HAVASUPAI

The Navajos are noted for their distinctive dress and this is true among the women of the tribe, whose styles never change.

The record of the Navajo boys in World War II was outstanding. This is a fine study of two young Navajo men.

Navajo parents are noted for being unusually kind and affectionate to their children. Among them family ties are strong and binding.

There is a place in Arizona, one of the most beautiful in our country, where children are noted for their good behavior, reserved before their elders, rarely cry to gain their desires, and spend the summer days splashing in the clear water of the creek. A place where there are no suicides or insane. This spot is the home of the little known Havasupai tribe of Indians who live at the bottom of Cataract Canyon, in north-central Arizona. Though in reality a part of Grand Canyon itself, only a handful of white men have ever found their way into the rough canyon country where the Havasupais live. The Indians themselves know but little of the outside world.

As the fish swims, Havasupai Canyon lies downstream about 100 miles from Bright Angel trail, perhaps the best known point in the region to tourists, for it is at Bright Angel trail that a descent may be made into the mighty gorge of Grand Canyon.

On a shelf in this almost inaccessible spot live some 200 members of the Havasupai tribe, who graze stock and raise crops in irrigated fields on the canyon floor. So secluded have these Indians remained between the great cliffs of the canyon that we know very little of them even today. Leslie Spier, author of Havasupai Ethnology, considers this the only place in the United States where native culture has remained in anything like its pristine condition. According to Spier, the Havasupai livein close contact with the earth and have little speculative life. Their only desires seem to be to have enough to eat and to live in their canyon home undisturbed.

Like the Grand Canyon, Cataract Canyon is a double gorge, first a mile wide canyon through the white limestone some 2500 feet deep and then a narrower gorge 300 to 500 feet deep winding through the red sandstone in the bottom. Havasupai village is located about six miles from the mouth of Cataract Canyon, 3,000 feet below the land above. Hemmed in by towering walls of red sandstone which can be scaled in but a few places. the Havasupai reservation is very small but its fertility, spectacular scenery and unusualSetting as a habitation for man ranks it as one of the most remarkable places in Arizona. Northward the canyon drops away by a series of nearly impassable falls to join the Grand Canyon. Beyond that lies mile on mile of broken ledge and mountain to the northern rim of the Grand Canyon. Egress to the south is by way of its tortuous ramified areas: Hualapai Canyon to the West, Lee Canyon to the east, and several more Moqui Trail Canyon among them.

"HAVASU FALLS"

The Supai Indians in the Land of the Blue Green Water are a small tribe living in an isolated part of the west. Farming and cattle provide their living. They accomplish so very much with so little.

Traveling to the north is next to impossible and to the plateau above is so difficult as to make the isolation quite complete. Several hundred yards above the village, Cataract Creek bursts from its bed of the canyon, gathers rapidly in volume and rushes as a narrow, erratic stream for two and one-half miles, plunging over precipitous cliffs on its way to the Colorado, forming several beautiful waterfalls. Mooney Falls, the largest, fills the air with thunder as the water rushes over the bluff and drops nine hundred feet into a wide pool. Havasu Falls are about a hundred feet high and have a large pool at their base. The main trail continues through the village and runs along the river, through fields of corn, beans, melons and squash to Navajo Falls which drop about fifty feet in a broad curtain, veiled with white spray. Above this point the stream flows through a series of shallow cascades shaded by green trees and bushes.

Passing through miles of limestone formations the water is heavily impregnated with calcium and magnesium carbonate, calcium sulphate and magnesium chloride. These mineral salts in solution over a period of time coat everything they touch with a stony de posit and import a light tinge to the water which gives to the creek a light blue or green ish-blue color. Where the water gathers in pools at the foot of the falls, it is a fascinating turquoise color. Taking their name from the water of the creek these Indians have become known as the "blue-green water people" (Havasu-blue or green water; pai people). This section is an oasis, irrigated fields and orchards stretch between the talus slopes. The stream is bordered by a dense growth of wil lows and cottonwoods, mesquite and other bushes cover the slopes. The canyon widens here and the fantastically eroded cut in the redwall limestone curves to form a rough circle about half a mile in diameter. The pale coloring of the upper strata forms a pleasing contrast to the red of the lower walls, the green of the grass and trees and the blue of the desert sky. Two pillars on a projection of the redwall are known to the Indians as the Prince and Princess; legend says their fall means the doom of the Havasupai. On the brown-green travertine fans de-

In a colorful canyon shut in from the outside world by towering canyon walls is the village of the Supai. Some acres of ground are in crops, watered by Havasu Creek, while in other parts of the canyon are ancient peach trees whose fruit is surprisingly good. These are then dried.

JACK BREED

A rodeo is held in Supailand usually in late August. The Navajos and the Hualpais are invited as guests to take part in the rodeo and celebrate the crops and fruits of the summer season. All Supai men and boys are fine horsemen and in rodeo events they are hard to beat.

WILLIAM BELKNAP, JR.

Deposited on both sides of the waterfalls are maidenhair ferns and other bright green plants flourishing in the spray. The clear stream tumbles over red-brown rocks, and jays, wrens, desert sparrows, fly-catchers and water ousels dart among the shrubbery. Amid such majestic surroundings, the Havasupai live a life not so different from that of the past and assume the same leisurely pace. Perhaps because of the beautiful color of the water in this canyon stream, the section has erroneously been said to have inspired Cadman's composition "Land of the Sky-Blue Water."

Much of the summer day is free from labor after the crops are planted and again during harvest. The Havasupai children are expert swimmers, often learning the art very young. Mothers toss their small children in the creek and in almost no time they paddle their way to the bank. One would hardly say they are taught to paddle; it seems to come instinctively. At play, the children show a touching affection for each other and the parents treat their children with great gentleness, believing that harsh words or cruel punishments shrivel a child's soul. Men gather at their favorite sweatlodge to gossip or they indulge in the same pastime while helping an acquaintance stretch and cut his buckskin. The Havasupai are noted for their buckskin. All skin clothing is made by the men for the whole skin industry from flaying the carcass to the manufacture of women's dresses is in the hands of the men. The men also tan beautiful white deerskins.

The first written record of Havasupai dates from 1776 when Padre Francisco Garces, a Spanish mission priest, stopped there. There was little contact of the tribe with the Americans for the next hundred years, except for an occasional visit of trappers, prospectors and exploring parties. Numbering only about 200, it does not seem likely that there were ever many more than 250. These Indians resemble the lower Colorado River tribes in general appearance, in build and physiognomy more than the Navajo, Apache and Zuni. Their light complexions are noticeable. Not a typical southwestern tribe, the cultural position of these Indians still remains in doubt. There are brief descriptions resulting from the visits of Ives' party in 1858, Coues in 1881, and of James and Curtis' parties at various times. F. H. Cushing, premier archaeologist of Arizona and New Mexico, who spent a few days with them in 1881, has described "The Nation of The Willows" at somewhat greater length.

Linguistically the Havasupai are closely related to the neighboring Hualapai. The dialect difference is slight. Social and cultural relations with the Hualapai are also very close. Intermarriages are frequent and they share each other's viewpoint to a very high degree. The Havasupai mock the other's gruffer mode of speech and their eating of lizards. They have also been known to come to blows over a race.

Inter-tribal trade has been conducted for many years with the Navajo and Hopi to the east and with the Hualapai and Mohave to the west. In fact, we may properly speak of a northern Arizona trade route from Hopi to Mohave, independent of more southerly tribes and cut off from those to the north by the Grand Canyon.

They obtain blankets, wool and silver work from the Navajo and Hopi for dressed skins and agricultural products. The Hualapai trade many of their raw deer hides to the Havasupai in exchange for the Navajo and Hopi goods, in addition to fruit and vegetables.

As canyon climbers the Havasupai probably surpass all other tribes. Their muscles are developed by constant practice and they run up and down the steep canyon trails in a manner to excite the envy of our college athletes.

"PRINCE AND THE PRINCESS"

These two rocky pinnacles, high on the canyon wall, are guardians of the Supai people. When they fall, according to legend, then the Supai will perish. The Supais regard them reverently.

The engineering skill and enterprise of this little nation are remarkable. Although their appliances are crude, they are able to construct large dams and dig or build deep irrigating canals, or durable aqueducts which often pass through the hills, or follow considerable heights along shelves of rock or talus at the bases of the rugged and crooked walls of the canyon. The acequias, which have their fountain heads in these canals and viaducts are wonders of intricacy and regularity; yet on uneven ground are laid out in nice recogntion of the conformity to unevenness and change of level in the surface they are designed to water.

Most wonderful of all however are the aerial trails. Through the western branch of the canyon, down from the Hualapai country, the trail for horses as well as foot travellers is over promontories, up shelves, along giddy narrow heights, and in and out of recessions, or over stone slopes such as would dismay civilized man with all his means of molding the rugged face of nature. Great ingenuity is shown in continuing the trail along the bare smooth face of a cliff which slopes at an angle of forty-five, fifty, even sometimes sixty degrees.

The surface, after being roughened, is overlaid with little branches of cedar, upon which large sticks and stones of great weight are laid, the whole being filled in with dirt and a sufficient quantity of pebbles to guard against washing away. The Havasupai is an excellent horseman and packer. He usually has quite a number of horses and does considerable packing on the trail with them. Traveling up and down the steep winding trail to the top of the canyon is very strenuous work for the horses and the Indians must have a sufficient number of them so as to rest each horse for a few days after one of the trips.

