"[9] The Chemehuevi call themselves Nüwüvi ("The People", singular Nüwü)[10][11] or Tantáwats, meaning "Southern Men.

First transcribed by John P. Harrington and Carobeth Laird in the early 20th century, it was studied in the 1970s by linguist Margaret L.

In 2015, the Siwavaats Junior College in Havasu Lake, California, was established to teach children the language.

Post-contact, they lived primarily in the eastern Mojave Desert and later Cottonwood Island in Nevada and the Chemehuevi Valley along the Colorado River in California.

Carobeth Laird indicates their traditional territory spanned the High Desert from the Colorado River on the east to the Tehachapi Mountains on the west and from the Las Vegas area and Death Valley on the north to the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains in the south.

Traditionally, the majority of weaving was completed with split willow, and darker patterns were made with devil's claw and yucca, among other materials.