Hualapai-indians

The Hualapais

As Seen by Their Neighbors
James Miller and Clara Miller

Three of the famous Hualapai chiefs of the past were Hualapai Charlie, Sherum, and Leve Leve.	Three of the famous Hualapai chiefs of the past were Hualapai Charlie, Sherum, and Leve Leve.
Susie worked in many Kingman homes and was well liked by everyone. This is a copy of her picture which is in the Bonelli House.	Three Indian Scouts at Peach Springs: Indian Hyaha, Cate Crozier. Jim Mahone

No story of Kingman's past would be complete without some account of the Hualapai Indians whose ancestors lived in and around Kingman and whose descendants continue to spend much of their time and money in Kingman, whether they live within its borders or at the reservation at Peach Springs.

All the individuals and groups who contributed to the building of Kingman in its first century (1882-1982) have reason for pride. The oldest of these groups is, of course, the original holders of the land, the Hualapai Indians.

Long ago, as far back as anyone can remember, the Hualapai country was centered in the Great Bend of the Colorado with the powerful Mohaves living on either side of the lower Colorado to the west and the enemy Yavapais living to the south and east. The Hualapais occupied about 10,000 square miles of desert country, broken by mountain ranges and broad valleys and canyons. There were many springs but few flowing rivers. The people engaged in limited agriculture, gathering, and hunting.

Father Francisco Tomas Hermenegildo Garces recorded in his diary and itinerary his explorations in June, 1776, something of the friendliness of the Hualapai inhabitants who shared their meat with him and his Mohave guide.

During the period of Spanish influence (1750-1821). there were effects on Hualapai trade eastward, and the Hualapai added a few Spanish words to their vocabulary.

Anglo Mountain Men came through the area: Young in 1829, and Wolf skin, Yount, and Weaver in 1829-1830.

In addition to the usual food gathering and hunting occupations, there was some trading as a side occupation. A red pigment which could be mined in Diamond Creek Canyon was traded to other tribes living on the southern area of the Colorado River. In exchange the Hualapais received shells from the Pacific and garden produce. A supply of red iron oxide was found by the Indians in the western border of the White Hills about 18 miles north of Chloride in the Indian Secret Mining district. The mines here also had rich silver ore. They were not known to the white inhabitants until after 1892 when Hualapai Jeff aided Henry Shaffer and showed him the mine. The Hualapais had always been on friendly terms with the Havasupai tribe to the northeast and the Hopi pueblos on the east. With them, they traded shells, red pigment, tanned buckskins, wild desert products and in return received maize and other pueblo produce, and cotton blankets. The presence of stone tools in the turquoise sections of Kingman area copper mines indicate that turquoise must have been another item of trade in this area.

Within the Kingman city limits is an area known as Beale Springs. Long before the advent of the white man, the local Hualapai Indians had established a village known as Hakumeve or Hakoome. Springs were very necessary to sustain life on the desert. Smithwick mentioned that possibly the Grapevine Spring west of Beale Spring and the Atlantic Spring on the east were sacred spots of the Hualapais according to some informants.

Father Garces journeyed near the location of Hakumeve in 1776. Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves (1851), Francois X. Aubry (1853. 1854), and Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple (1854) were Anglo-American explorers who also passed close to Hakumeve. Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale (1857-1860) and Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives (1858) traveled close by Hakumeve.

Many historical events are associated with Beale Springs. There were the first wagon trains over Beale's Road in 1858, miners from Fort Mojave in 1863, a way station for the Mohave and Prescott Toll Road in 1865. There were reports of Indian and military skirmishes in the late 1860s, and the Hualapai Wars of 1866-1870.

The pre-reservation and perhaps later uses of the Beale Springs area by the Hualapais have left their mark on the memory of living Hualapais. Said Edgar Walema, now a resident of Peach Springs: "In my old memories of Kingman, one of the nicest places that used to be available (and we used it for picnics and camping out) was the old Fort Beale area and Clack's Canyon. That area is closed now and fenced off. I go up there and I look around and remember when we camped there. But you don't see that now. Today the signs are warnings: 'No trespassing. Will be prosecuted.'

"You know, that area used to belong to the Hualapai Indians and there are a lot of old Indian camps in that area. There is a cemetery up there; I have been trying to locate it for many years, but I imagine it is all washed out. It was upon one of the high grounds at Camp Beale. I spent most of one summer looking for it. There are not many old timers left in our tribe. Some of them remember, but they will point and say it was such and such a distance that way. They try to describe the surroundings, but with change, years, and erosion, things look different."

The original Hualapai lands were part of the territory ceded to the United States at the end of the Mexican War in 1848. For nine years the United States' influence was largely confined to exploratory expeditions. Some of the animals belonging to these explorers were stolen and killed.

A great change came, however, in 1857 when Naval Lt. Edward Beale opened up a government wagon road along the Thirty-Fifth Parallel from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to the Colorado River. The road Beale laid out goes through present day Seligman. Peach Springs, Truxton. Valentine, and Kingman. Then the road crosses Thirteen Mile and Sacramento Washes via Sitgreaves Pass through the Black Mountains near Oatman and down to the Colorado, at a point where Fort Mohave was later built (1859) to protect travelers from the Mohave Indians. Beale followed an Indian trail to find the pass over the Black Mountains.

When Lt. Beale returned from California the next year, he reported, "I am pleased to find how clearly our wagons have defined the road we explored last summer. The Indians have already commenced to follow our broad, well-beaten trail and horse, mule, moccasin, and barefooted tracks are quite plenty on the road."

The first group of emigrants in wagon trains crossed Arizona in 1858. Unfortunately, these newcomers were disrupting the life of the Indians and interfering with their hunting. It is not surprising that the Hualapais turned from curiosity about the road and those who traveled it to hostility and hatred born of fear. In 1888, William Hardy remembered the early days of Beale's Road and wrote, "It was not uncommon in traveling through the Aztec Pass to see two or three hundred deer or antelope in a day. This game has all been driven out or killed off, and the whole country around is overstocked with cattle and horses. Game is rarely seen, but there is cattle on a thousand hills."

