24 ETHNO-BOTANY OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS 



the Chemehuevi have always been and still are most intimate. There 

 seems to be more friendly feeling and more intimacy between these 

 two tribes belonging to different linguistic families than between the 

 . Coahuillas and any of the other Indians of their own family, who speak 

 an almost identical dialect, as the Luisenos, for example. The Cheme 

 huevi, from their reservation on the Colorado river, are still frequent 

 guests in \htjacales of the Coahuillas, and come annually to the San 

 Bernadino mountains, north of the Cabeson, to hunt. Coahuilla 

 Indians have even told me that the two tribes formerly constituted one 

 nation and that their languages are still but little different. This seems 

 at variance with the linguistic evidence that has so far been presented. 

 But the vocabularies that we have of the Chemehuevi are very scanty. 

 A fuller study of these two languages may reveal a closer similarity 

 than has before this been discovered, and that is, I believe, in accord 

 ance with the historical relations of these two tribes. 



The reports of the Indian agents in southern California speak often 

 of this connection. For instance, as late as 1871 Mr. Stevens reported 

 that &quot;the Coahuillas are far less civilized (than the mission Indians) 

 and affiliate more with the wild Indians of the plains and the Colorado 

 river.&quot; 1 A plan being proposed about this time to establish a common 

 reservation for all the Indians of southern California, Don Juan Foster, 

 of Los Angeles, stated that the Coahuillas would not affiliate with the 

 other &quot;mission tribes.&quot; 2 On the other hand, it was frequently pro 

 posed by government representatives among these Indians that the 

 Coahuillas be removed to the Colorado and established on a reservation 

 with the Chemehuevi. During all these years the Chemehuevi were 

 troublesome Indians. The reports frequently complain of their depre 

 dations. They seem to have been involved for years in difficulties 

 with the Mojaves, and these latter, being much the stronger nation, 

 would drive them from their villages on the Colorado. They would then 

 cross the desert with numbers doubtless augmented by renegade Coa 

 huillas and run off stock from the San Bernadino valley. Mr. J. Q. A. 

 Stanley, special Indian agent, wrote from Los Angeles in 1866 : 



The Chimchinvis on the Colorado river and the Pah Utes of the desert 

 have been quite troublesome during the last year. Several persons have been 

 killed by them and many animals stolen. These Indians are composed of 

 roving bands, having no fixed habitation, but changing from one watering 

 place in the desert to another, in order to pick up a precarious living. 3 



* Report of the Indian Commissioner, 1871, p. 691. 



?Ibid,, p. 161. 



3 Kept. Ind. Com., 1866, p. 102. 



