As you walk, I want to make sure you understand, clearly and correctly, whose place this is — because it's easy for visitors to get it wrong, and it matters. This land belongs to the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. Not "belonged" — belongs. Today. They are a federally recognized, sovereign Native American nation, and they own this canyon and these palms outright, and they run it, protect it, and welcome visitors to it entirely on their own terms. The admission you paid at the gate goes to the tribe, to care for this place. The rangers here are the tribe's. This is one of the great success stories in Native America: a people who held on to their most sacred ground through everything the last two centuries threw at them, and who are here, thriving and sovereign, stewarding it still.
The name tells part of the story. "Agua Caliente" is Spanish for "hot water," named for a sacred hot mineral spring down in what's now Palm Springs — the Cahuilla call that spring Séc-he, "the sound of boiling water." Their ancestors have lived around that spring and up in these canyons since time immemorial, by their own telling for many thousands of years. And they are very much a part of the modern world — running enterprises, and recently opening a beautiful cultural plaza and museum in downtown Palm Springs to tell their own story in their own words, which is exactly where you should go to hear it, from them. My job here is just to make sure you walk this canyon knowing the truth: you are a guest, on the cared-for, sacred, present-day home of a living people. Honor that, and walk on.
Photo: Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians · CC BY 4.0