Beale's Road became the best road in Arizona. The 1870's were its most important period. It was safe and direct — a good route to southern California from the east. Gold was discovered on Lynx Creek near the Bradshaw Mountains and in the Prescott area. Mining men from California and other miners hurried over Beale's Road to get to the diggings. Mormon missionaries under orders from the Prophet Brigham Young explored the area near the road and started the towns of Joseph City, Show Low, and St. Johns.

A contract between the Walapai Indians and the Mohave & Prescott Toll Company is recorded in The Walapai Papers as of July 15, 1865. Wauba Yuma, Hitchie Hitchie, and Sherum signed for the Hualapais, granting the right to maintain a road commencing at the Town of Hardyville free from molestation by the Indians to William H. Hardy, acting agent for the Mohave & Prescott Toll Company.

Permission to construct this private toll road was given by the First Arizona Territorial Assembly. Abraham Lincoln had signed the statute making Arizona a separate territory on February 24, 1863. John Dunn, Indian Agent in Prescott, wrote in his report (in 1865) that the Indians were destitute but friendly and that placing them on a reservation was the only safe and just mode of caring for them. He wrote, "We have a war waged upon us by the Yavapais, Hualapai, and Apache Mojaves brought on by the wanton and cruel aggressions of not only the settlers, but the troops placed here for protection and peace. Sometime last January, Capt. Thompson, now in command at Fort Whipple, went out on a scout into the Hualapai country with one George Cooler as guide, and surprised a rancheria "killing a number of men, women, and children." He stated that the Indians did not retaliate "until their war chief, Anasa, of the Hualapai, was killed some weeks ago by some wanton and intoxicated squatters on a ranch 75 miles west of this place. Since then, they have been on the warpath, and we have felt their power. Already they have killed several of our best citizens, taken two trains, and stolen a quantity of stock, and are now prowling on every trail and road, so that our communication is pretty much cut off.

Lt. Colonel Roger Jones, in a report of July 21, 1869, stated, "Prior to 1866, they (Hualapais) were at peace with the whites, but in that year their head chief, Wauba Yuma, was killed by a freighter on the mere suspicion that some of his young men had assisted in the killing of a white man at the tollgate near Aztec Pass." There was open and bitter hostility. The officers considered the Hualapais brave and enterprising. The army carried out many search-and- destroy missions.

Major Price arranged for peace 1869-1870. after the war was over. In 1871, the miners who had fled during the conflict returned.

An army outpost was established at Camp Beale's Springs in 1871. A temporary reservation for about 600-650 Hualapais extended for a mile around the fort.

During this period the army under General Crook saw to it that the Hualapais were well fed. The Walapai Papers include letters written by Crook and others asking for proper rations.

The Hualapais were willing to become scouts because it was a great honor to be one of General Crook's soldiers and because they were glad of the opportunity to go after their enemies, the Yavapais. There were successful battles in September and October 1872. Captain J. W. Mason, in a letter to General George Crook, said, "I cannot speak too highly of our Hualapai scouts. Their scouting was excellent, and when the fight came off they were not a bit behind the soldiers."

When the scouts were mustered out the following year, many of them "reenlisted in the company of scouts raised to function under the control of Camp Beale's Springs itself."" An extract from General Crook's report, of September 2, 1873, has this to say about the Hualapais: "They have rendered invaluable service to the country in the lat campaigns, and I trust that gratitude as well as humanity will prompt as liberal appropriations in their favor, at least, as shall be made in favor of those Indians who have been so long and persistently hostile."

"The Walapais still cultivated maize, squash, and melons, but the loss of capital goods and food stores during the Walapai War had reduced some of them, at least, from entrepreneurs to beggars. On a request of President Grant's peace commissioner, the army began to issue government rations to the Walapais."

In 1869, Lt. Colonel Roger Jones estimated that there were about 600 Hualapai chiefly in the Cerbat and Aquarius Mountains and the eastern slope of the Black Mountains. "They range through the Hualapai, Yampa and Sacramento Valleys from the Bill Williams Fork on the South to Diamond River on the North." A special order was sent from the Headquarters Department of Arizona at Prescott to abandon the Camp Beale's Spring military camp and reservation and to relocate the Hualapais at the Colorado River Indian Agency at La Paz. The Hualapais first fled, but later peaceably returned and left for La Paz."

The events of 1874-1875 were so horrible and the sense of betrayal so great that their treatment was magnified into a major event of Hualapai history. The Hualapais were moved by forced march in April, 1874. under military escort from Camp Beale's Springs to the Colorado Indian Reservation southward along the Colorado to La Paz. They were imprisoned there for a year. "The Chemehuevi Valley in the summer of 1874 seemed like hell on earth to Walapai internees."

The sense of betrayal came to the Hualapais as soldiers whom they had helped, and who had been friendly to them, forced them to obey what the Indians "perceived as capricious, unjust orders."

Edgar Walema tells the story in these words: "The Army was ordered to round up all 'hostile' Indians. Apparently every man, woman, and child was hostile, for they took all of them. They were all collected and marched. You know of Trail of Tears' of the Cherokees, and the Navajo 'Long Walk", but this also happened in the state of Arizona.

"In those days the Indian agents were trusted at the food distribution points so the people would get supplement for their food. Agents at the time were greedy, you know, and they would either take the material and sell it or trade it off for cash or whatever they could get. So there were a lot of Indians who were starving in the concentration camps then."

"The Indians were ordered north to the location of the Indian Agency on March 20. 1875. The Indian Agent, no longer under the control of the army commander, Capt. Thomas Byrne, who had "made sure Walapais received meat rations daily" cut the issuance of beef drastically. The Indians now knew "real hunger." and three young men died at the Indian Agency camp. The Hualapais fled back to their original lands. They left La Paz on April 20,1875, one year to the day since their arrival.

