The Native American Ethnography and Ethnohistory of Joshua Tree National Park: An Overview

This report constitutes Phase I of a study of the Ethnography and Ethnohistory of Native Americans of Joshua Tree National Park, referred to throughout the text as the Project Area. It was proposed that Phase I should include a review of archaeological reports, ethnographic/ethnohistorical reports in the files of Cultural Systems Research, Inc, (CSRI) that contained information on the Serrano, Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, and Mojave, and the contents of CSRI's library and archives, in order to draft a preliminary discussion of Native American ethnography and ethnohistory of the area as we presently know it, and the existing resources for further study. It was to be presented in outline form, and be appropriate to serve as a research design for further study.

As proposed, this report compiles information from previous CSRI reports and materials in CSRI files and library. The authors include valuable ethnographic material from two new books on the Serrano and Chemehuevi, respectively: Wayta' Yawa' by Dorothy Ramon and Eric Elliot (2000), a book in Serrano and English by a Serrano elder and a linguist that includes a great deal of ethnographic information; and Chemehuevi People of the Coachella Valley by Clifford E. Trafzer, Luke Madrigal, and Anthony Madrigal, a book from our perspective somewhat misnamed, since it pertains to the history of the Twenty-nine Palms Band of Mission Indians (1997). In addition, we have reviewed most of the archaeological reports on the park for the purpose of detecting instances where the archaeological evidence is in conflict with the ethnographic and historic.