Summer life is the fullest of the year. Everyone lives in the village except for the few who are away trading. Morning finds the families in the fields; the heat of the afternoon is spent in the sweatlodge or at some favorite spot gambling and gossiping. Corn ripens throughout the summer. The ceremonials are few and simple. To their biggest festival, the Peach Dance in August, they invite Hopi and Hualapai. The women weave rather coarse, shallow food trays, and conical seed baskets for their own use, and other baskets in more conventional shapes for sale.

The harvest in, mesquite and local seeds gathered, there is no further attraction in the canyon. By the middle of October, the sun is beginning to linger only six or seven hours between the cliffs, imparting but little heat and the exodus to the plateau around the head of Topocobya Trail on the east is begun. By single families, or in groups of 2 or 3 they go off to establish snug camp in the denser cedar thickets. Antelope, mountain sheep and deer abound on the plateau. Cottontails, jack rabbits and squirrels are plentiful. Hunting in the gorges of the Grand Canyon is really a hazardous enterprise. One instance was recorded of a wounded ram charging his pursuer and hurling him from a narrow ledge. Yet killings are sometimes tame affairs. One man standing at the door of his house shot a mountain sheep but a short distance away. They frequently descend the canyon to the village. These plateau homes are semi-permanent, for they move from time to time as piñon nuts are reported growing thickly in one glade, wild seeds abundant in another locality or hunting good near the mountain. When the snow falls, rabbits, deer and antelopes are easier to track. During this season they live in part on corn which they have carried up from the canyon and from time to time replenish from the little granaries in the cliffs.

Early spring finds the Havasupai drifting along the ledges of the Grand Canyon to resume life in the village. With the melting snows, they must descend to a water supply. Spring planting begins in the middle of April; meanwhile they live on corn and on mescal gathered from the red standstone benches where it ripens in May. Wild bees live in dead logs and the flower stalks of dead mescal. Rock salt is collected from a cave in the cliff Few visitors get to Supailand because it is only to be reached by long steep trails both from the east and the west. The Indians usually can be approached for horses to make the trip.

On the south side of the Colorado, where Canyon. Horses and cattle are owned and there are stalactites of it. This is ground and herded by men alone; they have had a fair much less than we are accustomed to is used. number of these ever since Spanish days. Mormon tea furnishes a drink. Yucca fruit When John D. Lee was in hiding after the ripens on the plateau at the end of SeptemMountain Meadow Massacre, he spent three ber. A variety of seeds are gathered-pigweed, years with the Havasupai. He taught them goosefruit, juniper berries and piñon nuts, better farming methods and started peach The leaves of roasted mescal may either be orchards that produced excellent fruit. Most chewed at once to obtain pulp and juice or of the trees, however, were washed out in a mashed and spread in a thin layer on an big flood a few years ago. arrow-reed mat to dry. The leaves of the young plant are boiled and served as we do cabbage. Havasupai styles of personal decoration are The fruit of the prickly pear cactus ripens at not extravagant; hair dressing, painting and the same time as peaches. The spring fruits are tattooing are only moderately developed. broken off with tongs, rolled about on the Women's hair is banged below the eyebrows to ground with a bundle of brush and finally the outside of the eyes and at the side and rubbed individually with a rag to remove the back to the shoulders or a little below. The spines completely. Havasupai women take pride in their washing it weekly in a yucca suds, a soap substitute Largely agriculturalists, all of the one made from roots of the narrow leaved yucca hundred tillable acres of land are farmed by pounded into a pulpy mass and dried. This the Havasupai. Each family plants as much leaves the hair soft and ever so glossy. Men corn as possible. Corn, beans and squash are wear their hair full length to the small of the the staples, the year-round food. Private ownback. When infants are one day old, the ership of land exists only where the land is lobes of their ears are pierced by a relative cultivated. With the exception of a few patches or friend with a sharp instrument. The action elsewhere in their territory, such as the Indian is said to be ornamental in intent, but piercing Gardens on the Bright Angel Trail below the ears is supposed to prevent deafness. While Grand Canyon station, the fields are located face painting is indulged in by both sexes in the vicinity of the village in Cataract and all ages, it is neither very brilliant nor In daily use. Red paint is not obtainable near the village but is taken from a mine on Diamond Creek in Hualapai territory. The sweatlodge functions as a clubhouse for the men. Several of the more popular lodges are located on the bank of the creek. Here a dozen men may be found during the heat of the day, stretched on the sand awaiting their turn to enter, naked save for breechcloth, gossiping and discussing affairs of state. The lodge is a dome-shaped structure consisting of light poles set into the ground at intervals arched and bound with strips of bark. Two horizontal braces are bent around these. one near the bottom, the other halfway up the side, but leaving space for entrance. The frame is completely covered with several layers of blankets and buffalo robes, furnishing an air and light tight structure. The floor is freshly strewn with green twigs, save for the space immediately to the left of the door where the stones are always placed. These are heated on a slowly burning woodpile nearby, and carried in with green sticks. It is customary for a man to go into the lodge four times during the afternoon. It is considered advisable to bathe in the stream first, taking copious draughts. The bathers crouch side by side with legs crossed before them. The leader or host sits at the extreme rear with a basin of water by his side. It is pitch-black; the heat is intense, each breath burns the nostrils and the roots of the hair feel ablaze. Suddenly the leader bursts into song, the others may join him. Near the end of their stay (10 minutes or more) the leader sprinkles water on the rocks with his fingers. To escape the fierce steam which rises to the top of the lodge, one bows face to earth, gradually rising as he is inured. On emerging the bather may plunge into the creek, or loll about waiting his turn again. Religious matters occupy but a minor place in Havasupai life. Ceremonialism is meager and interest in the supernatural is neither extensive nor developed in systematic form. Shamanistic power is acquired by inheritance or by dreaming. The important shaman is the one who cures. The shaman is called in by a relative of the sick person. He performs by night in the camp singing over the patient, and sucking out the disease which he exhibits. If the patient does not improve another shaman may be called on. In fact there may be more than one shaman working at one time. Their effects alternate, one sings for two or three nights, then the other may even be present at the same time. The penalty for malpractice is death. One shaman was killed because he was held to have spitefully and magically caused an epidemic. An unsuccessful shaman, particularly one who had failed for a long time might be killed by a relative of a patient who died. Weather shamans are about on a par with those who cure; they obtain power by dreaming of clouds, thunder, lightning and great rain and hailstones. Besides the shamanistic performances there is some matter-of-fact knowledge of curing. Wounds are sung over in the sweatlodge by the wound doctor who knows the appropriate song while he blows on them. A few medicinal plants are known, but on the whole, internal medication does not appeal to the Havasupai. A man who wants health, prosperity or success addresses the earth, trees, water, air and wind. Prayers are also addressed to the springs where prayer-sticks are planted, but not to the dead nor to the mythical beings in Pueblo style. This is peculiar in view of the frank admiration these Indians have for the Hopi. The almost complete lack of group ceremonials sets the Havasupai apart from the Pueblos and the rancheria peoples to the east and south. The principal departure of the Havasupai dance from the others is in the musical accompaniment. All the others use the notched rasp. In fact, the Havasupai use of the rattle is clearly taken over from the Pueblos. They associate this rasping sound with the frog and the production of rain. These Indians believe that the source of their stream is sacred and pure; that polluted by the touch of man it would cease to give forth its waters and the rocks of the canyon would close forever together.

