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About The Tribe and The History Behind It

As part of the Great Basin Culture Area, the Chemehuevi (a Mojave term meaning those that play with fish), a branch of the Southern Paiute, have been persistent occupants of the Mojave Desert. Known as Nuwu (the People), they have been nomadic residents of the Mojave Desert’s mountains and canyons and the Colorado River shoreline for thousands of years. 

Hostilities with the neighboring Mojave scattered the people, now numbering no more than a few hundred people. By 1885, they had reunited in the Chemehuevi Valley. Legend depicts the first to return as roadrunners racing down the valley to a mesquite forest, their pods bursting with sweet beans.

Federal authorities established the Chemehuevi Valley reservation in 1907. This protected some 36,000 acres of Chemehuevi's homeland. But, the Tribal members were soon relocated to the Parker area, and their status as a Tribe was taken away. With 1929 came the formation of the Metropolitan Water District, and in 1935, Congress authorized the acquisition of as many reservations as necessary for the Parker Dam Project. In 1940, the floodgates closed, and nearly 8,00 acres of traditional Nuwuvii lands drowned. 

From the early 1940s, a persistent desire for recognition and self-determination fueled the struggle to achieve Federal recognition. Thirty years later, the Nuwu was formally reinstated as the Chemehuevi Tribe on June 5, 1970. Today, the reservation comprises approximately 32,000 acres of trust land that includes thirty miles of Colorado River Frontage.