Desert Stories: Palm Springs Origins and the Tahquitz Canyon Witch

What does it mean to be shaped by the desert? And the stories it holds?

In this episode of Cruz Control, Aaron Cruz reflects on growing up in Palm Springs and how the landscape, culture, and isolation helped shape his mindset and identity. The conversation then turns to one of the Coachella Valley’s oldest legends: the Tahquitz Witch. A powerful Cahuilla shaman, said to have turned dark and been banished to the San Jacinto Mountains.

Blending personal history with archaeology and myth, this episode explores the line between story, truth, and what ancient legends might reveal about human nature.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Cruise Control. Navigating the Chaos. One conversation at a time. This is an ongoing conversation with Aaron Cruz, a competitive bodybuilder, mixed martial artist, ironworker, business owner, researcher, philosopher, spiritual explorer, and much more. Each episode explores where physical discipline meets inner work, where strength, believe, ancestry, and purpose intersect. No scripts, no personas, just an honest conversation about the many layers that shape how to move through the world. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Hello and welcome to Cruise Control Navigating the Chaos One Conversation at a Time. Welcome. Welcome back. I am Errington Williams, your co-host, and I am joined today, as always, by the center of the circle, Aaron Cruz.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Aaron, how are you doing? Good. How's it going out there, people? It's good to be back.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

It is good to be back.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Episode two, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

I know. Well, before we get to episode two, let's briefly talk about episode one. What a what a wonderful like the comments and the feedback and people stopping you and us here, there, and everywhere from a variety of people has been overwhelmingly positive.

SPEAKER_04 1:23

I agree. I always knew that I have interesting stories and people like having kind of off-the-wall conversations with me and asking me my opinions about things. So I I knew it was going to be received, but I didn't expect it to be be received so well so quickly. I mean, we haven't really marketed this idea much. We shared it with a couple close people and it just kind of took off, and people are loving it. So let's keep it going.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Absolutely. And, you know, one thing real quick I'd like to do is to just give a big shout out and a thank you to everyone over at 111 Conditioning, which is where we work out. Everyone there. I mean, it's amazing. Like people I've never really spoken to in the gym have come up and said, hey, that was great.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

It's a tight little family there, man. That's what I love about that gym. You know, it's a it feels like home and everybody supports each other and and treats each other with respect and kindness.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

And yeah, they're loving it, man. It's interesting because Jaime, who owns the gym, it really is perhaps the only gym I've ever been to. And it's a trainer gym where there's that level of diversity, but there's not one person. Usually there's at least one person who's got like issues with their father or something. You know what I mean? There's always one guy who's bringing something to the gym, but it is such a positive, wonderful environment. And if you're in the Palm Springs area, I highly recommend you check this gym out. Absolutely. 111 Conditioning Club. Here we go, guys. In Cat City. All right. So this is an episode that I'm really looking forward to. I, you know, unbeknownst to me, when I went back and listened to the first episode, I noticed that I mentioned when I was listing all the things used to describe you archaeology twice. So clearly that's something or a side of you that I'm very interested in. Is that what we're talking about today? Yeah. The archaeology meet? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

That's that is definitely one facet of this conversation. Because what started as a conversation about casually about real estate and this one piece of land led into this story. And I thought, holy moly, this is this is great podcasting. So we'll get to that. It's interesting because Palm Springs itself is really more than a location, it's a a bit of a force. And I remember watching the Frank Sinatra dock, and Frank Sinatra loved to live here. It was the place he called home, and he called people that enjoyed living in the desert desert rats. That's a term we still use today.

SPEAKER_04 4:07

Throw around. Thank you, Mr. Sinatra.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

And I feel like it is now that I've been here full-time over four years, I mean, it is such an appropriate moniker to be called the desert rat. I mean, to live in the desert is and enjoy living in the desert is a certain kind of person.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Absolutely. And it it draws everybody here. You know, Palm Springs has always been a magnet for interest and tourism and you know, people settling from Los Angeles and Hollywood. It's it's it's always been a draw. It's it's a magical little gem in the middle of the desert. And yeah, we're here in it and we're living in it, and we're making a life here. And it's a place that I've been raised in and I've seen lots of things change, and you know, it's been an amazing place. But Palm Springs is definitely has its magic moments.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Absolutely. And before we get into legends and ghosts, what how do you how do you think because I love here? I'd lived in major cities. I was in London, New York, DC, LA, and then moved here kind of on a whim, and I was really excited about it. There's something about the desert that draws you in. And what what is it? How do you feel that the desert is different from, let's say, most places as far as growing up? Well, it's pretty unique. What do they teach you?

SPEAKER_04 5:28

It's pretty unique. You know, it's it's very hot. It's the desert, it's super dry, but we live on top of one of the the largest, purest natural artesian wells and aquifers on the planet. You know, people don't understand that there's tons of water under the ground. We have these two really, really tall mountains full of snow in the winter that melts and and makes its way down into this this basin and aquifer. So out of that water, this this this valley was born. There was rivers here and springs, and it was lush and and and tropical and much much greener than than we see naturally now, with minus the golf courses and all the grass and the astroturf. But it's just it's a magical little place to grow up. You know, it's close enough to everything. You know, it's 120 degrees in the summer, but in a two-hour drive, you can be at the ocean. You can be on top of the mountain and Big Bear or Idawild. You know, it's the location's very unique.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

It is interesting because correct me if I'm wrong, Palm Springs is like a one of the few locations in this country that's not dependent on the Colorado, right? The river. Right. So, and I notice with all the fire stations, it's something they always like to talk about. You know, we're drawing water from right underneath us.

