Havasupai

The Yuman-speaking Havasupai (Havsuw’ Baaja) are descendants of the easternmost branch or band of the Hualapai (Pa'a or Pai) in the Grand Canyon area in Arizona. The Pai were comprised of three subtribes—the Plateau People, Middle Mountain People, and Yavapai Fighters. Each subtribe was divided into seven bands, which themselves were broken up into regional bands or local groups. Each local group consisted of a network of kinship and marital groups organized around patrilocal, extended families who lived in a community that moved seasonally; there were 10 local communities of about 28 people each in the Havasupai band in the 1850s.

The Havasooa Pa'a was the regional band (or local group) of the Nyav-Kapai (Eastern People) of the Plateau People subtribe of the Hualapai. The Havasupai lands were in the Grand Canyon area and along the south rims on the high plateau; they have lived there for at least 1,000 years. Each community had autonomy and their own traditional lands, which they had the right to use, and met annually for a harvest festival and occasional social dances and funerals. The Havasupai consider other Pai their relatives and neighbors but the Yavapai their traditional enemies. The Havasupai call themselves Havasúwe ‘Epá, the People of the Blue Green Water.

The Havasupai became separated from other Hualapai bands during the Hualapai Wars (1866–69) when families were moved to more confined parts of their original territories. Thereafter the federal government thought of them as a distinct culture and society. In 1880 the federal government assigned the Havasupai a reservation of 518 acres at the bottom of Cataract Creek, or Havasu Canyon, where the Havasupai traditionally farmed during the summer months, and a small area along the southern rim of the Coconino Plateau. This represented a significant decrease in their traditional subsistence areas and a collapse of their economic system. For years the tribe had to fight encroachment from miners and ranchers as well as the U.S. Forest Service and, after 1919 when the Grand Canyon National Park was established, the National Park Service. They fought to regain the right to use their traditional lands and to protect sacred sites. In 1975 they gained over 185,000 acres south of the rim. At the same time, 95,300 acres within the park were designated as Havasupai traditional-use area.