Chief Sherum in the spring of 1875 went to Prescott to meet with the Territorial Governor. A. P. K. Safford. He won the governor's support for letting the Hualapais be where they were after fleeing the Indian Agency. "Sherum promised that the Walapais would not steal from or kill whites, but would work for them. He won the governor's support with the promise of economic subordination." On May 8, 1876. Governor Safford wrote a letter to General Kautz stating that Cherum desired peace. He gave Cherum's reasons for leaving La Paz: It was unhealthy — 10 Indian soldiers, 10 squaws, and eight children had died. There had been plenty to eat at Beale Springs, but not at La Paz. As Chief of the Hualapais he would be responsible for their conduct and would catch and punish any bad ones, but they would not return. Governor Safford wrote that he believed that the Hualapais would fight rather than return and that Cherum would act in good faith as he had promised.

The army officers in the area were the ones who really took some responsibility for the people of their former trusty Hualapai scouts. Major J. W. Mason of the Third Cavalry, Whipple Barracks, A.T., on June 16, 1882, wrote the following about the Hualapais in his report, according to The Walapai Papers: "Ten years ago they were cared for at Beale Springs. This place was a home for them, and although during food gathering season they scattered over a large extent of country, yet, when sick or inclined, they returned to this point, where they were sure of a safe abiding place. From here they were moved to La Paz on the Colorado River, and set down on the dust, miles away from wood and grass. They are mountain Indians, and this was a sore tax upon them. Failure to feed them, on the part of the proper authorities and the intolerableness of their condition, drove them to the mountains, where, as I understand, they have remained up to this time, gathering seeds, the fruit of the cacti, and getting a little game occasionally and receiving what food a generously disposed military administration has been able to get from the Indian Department.

"Now every stream, water-hole, and square foot of arable land are taken by the white men, and the Indian has no place to call his own. He is a homeless wanderer in his own land.

"In view of the foregoing, I would respectfully recommend, as a preliminary measure that a reservation be set aside for these Indians to include Peach Springs in Mojave county. There is ample water here for the whole tribe, plenty of good grazing in its vicinity, and within easy distance of the railroad, making a minimum cost of furnishing them their supplies, and, above all, giving them what all races of all nations crave for and have a right to — a home." On January 4, 1883, President Chester A. Arthur signed the executive order creating the Hualapai reservation. The fact of the reservation began to be important to the Hualapais in the next century, especially as representatives of the federal government led the Indians to form a tribal council, based on increasing democratic foundations and with independent authority.

Meanwhile more white people were moving into the area and taking over much of what had been Indian land. Division Engineer Lewis Kingman started west along Beale's Road from Albuquerque making a final survey. Construction crews reached Arizona in July, 1881. They were able to lay about ten miles of track a week. On August 1. 1882 they reached Flagstaff. On March 27, 1883, they arrived at Kingman. The significant immediate influence on Indian life came from the railroad, which also had to do preeminently with the founding of Kingman. The railroad gave new opportunities for income to the Indians. It brought them into contact with the white people in the railroad towns. It gave them the more adventurous ways of traveling from town to town. Life was not easy for the Hualapais. Charles Spencer of Hackberry was asked to write to the Commander at Fort Whipple so as to get help for the Hualapais. The Walapai Papers gave this record of his letter: "The captains of the different Bands request me to present to you the fact that the United States have for the past three years furnished them flour and beef during the fall and winter months. They wish this continued.

"There have been complaints about stock being stolen, but so far as my own knowledge and the officials of the county extend, the stock had been stolen by whites as our County is filled up with thieves and desperadoes at the present time."

Captain John G. Bourke of the Third Cavalry wrote to the Adjutant General, U. S. Army, Washington, D. C, on May 22, 1886. He said. "They have been valuable scouts for us in time past and are a brave, daring people, worthy of better treatment than that received of late from our government."

Indian children were taken away from their families at an early age and brought to government boarding schools where they might stay for three or more years before visiting their families. Here are two accounts. One is a report made on February 13, 1929 and recorded in The Walapai Papers; the other is the personal reaction of a man who grew up in Valentine and observed the children at the school. Perhaps the first stresses the physical conditions; the second the emotional overtones.

Mr. Allen E. Ware, manager of Tarr, McComb & Ware, was requested by Superintendent F. T. Mann of the Truxton Canyon Indian School at Valentine, Arizona, to select a committee to visit the school. The committee consisted of
Mrs. Nelle E. Clack, former County Superintendent of Schools; Miss Letitia B. Mould, Red Cross nurse in charge of schools in Mohave County; and H. L. Horner, Assistant Manager of Arizona Central Bank of Kingman.

They reported that there were 220 children between 6 and 17. In all there were six tribes represented, with the Hualapai predominating. "We attended mess at noon in the general dining room, and while the food served was of the so-called 'coarse' or 'heavy' variety, it was good in quality, wholesome, well cooked and well served, and ample in quantity." The children marched in and were orderly. Their clothing was simple and inexpensive in texture, but warm and clean. They seemed to be well provided for as to food, clothing, housing, schooling, medical attention, and amusement. The children seemed to be generally healthy and happy.

Robert Peart said, "They had an Indian boarding school at Valentine and all the Indian children went to school there. They brought Indian children from the Navajo reservation, from Oklahoma and all over, and they treated them like prisoners. They lived in dormitories. They marched them back and forth to classes and meals. On Saturday they used to line up all the girls in a line and march them down to my mother's store so they could buy some candy. And if they didn't have any money for candy, they marched them right along with the rest for exercise and got them out of the region of the school.

"I remember another thing. They took a bunch of the boys and marched them down into the cactus patches for Thanksgiving dinner and for Christmas dinner. They made big circles and gave them big clubs, and they would close in the circle and kill jackrabbits and cottontails, and that is what they had for their Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner —rabbits. They had men who would beat the dickens out of the bigger boys if they didn't do exactly what they wanted. I don't think that prisoners in prison were or are treated as badly as those Indian children were treated back then."

The Indians worked long and hard to get control of their own schools.

