Dr. Katherine Siva Saubel was Idyllwild Earth Fair's 2011 Greenwood Award recipient

Dr. Katherine Siva Saubel, while at home with her family, passed away this Tuesday. She was 91 years old.

The family is finalizing plans and ask that he public respect their privacy.

Saubel was a renowned native American scholar and educator. An enrolled member of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians, Saubel devoted her life to preserving and sharing her culture and language.

She was born March 7, 1920 and has spent her life supporting her community and family here in Riverside County. She is one of the original founders of the Malki Museum in Banning.

Saubel spent her first 11 years speaking Cahuilla but has strived to preserve the language. her introduction to Dr. Lowell Bean, began a half century of collaboration on Cahuilla culture. In 1962, through a Kennedy Scholarship, Saubel studied ethnology, anthropology, and linguistics at the Universities of Chicago and Colorado at Boulder. She returned to California where she began giving seminars and study groups at UCLA.

Since then, Saubel has become known internationally as a Native American scholar and appears in many biographical reference works.

She received an honorary PhD in philosophy from La Sierra University, Riverside, California, and was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the University of California at the University of California, Riverside. Saubel has also served as Cahuilla tribal chairperson.

2 COMMENTS

  1. via Banning-Beaumont, CA Patch:

    Funeral arrangements were announced Thursday.

    Visitation is scheduled from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday Nov. 7 at Morongo Community Center, 13000 Fields Road, Morongo Reservation. Rosary begins at 7 p.m.

    A mass of Christian Burial is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday Nov. 8 at St. Mary's Mission. Graveside service to follow at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery.