One of the last fluent speakers of the language of the Cahuilla Indians, a Southern California tribe, Katherine Siva Saubel worked with linguists and anthropologists to produce a Cahuilla dictionary and grammar book and other works.

Katherine Siva Saubel, an elder of the Cahuilla Indian tribe of Southern California, once described herself as “just a voice in the wilderness all by myself.” She meant that she had few people with whom she could speak the Cahuilla language or sing the songs that conveyed her people’s ancient stories.

Now Saubel, long its feistiest guardian, has died.

“It’s a huge loss … the end of an era,” said Nathalie Colin, an ethno-historian at the Malki Museum near Banning, which Saubel co-founded more than 45 years ago to preserve Cahuilla history and traditions.”

See: Los Angeles Times