The railroad was not the blessing many people might suppose. The Santa Fe, which had taken over the Atlantic and Pacific Railway and its land claims (and ran it as a subsidiary of the Santa Fe until 1897 when it was amalgamated with the parent company), insisted that every other section of the Hualapai reservation belonged to the railroad. There had been a long-standing controversy as to the status of the lands within the outside boundaries of the Hualapai Indian Reservation. It was always the contention of the railroad that the grant of the odd sections under the act of 1866 included all of the odd sections within this reservation. Circular No. 1029 of the General Land Office dated September 8, 1925, provided for regulations for carrying out of the act of February 20, 1925, which authorizes re-conveyances and relinquishment of the lands, otherwise exchanges with this reservation, thereby acknowledging the ownership of the railroad of the odd sections.

The railroad said that the Indian community was committing waste and removing timber. A hearing was held at Valentine, Arizona, on May 22, 1931. Present were Senators Frazier, Chairman; and Senator Wheeler. Senator Carl Hayden of Arizona was also present as ex officio member of the subcommittee on Indian Affairs. U. S. Senate, 71st Congress, 3rd session.

Many individuals presented their evidence with or without an interpreter. Senator Hayden read a petition of Mr. Fred Mahone that asked that the act of Congress authorizing this exchange of land be repealed and that the entire reservation be given to the Indians. Many others were recorded including a petition from the American Legion, Swaskegame Post, Kingman, dated December 18, 1930, asking that the government should not deprive the Indians of their homeland. Senator Hayden concluded that the Santa Fe had no title and that the entire reservation belonged to the Hualapai Indians. They did not have to give up the best parts of their reservation. They were able to keep it all.

John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1933 to 1946, sought to expand tribal holdings, encourage traditional cultures, and create internal self-government on the reservations. Many of his ideas were incorporated in the
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (the Wheeler-Howard Act). This act halted all land allotments to whites, provided for improved education and health facilities, granted funds by which tribes could expand their holdings and become more self-sustaining, returned to the Indians freedom to practice their old religions, gave tribes rights to internal self-government and to form corporations for management of their resources.

Under the Indian Claims Commission of 1946, it was possible to file claims for compensation for lands without a special act of Congress. The Commission has been an effective mediator between the Indians and the government.

The OEO program under Johnson in 1964 gave the tribe access to funds, agencies, and programs not under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They were able to design and run programs themselves like Headstart, Upward Bound, Bilingual schools, and the Neighborhood Youth Corps.

The Area Redevelopment Administration (ARA) made it possible to apply for grants to build community halls, tribal headquarters, service buildings, and to attract industry. The tribes were able to contribute land and services instead of matching funds The EDA, or Economic Development Administration, was a successor of ARA. The EDA was established within the Commerce Department by the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965. The EDA provided grants for public works facilities construction, loans for commercial business development and federal technical assistance to encourage economic growth. The chief purpose of EDA was long range economic development of areas with severe unemployment and low family income problems.

The Indian Self-Determination Act of 1974 set up administrative machinery to permit Indian tribes to assume control and operation of federal programs carried out on their reservations for their benefit. The act also provided for increased control by Indians of their own educational activities and authorized federal assistance for construction of schools for Indian students."

These federal acts have made it possible for the Hualapais to enjoy more self-government and to get the federal assistance they need and are entitled to have. It is to the credit of the tribal leaders that they were willing to move ahead in this fashion.

Helen W. Johnson in "American Indians in Transition" has this to say, "Both excessive paternalism and termination of the trust relationships have become discredited as national policy regarding Indians. As the President s message of 1970 stated, Federal termination errs in one direction, Federal paternalism errs in the other.' It is also widely accepted that the integrity of the Indian culture should be preserved, not only as a contribution to cultural pluralism which enriches society as a whole, but also as a reflection of the desires of the Indian people themselves."

Some of the Hualapai men and women have told what life was like in the old days as they were growing up. They remember ways of life in terms of food procurement and tribal customs that are different from the present. Some of their stories follow.

The year 1900 is the point at which the earliest memories of the persons interviewed for this book tend to begin. It is appropriate, therefore, to consider the impressions of Hualapai life in the twentieth century as recalled by those interviewed.

Willie Walker of Peach Springs believed that "from 1930 to 1960, there were a number of Indians that died off. But from 1960 on, the Indians are increasing."

Annie Querta told how babies were born, "the Indian way" in the nineteen-twenties in Peach Springs:

"They dig a hole in the ground and make a fire in it on big rocks. They make the rocks hot. When the fire is all out, the rocks are hot. they cover the rocks with the dirt, and put the mother's bedding over the hot rocks. You add enough dirt so you won't get burned. The mother lies on this hot place, and when the baby is born, it is with her, on the side. The mother is put there so she won't get cold and have cramps or get fever."

Willie Walker supplied some information from the other end of life, the cemetery at Valentine. He related its beginning to the school at Valentine. When the school was established (he believed the date to be 1902 or 1904) it at first accepted no Hualapai children, but children from other tribes (from Utah, the Pima reservation, etc.). During World War I, there was an epidemic of German measles at the Valentine school which resulted in the death of some of these non-Hualapai children, who may have been orphans. Possibly the school records did not adequately identify these children. At any rate, governmental authorities buried the children where the Hualapai cemetery is now, and the Hualapai people have continued to bury their dead in that area.

References thus far to places of Indian habitation in the Kingman area suggest the value of a more complete list: Peach Springs, Valentine, Hackberry, Chloride, the Big Sandy Valley, and Yampai near Nelson.

Willie Walker gave a rather complete listing of places Indians were living in and around Kingman when he was a boy (around 1915 and later): "From where Grant Tapija's place is now (South Eighth Street) up on top of the hill there were quite a few families living. Then below on the west side and then on the east side, there were a lot of Indians living. Also there were a lot of Indians living in what we used to call old Slaughter House Canyon, where the Indians' community is now. Also on the north side, northeast of the high school at the foot of these hills, there were quite a few Indians."

There seemed to be general agreement that the existence of peach trees in the Peach Springs area, from which the community got it's name, date back to the Spanish influence (from about 1750 to 1821). Edgar Walema was the authority for the following statement:

"Father Garces came to this area in 1776. That was the first time white people came here. Peach Springs was one of the areas that he established. He planted peach trees. But the ones we have now were planted by the Mormons."

