Saubel, Katherine Siva, 1920-2011

Katherine Siva Saubel, née Katherine Siva, (born March 7, 1920, Los Coyotes Reservation [on the border of Riverside and San Diego counties], California, U.S.—died November 1, 2011, Morongo Reservation, near Banning, California), Native American scholar and educator committed to preserving her Cahuilla culture and language and to promoting their fuller understanding by the larger public.

Reared on the Palm Springs Reservation in California, Katherine Siva was taught by her parents from an early age to honour the traditions of her people, the Cahuilla. After graduating from Palm Springs High School, she worked as a teacher’s assistant at the University of California, Los Angeles (1959–60), and as a consultant to linguist Hansjakob Seiler at the University of Cologne, Germany (1964–74). In the process Saubel became a scholar of the history, literature, and culture of the Cahuilla. Together with her husband, historian Mariano Saubel, and others, she cofounded the Malki Museum on the Morongo Indian Reservation in Banning, California, which not only displays artifacts dating from prehistoric to recent times but also sponsors the publication of scholarly works on Native Americans from the region.

Saubel’s own scholarship had two very different focuses: ethnobotany and the Cahuilla language. In the late 1970s Seiler and Saubel collaborated on both a grammar and a dictionary for Cahuilla, a language which had never before been preserved in writing. She also published a dictionary, I’Isniyatam (Designs): A Cahuilla Word Book (1977). An authority also on the unique Cahuilla uses of plants, Saubel was the coauthor, with anthropologist John Lowell Bean, of Temalpakh (From the Earth): Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants (1972) and of two books of ethnobotanical notes. In addition to teaching Cahuilla history, literature, and culture on various campuses in California and at the University of Cologne, Saubel also served on the California Native American Heritage Commission, where her intervention helped preserve locations sacred to Native Americans throughout the state. 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.