Anza-Borrego North: Mountain Cahuilla Villages and Trails

White Wash flows from the Santa Rosas Down into Horse Canyon

When the Mountain Cahuilla left the Santa Rosas, they unfortunately left little or no evidence of their village sites. While anthropologists have been able to conduct interviews and write several good books on Mountain Cahuilla life, the visitor to their territory can for the most part only imagine what it took to survive here.

The trails would have been trade routes. We know that the village of Natcuta stood somewhere near where White Wash (pictured above) joins Horse Canyon. The village of Ataki was about 10 tough miles up White Wash, over the mountains, and down to Hidden Spring in Jackass Flat. The village of Pauki, through which Anza passed on his marches to Monterey and San Francisco, was less than three miles from where the picture was taken. It would have been easier to walk down Horse Canyon from Natcuta to Coyote Canyon and villages there.

Schad identifies Alcoholic Pass as an original Indian route. Hikers who walk up Palo Verde Wash past the Moly mine to the Natural Sheep Tanks cross the old Cahuilla trail to Wonderstone Wash which leads to further Cahuilla trails.

It goes without saying that trails connected the villages of Natcuta in Horse Canyon, Pauki near Anza, Wiliya and Nauhanavitcem in Fig Tree Valley, Tcia near Alder Canyon, Pat-cha-wal or San Ignacio, Hokwitka on the Middle Fork of Borrego Palm Canyon, and Ho-la-kal or San Ysidro on San Ysidro Creek on the west slope of San Ysidro Mountain.

Links of interest

Rock Art, the Anza-Borrego Desert's Forgotten Artist

Malki Museum