The source of water available to the Peach Springs community is of some interest to Kingmanites: "The Peach Springs water is down in the canyon, three miles from here (i.e., three miles from Peach Springs). It was pumped here by the Santa Fe, and the tribe buys the water from the Santa Fe, but now the tribe has its own well down here this side of Truxton. It has just been completed so we have our own water now." Litigation over the Santa Fe control of Peach Springs water has been activated in the past, and apparently could be resumed in the future.

Housing for Indian people in Mohave County in most of this century has left much to be desired.

Mary Garrehty Nelson continued to live at Peach Springs with her husband John, a rancher, for perhaps a quarter of a century after their marriage in 1912. She recalled a town of some size, including the homes of many non-Indians who worked for the railroad. Housing built for the non-Indians by the Santa Fe was apparently quite acceptable housing. Of the Indians she says, "The Indians lived in shacks and had poor living conditions."

Eva Schrum reflected living on the Sandy in the earlier years of the century when her parents were going blind: "We lived in a lumber house, but with branches. We lived at Trout Creek. The house was not cold in the winter. My father plastered it with mud so the wind would not come in."

Much more acceptable housing has been built in Peach Springs for the Hualapais during the last ten years or so. Currently more housing is being built: According to Willie Walker new houses now under construction "are being built by Shuffler and Kerley and Timberland Builders from Tempe. There are going to be 40 houses, as I understand. The water will be piped into all the houses."

It is generally recognized that much of the mythic, religious, and artistic cultural tradition of the Hualapais is preserved in songs sung in connection with funerals. According to Mr. Walker, songs were sung at Indian pow-wows in Kingman by "Indians from Needles, the Mohaves; some Chemehuevis {below Needles some place they have a reservation); Paiutes from St. George. These tribes have their songs, dancing, and singing in their own languages, and they have their own dances. Also some of the Supais participated; they have their own dance."

It was the heads of the Indian communities in the Sandy, Chloride, Hackberry, Peach Springs, Seligman who planned the pow-wows at Kingman. The pow-wows in Kingman were held where the present Little League Park is now and also near the present National Guard Armory. As to the contents of the Hualapai songs sung at the pow-wows in Kingman, Willie Walker continued:

"Some of the Hualapai songs were copied from the Mohaves; they call them the bird songs. From how I understand it, the theme of the songs started in the evening. The songs tell about the Indians gathering in the evening. They express through their song an invitation that we are gathering here for such a purpose. When the midnight time comes they have midnight songs. Then there is daybreak, they sing the morning songs including a sort of farewell song early in the morning."

Bertha Russell remembered "salt songs" at the pow-wows which told of what is right and wrong in living, and about brave warriors.

Pow-wows, as described, represented an attempt on the part of the older Indians to perpetuate the Indian cultural traditions. On the white people's side, effort was made on the part of both church and state to stamp out the traditions represented by the pow-wows and the funeral songs and dances. Early church missionaries felt that this must be done since so many of the ceremonies and interpretations of life embodied in these cultural expressions came out of the religious side of Indian culture, regarded as pagan and heathenish by these nineteenth and earlier twentieth century missionaries. Government leadership, apparently, thought that the Indians would be more manageable if they could be assimilated into the prevailing Anglo culture.

Accordingly, Indian children were taken from their families by force, if necessary, and sent to government or church schools. One feature of these schools was that the Indian children were not allowed to speak their own language. Said Eva Schrum, "Police took me to Valentine to school. It was a boarding school." At the Valentine school, she said, "We girls, we always go up on the rocks, you know, and we spoke Hualapai and a school official heard us and called us down. We said, 'He wants to give us candy, we go!' Instead he said, 'You were talking Hualapai over there.' He got after us and put us on a stool and whipped us."

In the early years of this century, diet depended to a high degree on the circumstances of the area where the Hualapai lived. Eva Schrum said of the Valentine school: "They gave us good food at the school." Eva Schrum was born in the Hualapai Mountain area and later moved down on the Sandy. On the mountains there were pinion nuts to be roasted, red berries which could be pounded and made into a type of kool-ade to which sugar was added. From hunting came deer and rabbits.

In the mountains, Eva Schrum said, "They did not plant gardens. We planted corn and pumpkins and melons down on the Sandy, a good place to grow things "

Carter Havatone pictured an even more abundant diet on the Sandy: "My grandfather owned about 160 acres of good farming land on the Sandy. He had milk cows and pigs and ducks. He also had orchards of pears, peaches, apples, grapes. He had alfalfa for the cows and horses. He planted corn and beans, squash and melons. Back in those days, the Sandy River flowed all the time so we had water for all this."

Willie Walker, as a boy, lived at Mineral Park, during the years beginning approximately with 1910 and continuing to 1915. He said. "At that time we were getting lots of food. My father would go to the boarding places, hauling in wood and stuff. When he unloaded, the Chinese cook would give him lots of food and leftovers, bread and stuff. He would bring home food every night."

Annie Querta reflected Hualapai diet on the reservation about 1910: dried pinions, dried prickly pear fruit, bread given out on ration. Women made flour tortillas or fried bread. Hunting by her husband or other male relatives yielded deer, rabbits, antelopes. Dried corn came from the Supais in exchange for Hualapai deer meat. Sometimes the government ration included sugar and coffee beans, which the women ground on the rocks in order to make coffee.

Agnes Havatone told how rabbits were hunted on the reservation. Early in this century a group of Hualapais would hunt together. They would call to one another to inform each other when the rabbits had been driven into their holes. Then the group would drive the rabbits out of their holes and kill the rabbits by hitting them over the head with rabbit clubs. Sometimes they smoked the rabbits out of the holes.

Indian crafts seem to have been in the decline by 1924 when in Kingman the main business enterprise was the railroad. Carter Havatone told about the making of baskets and other things that were sold by the Hualapais to railroad passengers at that time:

"I remember my grandmother who lived in Chloride She used to take me with her on horseback, maybe a mile north of Chloride. She knew where to get the reeds and willows to make the baskets. Some Hualapais did bead work. They did mostly bead work and baskets. They would buy these beads by the bags, or they came in strings. They made capes, collars, purses, belts, and headbands. I couldn't tell how much such things sold for.