If you want a really thrilling experience, follow the trail into Cataract Canyon. The horse trail ends at Mooney Falls where the entire face of the bluff, which extends across the canyon is covered with a travertine deposit. You may follow a foot path which leads down the face of the bluff for several hundred feet and descend through a tunnel in the travertine. The lower entrance, opposite the center of the fall affords an excellent view of the pool and the clouds of white foam. Below this opening rude steps cut in the cliff (dangerous when wet) and an equally rude hand rail lead to the verdant canyon below.

Postwar tourists may find it possible to take a leisurely boat trip up the Colorado River to the lower entrance of the Grand Canyon to see this seldom visited tribe of Indians, if the dream of Arizona's representative in Congress, John R. Murdock, comes true. As chairman of the House irrigation and reclamation committee, Representative Murdock reveals as part of its plans for future development of the Colorado river basin, that the reclamation bureau is contemplating a 750-foot-high dam on the Colorado river above Boulder dam and below the southern entrance to the canyon. Such a dam, designed to impound waters of the Colorado, would back up a lake for many miles. The dam would be at Bridge canyon. Mr. Murdock believes the topography of the canyon is such that the dam could be raised to 1,000 feet. The lake would stretch back up the river to the mouth of Havasupai canyon, and riding on a man-made lake, one could view a part of the nationally-famous gorge that now is seldom seen by white men.

Travel difficulties now permit visitors to see only a fraction of the scenic wonders of Grand Canyon. The lake would change this. It must be accomplished through the cooperation of the reclamation bureau and the national park service according to the Arizonan. The lake would be backed up for a short distance within the Grand Canyon National Park boundaries, but would in no way impair the scenic beauties of the country.

"Some of the most marvelous sights in the country are around Havasupai, but no one ever gets to see them," Mr. Murdock said.

"THE BREAD MAKER"

Supailand is far from a convenient corner grocery store. Homemakers of the tribe follow the same cooking methods that have been in use for many generations past. Corn is a staple food.

"THE WATER IS COOL"

All Supai Indian children must learn to swim almost before learning to walk. The creek in the canyon forms innumerable pools which are fine for swimming, especially in the hot summertime.