A Chemehuevi Song provides the first analysis of Southern Paiute people known as Chemehuevi and that group of Chemehuevi from the Twenty-Nine Palms Oasis of California. The book examines change over time and the manner in which the distant past contributes to contemporary Chemehuevi people. Using several Native American voices and a plethora of original documents from the National Archives, libraries, museums, and tribal sources, A Chemehuevi Song illuminates the development of racialized views of Southern Paiute. The volume offers an account of the Chemehuevi-Mojave War and the exile of a band of Chemehuevi from the Colorado River in the 1860s. This group of Chemehuevi moved to the Oasis of Mara where they settled and farmed in a Serrano Indian village, living peacefully until Willie Boy and Carlota Mike broke tribal incest laws, leading to the death and removal of Chemehuevi from Twenty-Nine Palms to the Cabazon Reservation in the Coachella Valley. On Cabazon, Chemehuevi learned cultural ways of Cahuilla, continuing an ancient process of learning from and intermarrying with other Native Americans. During the twentieth century, Chemehuevi leaders joined the Mission Indian Federation in fighting the Wheeler-Howard Act, and only one Chemehuevi took an allotment. Chemehuevi refused to remain on the Cabazon Reservation, residing in nearby towns.

In 1974, an act of congress and signature of President Gerald Ford created the Twenty-Nine Palms Reservation east of Palm Springs. The Chemehuevi reorganized a formal tribal government that has survived and thrived as a result of gaming. The people have used revenues from Spotlight 29 Casino to support land acquisition and the Native American Land Conservancy that buys and protects cultural lands. A Chemehuevi Song is an account of survival, sovereignty, and solemn obligations to care for their community while living within an ever-changing and challenging world, emerging as a modern tribal nation through adaptation and adherence to spiritual beliefs about the place of man within the natural world of California and the greater Southwest.