"They made burden baskets and cradles to sell. Some of these things were made from willow and arrow weeds. "Whenever a train would come through (these people knew when the train was coming), they would be out there ready to go and have beads on their arms; they carried the baskets. They would go along the passenger trains. They would not go inside the train, but the people could buy right through the window."

Eva Schrum brought the story further into the present: "My mother always made baskets. I've seen them, but I don't make them. I don't try to learn. I make cradle boards. I sell them. I have worked in the doll factory here. They stopped making them."

Hualapais followed a variety of occupations as ways of survival after the white settlement. Eva Schrum's father did gardening and sold horses in the Big Sandy area. Her husband Virgil was a cowboy. While he had room and board, he "had to stay down in Kingman At that time, they don't pay much, thirty dollars a month, that is all." When asked if the tribe could give any money to help out when her husband's salary was only $30, and there were five children to feed, Eva Schrum reminded her interviewers that the price of groceries was much lower then (in the twenties and thirties) than now. She added. "Old lady, Virgil's mother, she get a pension. She lives with us. She got fifty dollars a month, from the government." The pension came, however, only during her mother-in-law's lifetime.

Annie Ouerta's husband, Frosty, in the early part of her marriage, "worked in a mine, way up in the Sandy, — just helping."

Mrs. Querta regarded her husband's pay as a cowboy to have been low, especially in the earlier days of their marriage (which began in 1920). Later, when she worked as a cook for the school in Peach Springs and her husband had a job in the school as janitor, things seem to have been financially easier on the family.

Since there have been few opportunities for meaningful work open to men on the reservation, the Hualapai men have had to choose between staying with their families and attempting to eke out a living from the land or leaving the reservation for long periods of time in order to accept jobs outside.

Other jobs filled by Indians included: railroad work at the Santa Fe train depot, mining at the Boriana mine, pick and shovel road building in the Hualapais; cutting and hauling cedar wood for the Nelson Lime Plant; work at Kingman Drug Store; road work (eventually as instrument man) for the Civilian Conservation Corps; similar jobs for Arizona State Engineering; work with the coast geodetic surveyors; maintenance and repair for the Hualapai Tribe. Nannie Lee Sinyella was judge for the Supais; before that, she was an associate judge for the Hualapais. Edgar Walema had twenty-three years service with the U. S. Army as drill instructor. Jimmy Havatone was in charge of produce departments in Kingman stores, and in Peach Springs he was the Hualapai Trading Post manager. Carter Havatone was a carpenter nearly all his life, after earlier work as farmer and construction worker on Parker Dam. Various efforts under government leadership were made to help Hualapais have cattle in a tribal herd. A not always completely satisfactory project was a sawmill in the Frazier Well area.

Hualapai women could find employment by working as domestics for well-to-do families. This work included both cleaning and ironing. Washing might be done in a shed outside the employer's home in Chloride, Beth Wauneka said.
Wilbur Arthur pointed to the prevalence of this practice in Kingman: "When you could find one, you mostly hired an Indian girl to come in and help with the laundry."

Leta Glancy reported that Indian women did both cooking and washing in the open near their employers' homes, building the necessary fires for the purpose. The difficulty of outdoor cooking, rain or shine, done for her own family is referred to by Annie Querta as about equal to the hated task she performed by carrying water in five gallon cans for about two miles for all her family's domestic needs. Indian life on the reservation for the Indian people in the earlier part of this century is described as anything but easy by Mary Gerrehty Nelson:

"Especially in the early 1950's, the death rate was high in the infant stage as well as in the adult. The death rate showed that people fell then (as many do today) that life was not easy. One cause of this feeling is the decline of the earlier Hualapai culture in this conflict of Anglo monetary values and of Hualapai values of living off the land."

It should be noted that some Hualapais have lived away from the reservation most or all of their lives. Nannie Lee Nish Sinyella, woman judge for both Hualapai and Supai tribes, said: "I was born in Chloride, Arizona, and I am a Chloride Indian. After school in Valentine, I moved to Kingman and lived there nearly all of my life; we never were reservation Indians."

Jimmy Havatone indicates a similar tradition: "I was more or less reared among the white kids. After doing a little traveling here and there. I went among my own people in Peach Springs and worked at the Hualapai Trading Post for a couple of years. I certainly enjoyed that very much. That was the first time that I was back among my own people in 48 years. I never had a residence in Peach Springs, and neither did my folks."

Both the Judge and Jimmy Havatone found difficulties on their return to the reservation. Nannie Nish declared, "When I moved to this Hualapai reservation, it was the strangest thing. You were afraid of your own people. You never knew what they would like within the Indian community, but I finally got used to it and found there was just one of me."

Havatone's comment is similar: "One of my main problems, I found out after I had worked there in Peach Springs, was that it was very hard for them to accept me because I was among the people here in Kingman very much, and I lived among the Anglo society very much. I knew how to cope with the Anglo society."

As indicated above, non-reservation Indians nevertheless value greatly the ancient Hualapai tribal traditions. Said Judge Nish: "There are a lot of old stories on how to raise our children in the Indian past. I had nieces and nephews.
I tried to tell them the Indian stories, and of course they became angry.

"They said, 'You are preaching lo us,' but it is a true fact that all Indian stories are full of feeling. They tell you how to raise your children and what to do and what not to do. They tell you what is good to eat and what kind of berries and other Indian food to eat. Now Indian young people don't go out hunting any more. Now they go down and buy a can of food that has been already prepared. They then come down with diabetes, other sicknesses, and become addicted to liquor, etc."

The Rev. James P. Anderson and his wife Lillian P. Anderson served as missionaries in Peach Springs and Valentine. Mrs. Anderson, who survived her husband and understood the Hualapais. was especially beloved. The early Christian missionaries to all the Indian tribes instructed their converts not to participate in the ancient tribal ceremonies because they were "pagan" or "heathen" practices. James Havatone is proud of the long Christian tradition in his family: "My folks used to tell me that I was a fourth generation among my immediate family as a Christian. I still go to church very regularly."

