The Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians has both an ancient and a modern story of who they are. The ancient story is a spiritual one and tells of two brothers who, by way of the Creator, made people with white, black, red, and yellow skin. When the people dispersed, one brother, named Mukat, claimed the red people, and they became the Cahuilla.
The Cahuilla made their home in the area now known as southern California. There, they used waters from local hot springs not only for drinking and bathing but for healing. The same waters became sacred sites that connected the people with a timeless underworld and its inhabitants, known to the tribe as nukatem. The Cahuilla called these hot springs Sec-he, or boiling water. When the Spanish settlers arrived, they gave the same water the name Agua Caliente (hot water), which became the name of one of the tribe's subgroups
The tribe's reverence for knowledge led leaders to learn Western ways and incorporate them into the tribe's ancient knowledge. The tribe's relationship with Western settlers has been complex and often stormy. Settlers took much of the land that the tribe had learned to work in harmony with the seasons, plants, and animals. The tribe spent much of the 19th century protesting these actions, but it was not until the 1880s that it received 32,000 acres of reservation land.
The tribe has continued to fight the efforts of European communities to suppress the indigenous culture. The people have retained their traditions and continue to teach the old ways, despite attempts of many white leaders to disallow such expressions. Meanwhile, the tribe has worked to strengthen its own economy, thanks largely to the creation of a tribal constitution that makes the Agua Caliente band an independent political and business organization.