Lifeways

The Yavapai were a nomadic people, traveling in families or in small bands. Their movements corresponded to the ripening of wild plant crops, such as mescal and saguaro cactus fruit. Some of the Yavapai, particularly those living near the Mojave and Yuma, grew corn, sunflowers, tobacco, and other crops in small plots. They hunted deer, antelope, rabbits, and other game and lived in either caves or dome-shaped huts framed with poles and covered with brush or thatch, much like Apache wickiups. Their crafts included pottery and basketry. Shamans presided over healing rituals.

The Yavapai first had contact with Europeans in 1582, when a Spanish expedition under Antonio de Espejo visited them. Other explorers from out of Mexico reached their domain. Juan de Onate met with them in 1604. Father Francisco Garces lived among them in 1776, after which contacts with non-Indian traders and trappers became common.

The Yavapai were ruggedly independent, resisting missionary work and settlement. Some bands, especially the Kawevikopaya, joined with the Apache in raids on whites and on other Indians. Following the Mexican Cession in 1848 and the United States takeover of the region, the territory of the Yavapai came to be traveled and mined by increasing numbers of non-Indian prospectors, causing sporadic violence by Yavapai bands.

Their resistance reached a climax in 1872 during General George Crook’s Tonto Basin Campaign against Tonto Apache and Yavapai. Crook’s scouts located a war party in Salt River Canyon of the Mazatzal Mountains. In the ensuing Battle of Skull Cave, his soldiers pumped bullets into a cave high on the canyon wall. Some fired from below on the canyon floor, others from above on the rim of the canyon. Bullets ricocheted inside the cave, striking many of the Yavapai warriors. Some managed to escape from the cave and fight back from behind rocks. But soldiers on the escarpment rolled boulders down on top of them. About 75 Yavapai lost their lives at Skull Cave.