1700s, Indians were trained as cowboys for the vast herds of the Spanish missions. They called themselves vaqueros, from vaca, the Spanish word for cow. It wasn’t until the late 1860s that the term “cowboy” came into widespread use. Vaqueros had their own style of riding, roping, and dressing. They were the first of their kind, and they invented the cowboy trade and style as we know it today.

Learn about the influence of the Spanish Conquistadors, and how the Padres from the Missions began teaching Native Americans to be equestrians.

It’s a little-known fact that the Cahuilla people were the only tribe on the North American continent ever to organize a rebellion on the same grounds as the American Revolution – taxation without representation. From the Gold Rush, the American Revolution, the Rancheros and the Cahuilla Fiestas of the 1920s, this exhibition takes a look at the Native people making this amazing journey.

An abbreviated version of Cahuilla Cowboys is on display at California State University of San Bernardino, Palm Desert Campus.

Crossroads & Intersections

Crossroads & Intersections; is on display at the City of Palm Springs offices.

Hold your magnifying glass against a map of Palm Springs and an intricate matrix of history reveals itself. To the North and to the South, to the East and to the West, the names, monikers, and associations of the individuals and cultures who have resided here lay before you, running every which direction.

Now hold your magnifying glass closer. Strewn between the names of golf terminology, Hollywood starlets, vaquero slang, and nods to the natural world of the desert, you also will find references to the history and culture of the Cahuilla Indians -- as told through street names.

Some street names and their associations will be obvious to those familiar with our desert landscape. Mesquite, for example, was a staple food of the traditional Cahuilla diet. But the relevance of other street names is at times more aloof. Tachevah, that street name that so eludes the visitor’s tongue, is actually a Cahuilla phrase: ta che vah, meaning “a plain view.”

In the early 1900s, this small desert village was becoming increasingly well known as a health resort and less as an attractive place for agricultural ventures – likely due to the lack of regular water sources. The original, agricultural street names of the village became less and less relevant as a result, culminating with city supervisors offering residents the chance to petition for new street names. On July 7, 1930, The Desert Sun announced that many of the village’s street names had been changed.

No one individual or organization has ever performed an exhaustive study of Palm Springs street names. There exists no reference material that one may pick up and come to understand how or why a given street obtained its name. In the majority of cases, the secret histories of street names remain shrouded and beyond reach. However, for a few, scattered clues exist here and there, and with time and patience it has been possible to partially reconstruct their histories.

Crossroads & Intersections is not an exhaustive study of Cahuilla street names in the city of Palm Springs. Rather, it is an opportunity to contemplate and pay homage to the accomplishments and contributions of an extended Cahuilla and Agua Caliente family, whose names appropriately continue to bear relevance in our daily lives.

This exhibition is sponsored by

www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

A Woman of Influence: Flora Patencio

Flora Patencio was a strong leader among the Agua Caliente people who participated in some of the most important political and cultural decisions of her time. This is a permanent exhibit. Cahuilla Pottery: Beauty from Utility

The Cahuilla ceramic tradition includes water storage ollas, cooking pots, and containers with painted designs.

Bighorn Sculpture

View Pemtemwhaha, painted by O'Jay Vanegas, the museum's Education Director, as part of the Path of the Bighorn community art project.

The mission of this project is to increase awareness of the plight of the endangered peninsular bighorn sheep of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountians.

Additional exhibits of artifacts and archival photographs are displayed in the hotel lobby of the Spa Resort Casino and the Tahquitz Canyon Visitors' Center.