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Tribal Groups

Whether they lived in the desert mountains or desert valleys, the Cahuilla recognized a tribal division very similar to the Miwok that we also are studying. The two divisions of the larger tribal group - divisions that determined who could marry whom, how power and ownership was established - are called moieties by archeologists. The Cahuilla moieties have for many hundreds of years been the Coyote and the Wildcat.

Then further divisions of peoples lead to the tribal groupings we now recognize across the Cahuilla area - the Agua Caliente, Morongo, Los Coyotes, Torres-Martinez, Cabazon, and the Santa Rosa.

And in many areas they also interacted and shared or traded resources with neighboring tribes, the Serrano, the Chemehuevi, the Yuma, and the Kamia.