The National Endowment for the Humanities Wednesday announced $30 million in grants for 238 humanities projects across the country, with the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians among the recipients.
The NEH’s last round of funding for fiscal year 2020 “will support vital research, education, preservation and public programs in the humanities,” according to the independent federal agency established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965.
The peer-reviewed grants were awarded in addition to $50 million in annual operating support provided to the national network of state and jurisdictional humanities councils.
“These challenging times underscore how important the humanities are to making American culture and world history relatable across generations,” said NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede. “NEH is proud to award hundreds of grants to keep our nation’s scholars, students, teachers and citizens moving forward in pursuit of new knowledge and understanding.”
The Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians was awarded $14,975 for a preservation assessment of collections and storage space, and the purchase of environmental monitoring equipment and other preservation supplies, for Native American cultural objects that document the history of the tribe in Southern California.
Its members are descendants of the Chemehuevi people, a nomadic tribe whose territory once covered parts of California, Utah, Arizona and southern Nevada.
The tribe’s reservation near the town of Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County was established in 1895, but many tribal members were relocated to the Coachella Valley and Banning Pass areas and the reservation was expanded in 1979 with an additional parcel in Coachella.