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The word Cahuilla has been used to designate the entire southern Californian branch of the Shoshonean family by Gatschet (Wheeler VII), in the form Kauvuya, and by Barrows (Ethno-Botany of the Coahuilla Indians), in the form Coahuilla.  It is correctly applicable to one "tribe" or group forming part of one of three main divisions of the Shoshoneans of Southern California.

The name Tobikhar, used by Gatschet for the San Gabriel group of southern California, although probably founded on an error, is used by Powell, 7th Annual Report, for all the Shoshoneans of Southern California.

Vanyume is the name applied by the Mohave to the Shoshonean tribes living on the upper Mojave river on the north slope of the San Bernardino mountains in southern California.  These Indians are part of the southern Californian group known as Serranos.  The explorer Garcés, who came to these people from the Mohave, used this name, in the form Beñeme, for them and subsequently for all Shoshoneans speaking a Serrano dialect.  The name is undoubtedly the same as the more familiar Panamint now applied to the Indians in the vicinity of the mountains of the same name, considerably to the north of the Serrano, near Death Valley in central eastern California.  It is however very doubtful whether these Panamint Indians belong to the same group as the Vanyume-Serrano.  Their location makes it very probable that they speak either a Monachi or a Ute-Paiute dialect.