The Indians of the Painted Desert Region: Hopis, Navahoes, Wallapais, HavasupaisJames, George Wharton
Religion
The Indians of the Painted Desert Region: Hopis, Navahoes, Wallapais, Havasupais
James, George Wharton
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New
Mountain lions, wildcats, lynxes, coyotes, badgers, deer, and antelope,
with an occasional mountain sheep and bear, are the larger quarry of
the Havasupai hunters. The deer and antelope they find in the open
grassy glades of the forests on the canyon rim and reaching towards
the desert. The other game is generally found in the recesses of the
canyons or on the slopes of the far-away mountains of Hue-han-a-patch-a
(the San Franciscos), Hue-ga-wool-a (Williams Mountain), or
Hue-ga-da-wi-za (Red Butte).
Some of the skins are dressed with the hair on and are used for
clothing, as sleeping mats, or are sold to the travellers at the trains
or traded at the stores on the railway. But many of the better skins
are carefully tanned and dressed and converted into buckskins, as
before stated.
This, indeed, is one of their staple articles of trade, good buckskins
fetching as high as five dollars and even ten dollars cash. I have
several times seen a blanket for which I had offered eight dollars or
ten dollars readily exchanged for a simple buckskin, and it is not an
unusual occurrence to note a trade where a fair Navaho pony is given
for a large and well-dressed skin.
The outside Indians that the Havasupais are familiar with are the
friendly Wallapais, whom they call their cousins, the Hopis and the
Navahoes. They have often had wars with the hated Mohaves, Apaches, and
Paiutis. The Chemhuevis, Pimas, and Maricopas are their distant, little
known, but accepted friends. Far-away Zuni is Si-u, and still farther
Acoma is Ac-o-ca-va, and though intercourse with the people of these
villages is rare, it has always been friendly.
For the grazing and watering of their horses and other stock each head
of a family has a certain region allotted to him, over the boundaries
of which he may not allow his stock to wander, except when removing
them or by special permission. Manakacha, the head Kohot, takes the
range formerly owned or controlled by Captain Navaho, the late Kohot,
viz., the region of Black Tanks. Rock Jones (the chief medicine-man)
has Topocobya Canyon and the plateau above as far as the other side
of the Grand Canyon towards the Mystic Spring Trail, where begins the
territory of Vesna, Captain Burro, and Chickapanagie. This includes
the south banks of the Grand Canyon towards the Little Colorado River
and including the Mystic Spring, the Bright Angel, the Grand View,
Hance's old and the Red Canyon Trails, in the neighborhood of which,
for centuries, the Havasupais have been descending. Indeed, it was
the Havasupais who made the "Indian Gardens" that are so charming a
feature of the Bright Angel Trail. Sinyela has the upper part of Havasu
Canyon reaching to Bass's camp at the Caves, named by the Havasupais
Wai-a-mel. Uta and Waluthama have the lower portion of Havasu Canyon,
around to the head of Beaver Canyon and all the territory on the south
side as far as Hack-a-tai-a--the Colorado River.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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