Yet Havatone says: "I still feel very strongly that my people should continue to have their own traditions. In many aspects I do respect their religion. I find some things in the Hualapai religion that seem more or less to correspond with the Christian teaching and practice. I feel that we should try to encourage our young people and others to carry on the tradition."

If Hualapai traditions are to be maintained, an action of primary importance is the preservation of the Hualapai language, since language is to a high degree the bearer of any culture. A large tribe, such as the Navajo, finds it much easier to maintain the integrity and use of their own language than a small tribe like the Hualapais. The decay of the use of the Hualapai language is now being met by a well conceived program of bilingual education in the Peach Springs elementary school under the leadership of Lucille Watahomigie and the sizable additional staff which she has trained. She has prepared herself for this important role in preserving Hualapai culture by taking advanced graduate work in the language field at NAU in Flagstaff and the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Another vehicle of culture is. of course, arts and crafts. Beth Wauneka has used her considerable talents in this field by teaching in the elementary school and in classes sponsored by the Mohave Community College. By this means, she has shown the way to a renewal of a full range of traditional Hualapai crafts, including ceramics.

Louis Wauneka, Beth Wauneka's Navajo husband, makes a contribution to the revival of Hualapai and Indian tradition. As an expert silversmith and teacher in that field, he (along with other members of the Wauneka family) contributes to the revival of Indian crafts. Ben Beecher now heads for the tribe the Hualapai Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Program, a sophisticated approach to opposing alcoholism among tribal members that is sponsored by the Hualapai Tribal Council. Different views on the degree of friendliness or prejudice between white and Indian people were expressed by those interviewed. One Hualapai, already quoted above, gave what the writer regarded as a balanced view:

"The Anglos at that time (approximately 1910 to 1940) were living among the Indians. We had to treat each other fair, or alike. Now we get a lot of people coming from Los Angeles and big towns, some of them retirees, who are living in Kingman. Well, they don't know much about Indians, so they have a different feeling than the past Anglos that were here." (One basis of continuing contact between Anglos and Indians in the earlier period "was that all Indians used to be hired by all the white people at that time.")

All persons who believe in good human relations among people must hope for a return to the better relationships of the earlier decades of the century. The writers of this book hope it may contribute to such a better day to Anglo-Indian mutual friendship, respect, and concern for justice to each other.

The relationships of this earlier period were, of course, far from ideal when compared with the vision of the American founding fathers that "all people are created equal." May the seeking of a more humane future lead the Kingman area beyond that temporary goal. Rather, may that quest lead toward the founding American vision of true human equality — a vision that springs up forever in the human heart! One expression of this concern is the bilingual educational program of the Peach Springs School. Lucille Watahomigie is the Director of the Hualapai Bilingual Education Program at the Peach Springs Elementary School. Mrs. Watahomigie herself became convinced of the necessity of bilingual education while teaching first grade at Peach Springs School. She discovered that about one-half of her class, all of whom were perfectly normal, did not respond when she talked to them in English, but did respond when spoken to in Hualapai.

The program does not involve teaching how to speak and write Hualapai alone, but such teaching is part of the total program. Hualapai is also used by the bilingual instructors to explain the regular curriculum work to the children so that they understand it better. "Along with this," said Mrs. Watahomigie, "there is a conceptual understanding that the child has before he comes to school. We try to take that informal education that he has had in the community and bring it into the formal study. As a result, the child can formalize an understanding of what is happening outside the classrooms. Then he can also express himself more fully. This is another reason for this bilingual education. "Our goal is that every child that goes out of the grade school here for further education shall be fluent in both the Hualapai and the English languages. We really stress that because we want our graduates to participate and be good citizens. We want them to be proud of the fact that they are Hualapais.

"We want the child to feel that he is adequate with both the American and the Hualapai cultures." "We feel very strongly that if the child knows about his culture; about where he comes from; and about what he has to do to have the culture survive, he will have a sense of direction so as to become a contributing element to the community."

In developing the content of the bilingual education program, the director and staff of the program have not relied upon their own knowledge of Hualapai culture. Older members of the community have been interviewed and then brought in to talk to the students. "These elders," said the bilingual program director, "when they come in, work with the students and can answer the questions of the children, answers that are used by all of us (the bilingual staff) for our program." Annie Querta, Eva Schrum, Elnora Mapatis are among the elders currently helping in this way. Death has taken two elders who helped in this way until recently: Jane Huenga and Mrs. Sinyella. The director added, "Whatever we learn from the elders, we pass on to the children, also. "In terms of material accomplishments," said Director Watahomigie, "we have a grouping and collection of Hualapai stories from the elders. A six thousand word dictionary is our goal and right now we have a five hundred word dictionary." Melinda Powskey, who has faithfully worked on the teacher aide staff from the beginning, has the title of Certified Teacher. She said. "One of the things that I might add to what Mrs. Watahomigie has said about the bilingual program (an aspect I have really enjoyed) is the genealogy. I also teach a class at the Mohave Community College. I am one of the instructors in the Hualapai language."

Elnora Mapatis said. 'Our children don't talk our language and they are missing out on our old ways of life or what you might call our traditions. So I began to think to myself, because I have two grandchildren coming here to the Peach Springs School, that I have to help out the ladies who are working on the Hualapai language. I am strong in mind and body, and by helping in this way before I pass away and go into another world. I can do something for our children. I come over to the school. I help out if they need me. They want to know our stories or some of our words. In this way I maybe can help."

Melinda Powskey explained, "Mrs. Mapatis is an expert in the Hualapai language and in converting Hualapai to English. Mrs. Mapatis tells Hualapai stories to the children and works with the translators on writing workbooks and stories in the Hualapai language for use in the school."

The hope is that the bilingual education program may have all success and grow in the various dimensions it has set as basic purposes. Thus the good of the past is transmitted to a new day and to ongoing generations.

