HAVASUPAI

The Havasupai ancestral homeland, from about A. D. 1100, was Cataract (or Havasu) Canyon and vicinity, part of the Grand Canyon complex. This territory, now part of northwestern Arizona, contains some of the most spectacular landforms in all of North America—high-walled canyons with colorful layers of sandstone, deep caves, and steep waterfalls.

The Havasupai are an offshoot of the HUALAPAI. Both peoples, along with the YAVAPAI, are discussed as Upland Yumans (or Pai) and lived north of the River Yuman tribes, such as the MOJAVE and YUMA (quechan). Scholars classify all these Yuman-speaking peoples as part of the Southwest Culture Area (see southwest INDIANS).

Although the Havasupai lived in dry country, the Colorado River and its tributaries defined their way of life and came to be associated with them. Havasupai, pronounced hah-vah-SOO-pie, means “people of the blue-green water.” Cataract Canyon, formed by the Havasu tributary, is a fertile strip of land unlike any other in that arid and rocky region.

The Havasupai learned to irrigate their fields with water from the river and till the soil with planting sticks. They grew corn, beans, squash, melons, sunflowers, and tobacco. Tribal members thus were able to live most of the year in permanent villages. They lived in two different kinds of dwellings: pole-framed houses, circular or rectangular in shape and covered with brush and earth, and rock shelters, either naturally formed or dug by hand in canyon walls. The Havasupai also built small domed lodges that doubled as sweathouses and clubhouses. In terms of their agricultural way of life, the Havasupai resembled the HOPI to the east more than they did their Yuman kin to the south. They often traded with the Hopi, exchanging deerskins, salt, and red mineral paint for agricultural products, pottery, and cloth.

After the autumn harvest, the Havasupai left their villages. They climbed the canyon walls to the top of the plateau, where they lived in temporary camps in the midst of plentiful game for the winter. Individual hunters, carrying bows and arrows, stalked mountain lions and other wildcats, deer and antelope, and mountain sheep. Men, women, and children also participated in communal hunting drives. By stomping and beating the ground, they forced rabbits into the open, where they could be clubbed.

The Havasupai also gathered pinon nuts, the edible seed from a small pine tree, on the canyon rims.

The Havasupai wore more clothing than most other Yumans, predominantly buckskin. They painted and tattooed their faces. They made both baskets and pottery for use as containers and cooking vessels.

The main unit of social organization for the Havasu-pai was the family. The tribe as a whole was loosely structured under six hereditary chiefs. Their religion was dominated by shamans, but with few organized rituals other than the use of prayer sticks and dances for a particular purpose, such as to ask for rain. Tribal members participated in at least three ceremonies a year, with music, dancing, and speechmaking.

The Havasupai were peaceful; not one of their leaders was a war chief. Their seclusion behind canyon walls enabled them to avoid attacks by more warlike neighbors. The only early Spanish explorer thought to have visited them was Father Francisco Garces, in 1776. The tribe managed to avoid further contact with outsiders well into the 1800s.

The Havasupai still live in Cataract (Havasu) Canyon, now on a reservation originally established in 1880; Supai, Arizona, is the site of the tribal population. In 1975, with the signing of the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act, the tribe regained a portion of its ancestral homeland along the Grand Canyon’s south side. Because of their location 3,000 feet below the rim of the Grand Canyon, the Havasupai earn a decent income from tourism. The Havasupai Tourist Enterprise provides facilities, guides, and mules for tourists. Supai can also be reached by helicopter.

Since 1998, the annual Pai gathering brings together Havapai, Hualapai, and Yavapai tribes to celebrate their common traditions.