SPEAKER_04 6:44

Absolutely. We actually help support the Colorado River. A lot of a lot of our river systems drained out towards that river.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 6:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Well, that is definitely an upside. Did you feel isolated growing up out in the middle of essentially what some consider nowhere? I mean, did that isolation or that that that space, the desert space, teach you something valuable?

SPEAKER_04 7:10

It did. I didn't feel isolated at all. Growing up as a kid, it's kind of it's what you know, it's home, you know. And like I said, everything is so so close and and near. So, you know, family had a boat in the ocean. We'd we'd go two-hour drive to the ocean. So I never really felt isolated. It it felt kind of like, well, as a as a kid, it was the center of the of of the earth to me. It was it was the core of the world. It's it's it's where I was. So it didn't feel like a small town? No. But I don't like big cities, so so it was enough, it was enough town for me as a kid for sure. And it's always been growing and expanding. Absolutely. It's growing, but it's not like Los Angeles or San Diego or not even like Riverside, you know. It's just it's a little it's a little bit more low-key than all of that, and I appreciate that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

You you mentioned something to me when we first started training together, which has been about a year now, and it's so true. You know, there's a lot, this is uh this region is the second home for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

And to really enjoy living in Greater Palm Springs, you have to connect with the locals. Yep. And I found that to be very true. I mean, a lot of people know it from a great long weekend, from a few months out of the year escaping the cold. But once you start to engage the people like yourself who've been here for many generations, for many decades, is when a side of the desert really blooms.

SPEAKER_04 8:44

Absolutely. A beauty. Absolutely. And I think even nowadays, I think more of those second home people are are turning this more into their primary residence for some reason. I can and you know, they really haven't gotten their feet wet with the summer yet, but they're they're kind of avoiding that that situation, so they kind of leave. But it seems like there's people here a lot longer. The seasons are getting longer, they're returning more, and a lot of people talk about, you know, retiring here, so making this a primary residence instead of a secondary seasonal home. Seems like there's a lot more people landing here later on in life.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

I can uh confirm as a full-time resident, full-time realtor, uh, via title reports that the number of primary homes here in the desert has more than doubled. I mean, it's, you know, people are selling and they're moving here. They can get so much more home and it's a different way of life. So we're seeing a definite exodus from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and to some degree, even San Diego.

SPEAKER_04 9:50

And I'm a witness to everything you just said as a kid. There's so much more undeveloped desert to go have adventures in and run around and catch lizards and play hide and seek in the creosote bushes, and we dig like underground dirt bunkers and in forts, and there was just so much desert, so much more open space. Now it's it's it's hard to find anything that's not developed.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Right. Such is the nature of change. Absolutely. I mean, my God, Disney's just put in a lagoon that looks like you're in the Caribbean. Absolutely, yeah. I saw it recently and amazed by it. Well, I'll tell you, the thing that I really when I really started appreciating living out in the desert is when I leave. And when I come back, I go, oh shit, I get to live here. This is home. Now, I really feel that way if I go to Los Angeles for the day and just happen to drive through Koreatown. Boy, old boy, you come back to the desert at night as the sun's setting over the mountain and the roads open up and the palm trees are lit and you can park anywhere. And you just think to yourself, man, this place is really special. It definitely has its magic moments for sure. You know, just went to Chicago for a long weekend. Incredible city, great food, culture. But boy, when that plane hits the tarmac and you step off the plane onto the tarmac, and there's the mountain, there's the palm trees, the sand.

SPEAKER_04 11:23

There's really nothing like it. I mean, that that mountain right at the west end of of downtown Palm Springs, you know, the that mountain range right there is pretty, pretty majestic. Beautiful. Yeah. It's it's it's ridiculous when you're downtown walking around downtown at the base of that mountain, just staring up at the peak. I mean, it's it's pretty ominous. It's majestic as it gets.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:44

It's got a presence, that mountain.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

It does. There's a healing property to that mountain. And in closing, my father had never been here, and I went to pick him up at the airport in the baggage claim. And I was like, hey dad, how you how you doing? You know, I went to give him a hug, and he just looked at me, looked outside up at the mountain, and said, This place is like a gin and tonic mouthwash. And you know what? I meant, that's kind of true. I know exactly what is that that's the best description of someone's first sort of view.

SPEAKER_04 12:14

I think now I've heard it all.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I've heard it described as a lot of things, but never gin and tonic level things. But well, I mean, I'm really curious to know, as I said earlier, about you this side of you that was an archaeologist. Sure. You know, where did your interest in archaeology come from?

SPEAKER_04 12:33

Well, I mean, primarily, like everybody from my generation, it was Harrison Ford, man. I don't, you know, I hate to bring it up, but Indiana Jones kind of kicked the doors open as far as anybody knowing what an archaeologist was in my age. And I just thought, wow, this is super cool. This guy's adventurous. He's swinging from place to place by a whip, you know, he's he's digging crazy stuff up, looking for the holy grail, jumping out of planes. And and I think that was our first generational introduction to the concept of archaeology. And it was so Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

I know, I know, but I got to imagine, you know, that sort of inspiration and the reality, probably two different things.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Yeah. And when I was a kid watching that, I never I didn't grow up go, oh man, I hope to be an archaeologist someday. I I sort of kind of stumbled it, stumbled into it, actually. Growing up here in the desert, you know, I was raised around a lot of the tribal members, a local tribe that lives here, and their kids, and and I was friends with a lot of their children and used to hike around in the canyons and play in the waterfalls and just hear cool stories. And later on in life, one of my good friends, his dad was the tribal chairman for a long time here. Richard Milanovich was an amazing individual. And he he he did great things for the city of Palm Springs for the tribe. But I grew up with his son, and his son said, Hey man, there's this program that the tribe's offering, and you would be really, really good for it because you're you're respectful, you know, you have you have an understanding of spirituality and this and that. And I said, Okay, tell me about it. And it was a tribal monitoring program, and basically the local tribe was looking for people to put out into the field and represent the tribe's interest when it comes to development and construction. So anytime you build an undeveloped landscape, you have to you have to produce an environmental impact study. An environmental impact report gets drafted by all the ologists. It's a combo, combo of archaeologists, biologists, paleontologists, all the ologies and all the science has to come together and look at this undeveloped landscape and determine if development's even possible. So there's a process called the Section 106 process, and it's a government-to-government consultation process. So anybody that has interest in the landscape can kind of represent their interest before it gets approved. And the tribe has a huge voice and a huge interest in the landscapes. So basically, my job, I got certified, I got trained, and I would go out with the teams of archaeologists before I was doing archaeology myself. And I'd I'd just kind of monitor them. I'd make sure that they were doing things ethically, morally, and that it was I represented the tribe's approval or disapproval of what was happening in the field. And I'd take take my notes, write my reports, go back to the tribal council, explain to them what was going on in these studies to see if anything else needed to be done moving forward with the Section 106 process. And I was basically just watching these archaeologists work full-time. That's all I did for years. And then it came to a point where I'm a very visual learner, not so much by book. So if I see some things, I find the understanding in my mind, and I kind of figure it out and I figure it out into a way that makes sense to me. And I was right there, neck and neck, with all these archaeologists, and pretty soon they were hiring me. And they were hiring me to do other projects outside of this area, so there was no conflict of interest with the tribe. So I go to other contracts outside of the Coachella Valley, still in California. And that's how I learned to be an archaeologist. So it was all hands-on. What is it? What do you mean by you, I mean you watch them for years, for example? My job was to watch archaeologists work, to make sure, like if they discovered human remains in the on the surface or subsurface to make sure that they handled those remains with respect as the tribe was concerned.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Oh, so you were you were representative of the tribe. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then and then that led to studying archaeology like on the other side of the situation.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

So I'd monitor these these various big arc archaeological firms. There's lots of contracts in the valley, so they're they're constantly doing work. And there's a handful of these companies, and there are huge environmental studies companies, and just one branch of their office would be archaeology. So I got to know the main archaeologists that that worked in the state of California. Personally, I I worked with them every day. So they were the ones that talked me into becoming a full-time archaeologist.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Got it. So for people who are listening to this and who aren't familiar with Palm Springs, uh, tell us a little bit about how this, you know, fully and then now personally is Indian land that is leased out in a lot of situations, governed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

How how did that, I mean, for someone who doesn't know anything about that or this particular region, how would you describe that?

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Well, early on in history, you have Native Americans all over the United States and Canada, and settlers start coming in, developing cities, taking over the landscape, and and there was, you know, wars with the Native Americans. And at some point, you know, there's there's treaties being drafted and mitigated. And at the time that treaties were were becoming a reality, the federal government kind of sectioned off certain areas for the non-combative natives that that agreed to stop warring to live and sustain their life. These became federal Indian reservations. And here in Palm Springs, the government, the BIA, Bureau of Indian Affairs, chopped it up into sections instead of one big plot. They they gave them a certain section, and then they split up the acreage in Palm Springs and Coachella Valley into what they call the golden checkerboard. And the golden checkerboard looks like a checkerboard. So you have X amount of square acres deemed as city land. And then the conjoining property to that would be deemed as part of the reservation. And then the next parcel over back to city land. So it was very checkerboarded. And now the golden checkerboard on the tribal side, they have control of the business contracts. If they want a hotel to be on the tribal land, they can sublease or lease out their parcels of land for like a hundred-year stents, right? And and produce income with it. So that's kind of how Coachella Valley is much different than any other Indian reservation or city.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

It's prime real estate. And at the time, I'm sure the government didn't think this desert had prime real estate. But so they're kind of kicking themselves in the ass over that. But Palm Springs is is a great deal of it is tribal land.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah. So as a realtor, you can buy a home and then one street over, you know, it would be that particular land would be leased to the homeowner under a hundred-year contract where they start to renegotiate, usually about 30 years out. Yeah. So determine for fair market value. So that said, for a lot of people who come here and they look at homes, it it causes, it creates a moment of pause. Well, what do you mean I don't own the land? That's right. So it has to, I say, look, it has to be in your comfort zone. And then I've got resources to talk about that. Would I buy a house on lease land if I love the house? Absolutely. Listen, and you don't own the land. Either you and the bank and you and the good federal government own the land. And by the way, the BIA is a federal organization, correct?

SPEAKER_04 20:48

Correct. It's a branch of the federal government that was put together just to manage business affairs and contracts for the tribe.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

And rest assured, everyone, we're going somewhere with this. What was there something that drew you to studying the past?

SPEAKER_04 21:07

No, other than how I kind of secondarily fell into being an archaeologist. Well, I've always I've always thought about the past and history and languages and stuff like that, what we talked in the in the in the first episode. But archaeology kind of was a really cool opportunity that fell into my lap, basically. Got it. I never went to a university. I didn't I didn't get a degree in it. Um, but I ended up owning my own archaeological firm. And ironically, the man and the woman that certified me as a tribal monitor, they were functioning archaeologists in the state of California. They ended up working for me at one point for my coach. Oh, really? Yeah. They became really, really good friends. So they were there my whole archaeological career.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

And what's the name of the tribe here?

SPEAKER_04 21:52

Kawia.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Kawia.

SPEAKER_04 21:54

Kawia. All right. Yep. Desert Koeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Do you do you approach history as a Archaeologist or studying archaeology, do you approach history more as a science or is it somewhere in between?

SPEAKER_04 22:07

No, the the art and the the the profession of archaeology is definitely scientific. But history, I mean, history it's a funny word. It's a compound word. It's two words put together. It's his story. So it's whatever gets documented becomes the history that's taught, right? And learned.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

That was another one of the questions in the middle of a workout. Do you know what history means? It's a lot of these. Every day I'm like, okay, what does it mean?

SPEAKER_04 22:32

It's basically his story. His story. Yeah, and history or his story is usually drafted by the winner of a battle, right? So if you have two warring nations or two warring tribes, the story that gets told is his story. The one that won, basically. The person that gets their ass kicked, they don't get to tell their story. They're just the victims. They're just, they're the weaker.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Nothing's changed.

SPEAKER_04 22:52

The weaker batch. But history is interesting because archaeologically you can go back and touch tangible things, you know, but that doesn't mean you know very much about the past. Archaeology more looks at the subsistence and sort of how people cooked and built homes and what they hunted with and what they made their tools from. But it's a very, very incomplete part of the picture. And that's where the spirituality comes in. So you have to have the physical, tangible stuff, and then the spirituality behind that is the other driving factor, even today. I mean, it's the same today. We have cell phones and we have our spiritual beliefs. You know, we have our tools and we have our myths and our legends and the not so tangible stuff that we can't touch and grab that we tend to believe in.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Well, archaeology is a good place to start. It is as far as, you know, trying to create some semblance of truth and history. Well, now, if you live here prepared to have your mind blown, if there's one street that I've ever heard pronounced a hundred different ways, I'm not even going to tell you what I used to call it because it's embarrassing. Well, I already know.

SPEAKER_04 24:07

Just that you're talking about today it's it's most commonly pronounced as Tuquits Canyon. Taqwits.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

That's how Takitz, I've heard that too.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

Yeah, that's that's how everybody pronounces it. The traditional way in the in the local tribal language is Tuckwish. Toquwish. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

All right. So I bet you 90% of the people listening to this who are local have just learned something new. Tacwish.

SPEAKER_04 24:31

Everybody says Tuckwits are taquets mostly.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Okay. So you and I were engaged in a conversation about real estate. We were talking about new development. I was sharing with you my opinion, and it's exactly that, my opinion of a new development that just seemed to be, you know, not a lot of good things happening on this particular plot of land, including use of construction materials, sales, and to so much to the point where I'll show it to a client, but if that's where they want to live, I'll put in writing, here is my opinion, and I need you to respond that you received this email because I don't, it's not good. Read the fine print. Yes, I want to cover my ass. And that's basically what the real estate license in California teaches you how not to be sued. And you looked at me and you said, Do you know the story of the legend of the Tockwish? Correct. Toquwish. You said it right. Look at you. Toquwish, what is it? Spirit, ghost, shaman?

SPEAKER_04 25:39

Yeah, so I mean, it's commonly known as a myth or a legend. And I'm not speaking on behalf of any tribal members right now. I I know the stories that were shared with me growing up here, you know, friends of the chairman, and then also a tribal monitor and an archaeologist. I have I have lots of different perspectives and lenses that I can take this from. But the Tuckwitch, Tuckwitch Witch was a story. And it was kind of like put out there in my generation as a boogeyman story. It was just, I it seemed more like the story to keep the kids to behave at night and kind of, you know, don't go out running around because there's this evil spirit out there that lives in the mountains in the canyon and and he likes kids and he's he's no good.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

I tell you real quick, hang on a second. I just gotta interject because what you're telling me is this is the Native American Kaiser Sose, you know, from usual suspects. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So everyone's got it. We all have it, yeah. Everybody has a story. This is that story of the Kuya legend, one of the earliest shamans, who, if I understood doing my homework here, was created, he was created for good. Yeah. And ended up being banished from the canyon. Yeah. His spirit is still out there.

SPEAKER_04 26:58

Yeah, yeah, exactly. He went to the dark side at some point, you know. He was sort of a healer and a leader and a medicine man. And again, like I don't claim to be an expert on the taquich spirit of the story, but the ethnographic record in archaeology, there's something called ethnography. And ethnographers, their job is to, as an anthropologist, to go and document stories, oral histories, things that maybe don't belong in a data set yet. And they they they try to document it and write a book about it, or or at least journal and get it on paper. And a lot of the ethnographic records about this spirit was that it was a real person at one point, not a mythological creature or just a boogeyman story. And the little bit that I do know, as far as the facts go, is that this this person was a healer, a chief, a leader, a medicine person who used to do good. And then I'm not sure what made him lose his mind, but he went to the dark side and he started harming people in the tribe and doing just nasty, scary stuff, right? So they didn't want him in the tribe anymore. And tribal mentality, back in the old days, there's not, you know, due process in court. It's just the biggest punishment for tribal people back in pre-contact days was banishment. You know, so if you're part of a tribe, that's a huge part of your existence. You have shelter, you have protection, you have the benefit of having numbers around you. You don't have to hunt by yourself. You don't, you don't have to do everything alone. So a big part of tribal punishment, if you were a nasty person, they would banish you from the tribe. And that goes for a lot of Native American tribes, not just here at the Kuya. It's kind of across the board. And if you think about back in the days, there's no electricity, there's no gadgets, there's no technology. It could be probably pretty scary out there if you're just by yourself and you you you you're not recognized by anybody, not not your family, not your people. You're you're left to figure it out on your own. That's a that's a big punishment. Even even more so than than immediate death.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

I can see why the sun rising would be the first sort of idea of God. Absolutely. That's another episode. Yeah, it is. But real quick real quick, before we scare the shit out of everyone, the one thing I will say about the desert, and everyone, I said it for years, everyone says this. As soon as they land, or as soon as they come in off the 10 and circle or start to circle around the mountain on the 110, you immediately relax. It's unbelievable how quickly here in the valley, you just you something happens. And I've always said, look, you know what it is, is there's something in the soil here. There's a reason why the Indians settled at the base of this mountain. There's something magical. And I think it's in the water. In the water?

SPEAKER_04 29:58

I think the magic comes from the the water. That's my opinion. I mean, I have my my ideas about that. But have you ever have you ever been to the Indian Canyons, like Andreas Canyon, Murray Canyon, Seven Sisters, where all the waterfalls are? There is something absolutely out of this world about that place. Here you're in the desert. There it blows my mind. There's people that lived here their whole life and they've never never even visited that place. They don't even know it exists. They they don't take the time to go out and see what's in the backyard here and what brought everybody here was that water.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Well, okay, that's good. This is this is no. The reason why I just want to sort of point this out is to whoever might be listening, this is a magical place. This is of beauty, and there's a reason for that magic, and it's something rooted in Native American history, with the exception of this particular story. Right. So we start talking, and I say, you say, I what the piece of land you're describing and what I was doing a dig on, an archaeological dig on, could be the same plot of land.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

Oh, it's definitely the same plot of land.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

And tell tell us about your findings and why you were brought on in the first place when they were considering developing that land, which has just recently in recent years been developed. Well, let's let's back up a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 31:19

Let me let me take it back to chapter one. Going from sort of the boogeyman story to more of a realistic look at this man that was banished. That canyon in front of that property is named after him. It's Tuckwitz Canyon or Tuckwish Canyon. And it's a substantial area in Palm Springs. It's a beautiful area in Palm Springs. Now, growing up there, it didn't always look beautiful and pristine and manicured and groomed and inviting. There was no tourism there. It was open to the public. There was no security booth that you had to go into. And it always seemed like out of all the canyons in Palm Springs, it had the most stigma associated with it. It was kind of darker. There was lots of alcoholism, drugs. I mean, it was horribly dirty. It was just trashed. People went up there and just partied. People went up there, died all the time, had accidents, and fell on their head and broke their spines. And, you know, they're doing acid and cocaine.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

And it was like in the 60s or something.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

It was a total party spot as a kid. It was filthy.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:29

And it was there were syringes and hypodermic needles everywhere, and homeless people and dirty mattresses like on top of the rocks and halfway in the water. Weird. Dirty socks. And then finally the tribe had enough of that, man, and they went and cleaned, they cleaned it up. Oh boy. And when they cleaned it up, it it they opened it up for tourism. It's absolutely beautiful. But what I'm getting at is it was always kind of had a negative vibe. Unless you're a local and could walk past the hypodermic needles in the beer bottles and find that magic pool where it was still beautiful, that's what we did. But to back up a little bit, a little bit further in history, this man, Takwitz, Tuckwish, was banished from the traditional camp. And he supposedly landed at the base of Tokwitz Canyon, near the property that you're thinking of the development to be. And it's kind of where he lived isolated by himself. And the story goes that this man would sneak back over to where the other tribe was camped, and I'm not going to disclose that information, what canon that was, just for, you know, to keep the tribe's tribe's opinion about things sacred and respected. I'll just tell the the lore and the story and the ethnographic record is this man went back to the tribe and started kidnapping people and taking people away from the community and having his way, you know, even consuming them, maybe eating them, um abusing them. Just totally total darkness, just batshit bonkers, right? He lost his mind. So at some point, the tribe got tired of this and and was and was afraid of this, and they sent out a war party. And this war party in the ethnographics says they they found him at the base of that camp in a dwelling where he lived, and they they took his life for for all the hell that he he created and all the havoc he was he was raising on the tribe. They took his life. And what they did, the tribe here, when they processed their their their loved ones, when they passed away, they they didn't bury them. They cremated them traditionally, and that was part of their religious ceremony, their spiritual beliefs was to return you to ash and and into the earth the quickest way possible. But they did not do that to him. He didn't give them an honorable ceremony at the end. What they did was, in the middle of his house pit where he lived, they killed him, folded him in half, face down, so his head is face down in between his lap, staring at the ground, cut his feet off, tied his feet around his neck, and left him like that. And the idea was that he would be trapped in the canyons there. And symbology of taking his feet off and wrapping them around his neck was so he couldn't travel in the afterlife, if that makes any sense. That's that was the intent, right? So this is in the ethnographic record. Doesn't really go with the myth or the legends, the boogeyman story, but this is what's documented in ethnographic studies. Now, fast forward in the future, I become an archaeologist. I'm working for a pretty prominent company. It wasn't my own company at the time. And that landscape that we're talking about was up for development. So when it goes up for development, the proposal goes to the city council. Hey, I want to have multimillions of dollars, I want to develop whatever it is, you know, condos, house, whatever it has, a strip mall. They say, okay, you need to consult with the Kuya tribe because this is culturally sensitive landscape. So you have to consult with the tribe, get approval from them. Then the monitors, archaeologists, whatnot, go out and do a study and see if it's even doable. During the archaeological study, I was an archaeologist at the time, not a tribal monitor. I was working as an archaeologist. I was part of a crew that went and we knew it was a culturally sensitive area because there's artifacts on the surface everywhere in the desert. People walk over them and don't even know what they're walking over. There's arrowheads and pot sherds and fragments of groundstones, like pestles and matates and mortars, amazing stuff all over the desert because it was very, very inhabited out here by natives before. So all that stuff's still here. It's still all in the ground. And we knew this was at the base of a very, very prominent cultural canyon that there's going to be tons of stuff on this landscape. So when you find stuff on the surface as an archaeologist, that justifies going to step two of investigating. And that that entails digging archaeological test units in the ground. So archaeologists are the only people that dig square holes because it's scientific. Everything's measured out and gridded and graphed, and you take it down 10 centimeters at a time until you don't see any more artifacts, right? So you you you you see how deep the deposit goes on the ground. And that tells you longevity of occupation there. Everything at the service is maybe a couple hundred years ago. And if you have continuous occupation all the way, you know, a couple feet deep, you're probably going back to people that were there a couple thousand years ago. So, anyways, we start doing our our our test units, and we get to this one area and we we start seeing lots of interesting artifacts that tell us we're in somebody's house. Now there's no structure, it just looks like open desert. But what we're seeing are all all the evidence that we're on a living surface. So there's there's groundstone, there's pottery, there's hunting tools, there's remnants of making hunting tools all on the same surface. There's charcoal, there's fire-affected rock, like a fire hearth in the middle of the home. And then all of a sudden we start seeing bones, right? And okay, this is interesting. It's it's not a cremation, it's not what we're used to seeing. They're big long bones. We start uncovering more, more, more gets uncovered, and we're like, oh, this is a human skeleton. So very, very carefully, you start uncovering it little by little, nice and controlled, and contact the tribe and say, hey, we have human remains in the house pit. Like, what do we do with this? Well, let's open it up and see exactly what we're dealing with and looking at. So as we're doing this, we come across a full skeletal burial, which doesn't line up with the tribe's way of processing their their loved ones in in in a funerary, funeral cemetery. It's full fully skeletal. So it's it's oddly interesting for the location to see full skeletal remains in in that environment setting. We're used to seeing cremations. And interesting enough, we we we get this the skeleton exposed, and it's it's a human skeleton folded in half and face down, head head between the legs, and we found the feet lashed around the neck area of the skeleton. The archaeologist that I was working with, they didn't know the story. I knew the story. So I said, Oh, this is kind of freaky, man. Like, I think this is what we're looking at. I think we're looking at I think we're we just found the boogeyman. Jesus. And so that got brought up to the tribe and without stepping on too many toes, or you know, I never signed non-disclosure. This was years ago. I can talk about certain things without giving definitive locations. But the tribe was very, very spooked and concerned about what we saw. They sent out a couple of most likely descendants, people that represent the tribes as far as like human remains go, make decisions on what happens next. And they wanted nothing to do with it. We were told to bury it back right where it was, cover it back up and vacate the property as soon as we could. So we very carefully covered it back up. It took a few days to do it right and kind of make it look like the landscape wasn't tampered with or touched or anything, and we just kind of left it. To my understanding, there was intertribal meetings between local bands and communities that also shared stories about that person. And those were kind of private meetings between the tribes, and and they were all like, there's no way that's what was found. And they said, no, this is what was found. So all the local tribes, not even the Koeya tribes, but the tribes up in the mountains, you know, Lasenos and Serranos and neighboring tribes and related tribes, were just like, oh man, that's we don't want anything to do with that. Like, just leave it alone. So, to my knowledge, working as an archaeologist, I was never asked to exhume the body, remove it from the property so it can be developed. I was never asked to, you know, skillfully take it out and put it into a cemetery somewhere else or or do anything. They just told us, you know, bury it and leave it alone. So you found this cat, no feet. No feet, folded over. Face down in the middle of a living surface, just like the story says.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

And did your findings, they say, okay, put it back as you found it. Did you did they shut down at that point in time the the development of that property?

SPEAKER_04 42:10

For years there's nothing ever happened there.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

So there's a good chance that that kind of research wasn't done and it was sold and then built on that could be a possibility.

SPEAKER_04 42:25

No, because our reports get documented forever. So all I'm saying is maybe it's a possibility that they relocated the remains into a tribal cemetery or something. They didn't just let them build it.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

No, no, no. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, this is like a red out of pole.

SPEAKER_04 42:42

Nothing like that. But what we did uncover and see was the same story in in real time as as the ethnographic record speaks of.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Did you know when you saw it, or were you like, well, this is strange?

SPEAKER_04 42:55

No, I mean I knew right away because I knew the story.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Okay, so you'd heard the story to the fine.

SPEAKER_04 43:00

And we were standing at the base of Taquit's Canyon, and that's that's where he he was banished to. Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

So that explains a lot.

SPEAKER_04 43:10

One plus one equals two, two plus two equals four. I can only conclude that we uncovered the boogeyman.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

I'm not even gonna look in that direction when I drive by.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

Yeah, and like that's some spooky stuff. Well, the development you said that you were talking about has failed miserably since the onset. And this was supposed to be high-end, high dollar, high, high demand real estate. It was supposed to be the hot spot that everybody was gonna fight for. And it just seems like they're having so much trouble there. Yeah. Yeah. The building materials are second, second class at best. I mean, they're already falling apart and they're brand new.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

And it and there's something close to it that isn't you know comparable in nature that's done very well from the construction to the sales. And anyway, well, like I said.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

I know the I know the property that you're speaking of that we're mutually speaking of is definitely on the same footprint. I haven't walked that property in years. I would need like GPS coordinates to go back to the exact location that we excavated those skeletal remains at. But it's on it's it's on the property.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

When you say put them back, I mean did you touch them? Did you lift them out?

SPEAKER_04 44:19

No. You uncover it and expose it.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

And then that's it.

SPEAKER_04 44:22

That's it. You expose it and then with permission of the tribe, you'd go to the next step. And their next step was just cover it back up and let's not do it.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

You weren't like carrying it around. No, gosh, no. You had some of that dust on you.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

Well, I had some of the dust on me, I'm sure, but you have ways to mitigate that. Burn a lot of sage. What year was that?

SPEAKER_01 44:40

What year was this? Did they have sanitizer? Yeah, they definitely did. I bet a couple of ice cold Budweisers taste good that night.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

What do you think? I mean, do you see this as did they, you, them, the tribe, see this as some sort of warning?

SPEAKER_04 44:54

Yeah, absolutely. The tribe definitely did. And I can't speak on their behalf, right? But they were definitely concerned and wanted nothing to do with moving forward at the time. But since then, you know, everybody that knows him calls him Uncle Richard. He was the chair the chairman. He him and his council didn't want any disturbance of that. They they just wanted to be left alone and respected and not messed with at all.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

You know, the idea of a powerful figure becoming corrupted feels somewhat timeless, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 45:25

Yeah, man. It happens, it happens everywhere in every generation, in every culture of the world. And it's usually people in the spiritual works, right? Like you it it's it's so disheartening because these are people that you're supposed to be able to trust and look up to. And I don't know, man, something goes on. Something goes on mentally or spiritually, and they crack and they just they go straight to the dark side. And, you know, there's more stories of that in modern times. Yeah. You know, we see that everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Do you think these stories were meant to explain, explain natural events or human behavior? I think so.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

And I think a lot of myths, well, this one had some reality to it because the ethnographic record was told not as a myth. But I think a lot of myths and legends start out as real, real stories. And I think when you get told these stories before technology, you're passing it on generation to generation. I might tell you a story of significant substance and amazing ideas and visuals. And by the time you tell that story to somebody else, it might be a little different, and so on. And you do that over generations, things change and they glorify parts that they tap into most about the story and they emphasize that and leave little parts out that don't mean as much to them when they tell it. So I think they I think a lot of myths and legends start out as a way of recording history for sure. But in this case, it's I don't think we have that good of imagination to make a lot of the shit up.

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Yeah, I I in it's so rare that it happens, and in this case, it has where myth and physical evidence intersect.

