Barbara Drake (née Barbara Ann Scott) was born in West Los Angeles in 1940 to a Tongva mother, Dolores Lola Lassos, and white father, Charles Milton Scott. She grew up learning about traditional medicines from her mother, which built the foundation for her love of native plants and her future work in ethnobotany. Drake was an enrolled member of the Gabrieleño/Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, serving as Tribal Secretary for many years, and was given the name Kwi Tokar (Acorn Woman).

Barbara Drake began her professional career working in Indian Education Title VII for the San Bernadino School District, before accepting a job as a lecturer on ethnoecology at Pitzer College in 1993. In addition to her work with undergraduate students, Drake began participating in the Leadership in Environmental Education Program (LEEP) in 1996, where she taught children about Tongva perspectives on caring for the earth and protecting the environment. Through these different educational roles, Drake advocated for the importance of Tongva knowledge and practices for living peacefully with the earth and its inhabitants. She was dedicated to introducing people of all ages “to seeing the natural world in different ways—as the center of all life, as cultural history, as storytelling, as tradition, as part of holistic community building,” and it was important to her to convey these ideas to children and attendees through teaching and speaking engagements.

Additionally, Drake developed curricula for various organizations over the years, including Mother Earth Clan, an education collective she became a core member of in 1986 that brought Native American material culture presentations into public and private schools. She also contributed educational material and taught classes at the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program, as well as co-teaching classes at the University of California, Riverside with Mother Earth Clan co-founder Lorene Sisquoc.

Barbara Drake’s commitment to educating Southern Californians about Tongva history and customs extended beyond the classroom, and she used her expertise on food and indigenous ecology to open a Native American food bank. Founded in the mid-2000s, the Chia Café Collective sought to restore the centrality of sustainable indigenous ingredients for the Native American diet and create healthier, more connected communities. She also consulted with numerous museums, conservancies, and parks to help design ecologically balanced landscapes and native plant gardens, most notably at The Autry Museum of the American West.

Later in life, Barbara Drake kept close track of legal battles, cultural conflicts, and political developments that connected to Native American sovereignty, tribal recognition, NAGPRA, and land use, and was occasionally consulted regarding those topics. Known affectionately as "Auntie Barbara" at The Claremont Colleges and amongst the wider community, Barbara Drake was instrumental in fostering collaboration between the local Gabrieleño/Tongva community and Claremont. Drake was proud of how far revitalization efforts had come during her lifetime and she will be remembered for her boundless care, mentorship, joy, wisdom, knowledge, and tireless efforts on behalf of her people and the land by her students, friends, and family. Barbara Drake passed away in November 2020, at the age of 80.