Group of Nine Havasupai Girls, ca. 1898; George Wharton
The Havasupai people (Havasupai: Havsuw’ Baaja) are an American Indian tribe who have lived in the Grand Canyon for at least the past 800 years. Havasu means “blue-green water” and pai “people”.
Located primarily in an area known as Cataract Canyon, this Yuman-speaking population once laid claim to an area the size of Delaware. In 1882, however, the tribe was forced by the federal government to abandon all but 518 acres of its land. A silver rush and the Santa Fe Railroad in effect destroyed the fertile land. Furthermore, the inception of the Grand Canyon as a national park in 1919 pushed the Havasupai to the brink, as their land was consistently being used by the National Park Service. Throughout the 20th century, the tribe used the US judicial system to fight for the restoration of the land. In 1975, the tribe succeeded in regaining approximately 185,000 acres of their ancestral land with the passage of the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act.
The tribe had traditionally relied heavily on agriculture, hunting and gathering as their means of survival. Although living primarily above and inside the Grand Canyon, which consists mostly of harsh terrain, the tribe’s reservation was also home to some lush vegetation and beautiful waters. Their name, meaning “the People of the Blue-Green Waters,” reflects this.
The Havasupai are said to have existed within and around the Grand Canyon for over eight centuries. Little is known about the tribe prior to their first recorded European encounter in 1776 with Spanish priest Francisco Garces. Garces reported seeing roughly 320 individuals in his time with the Havasupai, a number that would diminish over the centuries as westward expansion and natural catastrophes significantly decreased the population size, before rising to approximately 650 in the current era.
In the first half of the 19th century, with exception to the introduction of horses by the Spanish, U.S. westward expansion affected the Havasupai less than it did other indigenous populations of the west. Even as interaction with settlers slowly increased, day-to-day life did not change much for the tribe until silver was discovered in 1870 by Cataract Creek. The migration of prospectors to the area was unwelcome. The Havasupai sought protection from the intrusion of western pioneers on their land and sought out assistance, but to little avail. An executive order by President Rutherford Hayes in 1880 established a small federally protected reservation for the tribe, yet it did not include the mining areas along the Creek.
During this era, Havasupai relations with other Native American tribes were generally mixed. Bonds and interactions with the Hopi tribe, whose reservation was in close proximity, were strong, as the two peoples did a great deal of trading with each other. The Hopi introduced crops such as the gourd and sunflower that would eventually become a staple of the Havasupai diet. Still, the Havasupai were not without enemies as they were consistently at odds with the Yavapai and the Southern Paiute, who would steal and destroy crops planted by the Havasupai.
In 1882 President Chester A. Arthur issued an executive order that all land on the plateau of the canyon, which was traditionally used for winter homes for the tribe, was to become public property of the United States. The order in effect relegated the Havasupai to a 518-acre (2.10 km2) plot of land in Cataract Canyon, taking almost all of their aboriginal land for American public use. According to reports, the Havasupai were completely unaware of the act for several years.
The loss of almost all of their land was not the only issue that the Havasupai were contending with: the increase in the number of settlers in the local region had depleted game used for hunting, and soil erosion (a result of poor irrigation techniques) touched off a series of food shortages. Furthermore, interaction with the settlers sparked deadly disease outbreaks amongst tribe members, who were ravaged by smallpox, influenza, and measles. By 1906 only 166 tribal members remained – half the number Garces saw when he first came across the tribe in 1776.
In the 1800s the continental railway system was greatly expanded. In 1897 construction opened on a spur line of the Santa Fe Railroad, which was to lead directly to the Grand Canyon; by 1901 the line was open. During his visit to the Grand Canyon in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt met two Havasupais at Indian Garden. Roosevelt told them about the park that was being created, and that they would have to leave the area. In 1908 the Grand Canyon was declared a national monument, and by 1919 it had received National Park status. However, it was not until 1928 that the Havasupai finally left Indian Garden, forced out by the National Park Service.
Prior to modern times agriculture was the essential means of progress and survival for the Havasupai. While in the winter the tribe members stationed themselves on the plateau of the canyon, in the summer irrigation gardening of the crop fields brought the members back inside the canyon walls. As vast and uneven as the Grand Canyon is, it is somewhat of an anomaly that the Havasupai were able to agriculturally sustain and thrive in such a voluminous landscape. Because of a lack of available soil rich in nutrients, it has been suggested that the tribe cultivated only 200 acres (0.81 km2) of land on the canyon floor. Although lacking space, the tribe’s irrigation technology was far more advanced than others in the Southwest which allowed them to be agriculturally intensive. However, being located at the bottom of a canyon left the fields vulnerable to flooding as a result of rain and the overflowing of Cataract Creek, as was the case in 1911 when almost an entire crop field was destroyed. In 1920 to combat the issue the federal government assisted the tribe in constructing a new irrigation system which was generally effective in ceasing soil erosion from water overflows.
Historically the main crops for the Havasupai were corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, gourds, and some cotton. Corn, the tribe’s main crop, was generally harvested in the later summer months. While growing, a farming technique called cepukaka was used to protect the corn from being blown over when it got to a certain height. In this technique, a farmer loosened the soil around the corn and then pulled it into a hill around the stalk base. Along with their traditional crops, the Havasupai were introduced to melons, watermelons, and orchard trees with the arrival of the Spanish. By the 1940s these crops had become staples of the Havasupai diet. www.wikipedia.com
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Kin 106: White Lunar World-Bridger
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Stabilizing opportunity
I seal the store of death
With the lunar tone of challenge
I am guided by the power of endlessness
I am a galactic activation portal
Enter me.
The law of physical manifestation is micro-principle of the conscious stage of the self-evolution of the universe as a work of art.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2015-2016.
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