SPEAKER_04 47:07

Absolutely, absolutely. It was mind-blowing. I never thought I was gonna find a folded over skeleton with the feet.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Was it was it difficult for you to balance being respectful for the cultural side of this finding and then the scientific side of it?

SPEAKER_04 47:24

No, not at all. And that was that was the good part about me becoming an archaeologist. It was always about respect. So the tribe appreciated my my opinion, and and more often than not, the the archaeologists and the government agencies that we would mitigate between. A lot of them asked asked for me to be the mitigator because I had both perspectives. And that was kind of a unique situation for archaeologists who were mostly educated in school, right? And they're very by the book, and that it's they're very scientific. Me, I was already somewhat spiritual and fell into archaeology. So my opinion, I I spoke both languages. So I could speak the spiritual aspects and the and the scientific. So I was a perfect person to put at the table when mitigation had to happen. So a lot of times I would be the one that would be diffusing governments fighting over this property, not this property in particular, but projects in general. I would I would I would represent the tribe's interest and the archaeological interest and kind of mediate coming to a common ground, which was rare.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Did you your findings of this, the cockwish, which did it change your relationship with the tribe?

SPEAKER_04 48:42

Not at all.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Were they like, oh, the savior? Were they like, we need you to No, not at all.

SPEAKER_04 48:47

They were just like covered up.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

That's it? Yeah, that's it. That's it right there. Covered up.

SPEAKER_04 48:51

Just just let it be. Let it be what it is. Yeah. And zip your lip, you know, like don't call the media about this at the time. It's just, you know, put it, put it exactly how you you found it and cover it up and, you know, move on.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

I was about, yeah, that's yeah, bringing it full circle. You know, it's interesting because I don't know, maybe about 15 years ago, I was in Miami by myself and had a big night out and found some Cuban cafe, and there was no one in there but this hundred-year-old Cuban man, and he looked at me and he just randomly started explaining to me about, you know, locations, certain places have energy lines, and you either connect with those energy lines or you don't. And it's always that guy's always stuck with me, that conversation. What is it about you and the energy lines of Palm Springs of the Desert? Do you feel, you know, how have you gotten in line with it? You're clearly in line with it.

SPEAKER_04 49:53

Yeah, and it goes back to like even the introductory podcast where we were kind of figuring out who is Aaron Cruz and these experiences that I've had. You know, spiritually, I was always kind of searching for things anyway. So I didn't trust religions, traditional religions at a very young age. So I kind of tapped into nature a whole bunch, and I spent lots and lots of hours out in the canyons, probably more than I should. I was ditching school and hanging out out there. I was, you know, up there when I wasn't supposed to be there. I was spending the night out there. I had I had access to it after hours. And so I spent lots of time out there, and it's just a feeling, man. It's just like what you said, you know, you get off the plane and you see that mountain. There's something that draws you, it's majestic. At the end of the day, we're all energy. Do you ever play with magnets when you're a kid and there you have two magnets and you get them real close and they just kind of go, they click together, and you can't do anything to keep them apart, right? Yeah. Now, if you pull those magnets apart and you turn one magnet around, there's nothing you can do to make them touch. Have you ever tried that? Yes. Yes. So so it kind of forces each other away from themselves, right? You turn it back and they they connect and they stick. Turn one, they push away from each other. People are the same. Every every living thing is the same. And I think the vibrational energy that magical places like these little gems in the desert or Zion or, you know, your favorite parts of the of the world attract you all the time, it's because that energy is drawing you there. Yeah. And I think there's definitely some healing that happens when when you allow yourself to be drawn where you need to go. Because that place is either calling you, or you're calling that place, or you're calling each other for some reason. Just like human interaction, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, and I have my ex-wife or my ex-husband or this or that. At one point, you guys were like magnets, and you clicked. And then one turned away, and there's nothing you can do to make it touch again. That's that's vibrational, that's energy. It's not anything else other than that. So to me, the desert has very, very magical magnetic energy here. And I and we see it. I mean, look at all the tourism that comes. People want to come and just spend a few days in Palm Springs. And it's not because we have the greatest restaurants, it's not because we have the greatest clubs. We don't have any of that. Really? There's great food here, but I mean, there's no nightlife. I mean, people come here to see the palm trees in the sun and lay out by the pool and stare at that big majestic mountain. And the more people I talk about, they reference that mountain so many times, man. Strangers, oh my gosh, I've never seen a mountain like that. You know, there's nowhere else in the world like that.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

So there's some, there's some magic here for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's a wonderful place to wrap this up. This has been Cruise Control. Today we explored what it means to be desert raised and how the stories of a place can shape the people who come from it. I'm Errington Williams. Aaron Cruz. We'll be back next time as we continue to navigate the chaos one conversation at a time. Thanks, Aaron. Bye guys.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

That's it for this conversation on Cruise Control. Thank you for spending time with us, listening, thinking, and navigating the chaos. These conversations don't end here. So take what resonates, question what doesn't, and carry it in your own work. Physical, mental, and spiritual. If you enjoyed the show, subscribe, follow, and share it. We'll be back soon with another conversation. Until next time, stay grounded, stay curious, and keep your cruise control steady.