Malki Museum

Malki Museum is Southern California's first all-Indian museum. Located on the Morongo Indian Reservation, it is open daily except Mondays, 12 months a year.

But it was not always that way. Malki began as the dream of one Indian woman, Jane K. Penn, a Wanikik Cahuilla, who translated that dream of many years into a going concern—with the help of others.

It was more than three decades ago that Mrs. Penn began to hear the dreams and wishes of her aunt, the late Margaret Pablo, who wanted to leave the rich cultural heritage of her people in Mrs. Penn's keeping, to bring enrichment to the lives of Indian and non-Indian alike. Mrs. Pablo was the grand niece of Ygindio Gabriel, a chief of the Cahuilla.

Ygindio had been chief during the tragic time immediately after the fall of California to the Anglo-Saxon. It was he who signed the Treaty of Temecula for his band. This was a treaty never ratified by the Melkish (white man), but one which will be forever remembered by the Indian. More than 20 bands of Southern California Indians signed that paper.

Margaret Pablo, a remarkable old woman, saw beyond the treachery of the treaty to a greater understanding between the Indian and his new neighbors. She wanted to share the Indian culture with the newcomers, and also to help rekindle the spark of cultural pride and identity in the souls and the hearts of her Indian people.

Mrs. Penn's elderly cousin, Victoria Weirick, of Wanikik and Kawasic (Palm Springs) Cahuilla descent, felt the same. As Margaret Pablo had done, she left her precious artifacts to Jane Penn for safe¬keeping. There were mortreros, an herb cooking pot and other precious materials to add to Margaret Pablo's collection.

Through Mrs. Weirick, Mrs. Penn received the herb cooking pots used by her own father, William Pablo, one of the last and greatest Cahuilla medicine men.

When Mrs. Penn received these items in 1958, she confided to friends she wanted to display them in a museum. Among these friends were ethnographer Lowell Bean, then a student, who was to play a vital role in the realization of the Malki dream; and Mrs. Katherine Siva Saubel of Morongo Reservation, who was to become Malki's first president.

At that time, Mrs. Penn had in her home an outstanding collection of Cahuilla arts and crafts. She conceived the idea of a museum to be known as "Malki," the Cahuilla word for "Dodging" and the original name of Morongo Reservation. Morongo is a word of Serrano origin, taken from the people's leader, John Morongo, a leader at the turn of thecentury when the Serrano people of the northern mountains and desert were forced into a coexistence with the Cahuilla at the then-Malki Reservation. It was renamed Morongo by the federal government.

In February, 1965, Malki opened its doors to the public, to Indian and non-Indian alike.
In addition to Mrs. Saubel, president, and Mrs. Penn, director and treasurer, members of the charter board of directors were: Lowell Bean, Robert Stafford, Mariano Saubel, Harry Lawton, Francis Johnston, Michael Black and Garfield Quimby.

The museum has the long range objective of greater brotherhood, and a short-range goal of edu¬cation and awareness.

Malki is the first all-Indian museum on a Southern California reservation. It has been the inspiration for several other Indian museums.

Malki is still young, still struggling, but in a way it is old as time itself—an embodiment of the belief that man is really a brother to man, that all men are created equal, and that man today can learn from the centuries past.