Saubel, Katherine Siva, 1920-2011

Katherine Siva Saubel (1920-2011) was a Cahuilla scholar and educator committed to preserving Cahuilla culture and language. In 1964, she co-founded the Malki Museum on the Morongo Reservation, which promotes scholarship, awareness, and preservation of Southern California Native American histories and cultures. In the 1970s, she collaborated with linguist Hansjakob Seiler to publish a Cahuilla grammar and dictionary. She also published the dictionary I’Isniyatam (Designs): A Cahuilla Word Book (1977). As an expert on Cahuilla uses of plants, Siva Saubel coauthored (with anthropologist Lowell Bean) the book Temalpakh (From the Earth): Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants (1972) and two books of ethnobotanical notes.

Siva Saubel taught Cahuilla history, literature, and culture at multiple California colleges and at the University of Cologne (Germany). Siva Saubel served on the California Native American Heritage Commission. She was named 1987 Elder of the Year by the California State Indian Museum and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Siva Saubel was born in 1920 on the Los Coyotes Reservation near Warner Springs, California, and raised on the Agua Caliente Reservation in Palm Springs. She married Mariano Saubel in 1940, and they had one son, Allen. She died at the age of 91, at her home on the Morongo Reservation.