Hualapai men have always thought of themselves as warriors. Their chief function was to protect the tribe, to win its battles, to preserve its members. From the days of the first explorers, Hualapais have served as guides and protectors. The first hundred scouts were recruited by General George Crook. Hualapai men have served their country in every war in which it has been involved. Here is a list of distinguished scouts and the statistics of those who served:

Indian War — Scouts

The following scouts served in the Indian wars: John Aiken, Kate Crozier, Huya, Ka-la-ka, Jack Koho, Jim Mahone, To-ma-na-ta, Mike Wa-tu-a-me, Jim Fielding, Laughing Jack, Bob Steen, Johnny The Smoker, Hanita, Che-hac-ka-je, Mu-ke-che, Pah-kah, Setinje, Sus-mat-a-je, See-kine-a-ker, Tis-ka-ka-je, Tu-va-squit-a-va, Wapeau, Wa-ka-u-ta-ha, Hi-ga, Kata. Sig-a-lu-ta, Big Mary.

World War I
The following men served in World War I: Ray Winfred, Charles McGee. Adam Majenty, Fred Mahone, Lloyd Susanathimam, Francis Clark, Sherman Whatoname, Clay Wellington, Sam Swaskegame.

World War II
Veterans of World War II included: Ralph Achee, Benedict Beecher, Monroe Beecher, Chester Bender, Emmett Bender, Donald Boney, Eldon Cooney, Cleve Fielding, George Fielding, Emery Dave Grounds, Ernest Hunter, William (Bill) Imus, Norman Imus, Harrison Jackson, Nathan Kay Lee, Calvin Leve Leve, Alvin Manakaja, Everett Manakaja. Sullivester Mahone, Billy Patrick, Leo Powskey, Wallace Querta. George Rocha. Clyde Smith, Raymond Smith. Charles Sullivan, Henry Sullivan, Tommy Tomonata, Ernest Walker. Dell Wellington, Harry Wellington, Reese Wellington. Manily Suthamia, James Whatoname, Charles Willets. Joaquin White, Wilber White, George Russell, John Butler, Andrew Grover.

Korean Conflict
Veterans serving in the Korean Conflict were; Willard (Billy) Bender, Jasper Butler. Larry Cook, Earl Havatone, Elwood Hunter. Curtis Lane, Bowman Manakaja, Orville Mahone, Victor Mahone, Weldon Mahone. Leonard Majenty, Leroy Matuck, Ernest McGee, Tony McGee, Homer Nish, Floyd Querta, Peter Russell. Franklin Schrum, Bryant Smith, Kenneth Smith. Glen Sullivan. Norman Suthamia, Leonard Walema, Theodore Walema, Norman Walker, Eric Weapu, Jody Wellington, Jack Whatoname, Arlisa Crozier.

Vietnam War
Among those serving in the war in Vietnam were: Antonio Fielding. Hank Imus. Rocky Imus, Richard Nish. Buddy Rocha, Elmer Suminimo, Clayton Walema, Edgar Walema, Milton Walker, Dwight Whatoname, George Whatoname,
Mike Jones, Allen Tapija. Bryant Tapija, Lester Boney, Roland Boney, Willie Walker, Jr., Hubert Boney.

Servicemen
The current list of servicemen included: Gordon Cook, Randell Cook, Ruben Cook, Samuel Cook, Harold Clark, Lawrence Clark, Grantham Hanita, Marvin Honga, Simon Honga, Terry Lee, Randall Mahone, Webster Mahone, Lawrence Matuck, Jessie Powskey, Gerald Powsey, Arnold Powsey, Leonard Grover, Leonard Grover, Ricky Grover, Dallas Guasula, Phillip Quasula, Leon Smith, Tommy Smith, Victor Suminimo, Daniel Tapaja, Richard Walema, Max Wellington, Thomas Walker. Herbert Sullivan, Jr., Gary Wellington, Kent Whatoname, Donald Havatone, Oliver Wilder.

There are some Indians and some whites who, in spite of the bitterness and hostility on both sides, feel that it is better to forget the past mistakes of the ancestors on both sides since nothing can be done about it and to concentrate on being friends in the present. Being friends means caring, helping when possible and when help is requested. Unless people can get to know each other, they will not understand each other and the gap between them will grow. The League of Friendship Among Indians and Other Americans tries to encourage friendship and understanding. It came into being after a series of Indian-Anglo Thanksgiving Dinners. The first three (1970, 1971, 1972) were held in the Kingman United Presbyterian Church. When the church was too small for the crowd, the following dinners were held at the Fairgrounds and the League was formed to continue the purposes of these enactments of the Pilgrim-Indian First Thanksgiving, based on the classic American ideals of the founders of the American nation. The dinners still continue.
These dinners (and the first picnic) were organized by the Kingman United Presbyterian Church Board of Deacons and the pastor, James Golden Miller, who has continued to give leadership to this project through the years. More details and names of the many Indian and Anglo-Americans who participated may be found in the story and transcript stored in the Mohave Museum.
The dinners led to other activities — Picnics, Carol Sings. The Ministerial Association ol Kingman has helped sponsor these dinners and other activities. The Tribal Chairman has regularly been one of the speakers at these affairs. City or County government officials have given greetings and have been available for discussion. Those who gave leadership to the affair hoped the experience would bring about white and Hualapai cooperation in seeking political and legal justice for the Indian people.

Tribal Chairman Delbert Havatone has written a statement of his beliefs and aims for the Hualapai people of today:
"When I grew up the sounds and stories around me were from the Hualapai people. I know now that I was very fortunate, because I understood our ways and the meanings of our beliefs from people (now gone) who lived these ways.
"Later on I had to learn how the white man related to the land and its resources. The outside world was alien. But just as my forefathers learned to cope in order to survive, so did I.
"I became a heavy equipment operator and learned to tear apart and re-arrange the earth so beloved and revered by my parents and those before, — these and many other things I thought about.
"In the meantime Indians were granted limited rights to govern themselves. Tribal government grew. Sometimes without direction or pattern.
"About five years ago I decided to enter tribal government in order to help create a direction of leadership and meaning. I believe very deeply that the old ways should be followed as closely as possible as tribal philosophy. I also know that every Indian should be able to live at an economic standard of his own choosing. "This belief requires constantly working towards tribal self determination based on economic self sufficiency."

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