Kuupangaxwichem

We don't even have an English name for these fellow Californians. We make do with a poor understanding of the Spanish interpretation of their name. If you call them Cupeno, pronounced with a tilde over the 'n,' you probably come as close as you reasonably can. They are a people who historically lived in the far southwest of California. Some of their neighbors have been called Cahuilla, Diegueno, Gabrielino, Juanino, and Luiseno ---- all names we learned from Spanish speakers.

Most Cupeno now know something of the headwaters of the San Lois Rey River. They were, and are, an amazingly numerically small people to have survived. They have survived. In 1909 people in our institutions still seemed to be trying to virtually kick them to death. At that time they were moved from Cupa to Pala. Today there are probably more Cupeno living among the Luiseno on the Pala reservation than in any other single place. Some also live on the Morongo and Los Coyotes reservations. Morongo is our pronunciation of a Spanish interpretation of an earlier peoples term. I have been told that an English translation of  'Morongo' is 'idiot leave.'

I have mentioned Cupa and Pala. You might be able to find Pala on a political road map of California. You may not find Cupa there. Since, say, 1920, where Cupa was, you may now find Warner Springs Ranch or Agua Caliente Village. I remember calling it Warner Hot Springs. It was, for a time, a place from which certain America Indians might withstand the Spanish and then others.

Now you may go to enjoy the waters at 'Cupa.' The last I heard was that those waters were controlled by certain Koreans. Also there might me heard there on certain dark nights, a blast from the shotgun of 'some crazy Indian.' It might be useful to know that in certain 'crazy Koreans' may be found genes astoundingly similar to certain genes found in peoples like Navajo and Apache. Maybe 'we' should talk.