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TEE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



plundering Navaho. Later, the Wala- 

 pai and Mohave from the west congre- 

 gate in Cataract Caiion, to share the 

 Havasiipai harvest and to trade skins 

 and other down-river products for the 

 blankets and belts of the Pueblo. 



Late autumn sees an exodus from the 

 cauon up on to the pine-clad plateau, 

 where snug winter camps are made in 

 the dense thickets. Here good firewood 

 is plentiful and the hunting grounds 

 are near at hand. Eunning water is 

 not to be had, but little reservoirs to 

 catch the occasional rains or melting 

 snow undoubtedly served in the old 

 days, as similar "tanks" do for their 

 few cattle today. Winter cold, because 

 of its humidity, is raw in the caiion, so 

 the last dwellers to leave in the fall and 

 the earliest to arrive for spring plant- 

 ing often turn troglodytes for a time, 

 seeking refuge in the little caves along 

 the foot of the cliffs. Sometimes con- 

 tinued inclement weather in the sum- 

 mer will cause the less hardy to leave 

 their leafy, 'shelters amid the jeers and 

 gibes of fheir neighbors and huddle in 

 caverns in the rocks. Curiously enough, 

 as the Havasupai themselves recognize, 

 these same caves were once inhabited by 

 a prehistoric pottery-using people, who 

 built the onlv stone structure in the 

 valley, a little pueblo atop a low mesa. 



Beautiful and fertile as the canon is 

 and secure from the depredations of 

 warlike neighbors, it is by no means safe 

 from nature's ravages. According to 

 the Indians' account, in the spring of 

 1910 "it snowed four days, it rained 

 four days'^ (I suspect again the artistic 

 use of the sacred four), and with a sud- 

 den thaw, the thousands of miles of 

 watershed drained by Cataract Creek 

 let loose their floods down into the 

 canon. I saw such a flood on a minor 

 scale, when the water poured over the 

 rock walls until the caiion looked like 

 a gigantic Niagara. In the flood of 

 1910, the people fled to the refuge of 

 the cliffs, with the loss of only one 

 blind old woman, while they watched 

 the seething flood, which filled the 



canon from wall to wall, complete its 

 destruction below. Houses, horses, cat- 

 tle, trees, crops, even the soil itself went 

 in the rush of the waters. Thanks to 

 prompt Government intervention the 

 Indians were safely tided over to the 

 next year's harvest. The United States 

 Government's active interest of that 

 time came to stay, and the cataclysm 

 of the flood of 1910 marked a turning 

 point in these people's lives, for by it 

 they lost those connecting links with 

 much of their ancient life to which 

 they now have no incentive to return. 

 The only stone knife that survived the 

 storm, for example, was obtained for 

 the American Museum, and they pro- 

 tested that with the subsequent disuse 

 of stone tools they had forgotten how 

 to make them. Literally, out of sight 

 is out of mind in matters of a people's 

 adaptation to life. But while the less 

 serviceable arrowheads and skin cloth- 

 ing were never made again, the old-time 

 everyday customs and industries sprang 

 up anew, and, except for the effects of 

 desultory schooling, their social life 

 took on its old complexion. 



So much of the old life of the Hava- 

 supai still remains : take away their 

 guns, horses, clothing, metal tools and 

 pans, and one finds that even their ma- 

 terial existence, like their social life, is 

 that of yesterday. Although Father 

 Garces stumbled on the community in 

 1776, the California emigrants of '49 

 swung south past their caiion through 

 enemy territory, and not until redis- 

 covered by a railway exploring party in 

 1858 do we again hear of their exist- 

 ence. There was no regular intercourse 

 with the outside world until recent 

 years; in fact, many of the tribe claim 

 to remember the "first" white man who 

 came to them about forty years ago. 

 But it is their geographical isolation 

 which must be given the credit for 

 their backwardness, not their mental 

 outlook, which is a curious blend of an 

 avid interest in things beyond the 

 caiion's rim and a well-founded com- 

 placenc}^ toward life within its walls. 



