The Havasupai people (Havasupai: Havsuw' Baaja) are a Native American people and tribe who have lived in the Grand Canyon for at least the past 800 years. Their name means "people of the blue-green water", referring to Havasu Creek, a tributary of the Colorado.
Located primarily in an area known as Havasu Canyon, this Yuman-speaking population once laid claim to an area the size of Delaware (). In 1882, however, the United States federal government forced the tribe to abandon all but of its land. A silver rush and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in effect destroyed the fertile land. Furthermore, the inception of the Grand Canyon as a national park in 1919 pushed the Havasupai to the brink, as their land was consistently being used by the National Park Service. Throughout the 20th century, the tribe used the US judicial system to fight for the restoration of the land. In 1975, the tribe succeeded in regaining approximately of their ancestral land with the passage of the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act.
As a means of survival, the tribe has turned to tourism, attracting thousands of people annually to its streams and waterfalls at the Havasupai Indian Reservation.
History
Relation with Hualapai Ethnically, the Havasupai and the Hualapai are one people, although today, they are politically separate groups due to U.S. government policy. The Hualapai (Pa'a or Pai) had three subtribes: the Plateau People, the Middle Mountain People, and Yavapai Fighter. The subtribes were divided into seven bands, which themselves were broken up into thirteen regional bands or local groups.People of the Desert, Canyons and Pines: Prehistory of the Patayan Country in West Central Arizona, P. 27 The Hualapai The local groups were composed of several extended family groups living in small villages:John R. Swanton: The Indian Tribes of North America, , 2003 The Havasupai were just the Havasooa Pa'a regional band (or local group) of the Nyav-kapai ("Eastern People") of the Plateau People subtribe.
Pre-1882
The tribe had traditionally relied heavily on agriculture, hunting, and gathering as their means of survival. Although living primarily above and inside the Grand Canyon, which consists mostly of harsh terrain, the tribe's reservation was also home to some lush vegetation and the aquamarine blue water of Havasu Creek. Their name, meaning "the People of the Blue-Green Waters," reflects this.
The Havasupai are said to have existed within and around the Grand Canyon for over eight centuries. Little is known about the tribe before their first recorded European encounter in 1776 with Spanish priest Francisco Garcés. Garcés reported seeing roughly 320 individuals in his time with the Havasupai, a number that would diminish over the centuries as westward expansion and natural catastrophes significantly decreased the population size.
In the first half of the 19th century, with the exception of the introduction of horses by the Spanish, U.S. westward expansion affected the Havasupai less than it did other indigenous populations of the West. Even as interaction with settlers slowly increased, day-to-day life did not change much for the tribe until silver was discovered in 1870 by Cataract Creek. The migration of prospectors to the area was unwelcome. The Havasupai sought protection from the intrusion of Western pioneers on their land and sought out assistance, but to little avail. An executive order by President Rutherford Hayes in 1880 established a small federally protected reservation for the tribe, yet it did not include the mining areas along the Creek (Hirst, 1985).
During this era, Havasupai relations with other Native American tribes were generally mixed. Bonds and interactions with the Hopi tribe, whose reservation was in close proximity, were strong, as the two peoples did a great deal of trading with each other. The Hopi introduced crops, such as the gourd and sunflower, that would eventually become a staple of the Havasupai diet. Still, the Havasupai were not without enemies as they were consistently at odds with the Yavapai and the Southern Paiute, who would steal and destroy crops planted by the Havasupai.
1882–1920
In 1882 President Chester A. Arthur issued an executive order that all land on the plateau of the canyon, which was traditionally used for winter homes for the tribe, was to become public property of the United States. The order in effect relegated the Havasupai to a plot of land in Cataract Canyon, taking almost all of their aboriginal land for American public use. According to reports, the Havasupai were completely unaware of the act for several years.
The loss of almost all of their land was not the only issue that the Havasupai were contending with: the increase in the number of settlers in the local region had depleted game used for hunting, and soil erosion (a result of poor irrigation techniques) touched off a series of food shortages. Furthermore, interaction with the settlers sparked deadly disease outbreaks amongst tribe members, who were ravaged by smallpox, influenza, and measles. By 1906 only 166 tribal members remainedhalf the number Garcés saw when he first encountered the tribe in 1776. At one point, there were only 40 women and 40 men of childbearing age, which caused a genetic population bottleneck.
In the 1800s, the continental railway system was greatly expanded. In 1897, construction opened on a spur line of the Santa Fe Railroad, which was to lead directly to the Grand Canyon; by 1901, the line was open. During his visit to the Grand Canyon in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt met two Havasupais at Ha’a Gyoh (Havasupai Garden, formerly called Indian Garden). Roosevelt told them about the park that was being created and that they would have to leave the area. In 1908, the Grand Canyon was declared a national monument, and by 1919 it had received National Park status. However, it was not until 1928 that the Havasupai finally left Ha’a Gyoh, forced out by the National Park Service.
1921–1975 Issues regarding health within the Havasupai population reduced its growth to the point where almost an entire generation was lost due to infant and child mortality. Low morale spread throughout the tribe, leading to an increase in gambling, alcoholism, and violence. As the years progressed, the Havasupai came to realize that they could not hope to survive in their American social situation without embracing at least some aspects of it. Breaking horses, working on farms, or even serving as employees of the Grand Canyon National Park were all options for tribal members. The Havasupai fought to keep their methods and traditions alive, but the federal government and the National Park Service generally held a dismissive attitude toward these efforts and accelerated the pace of actions such as razing residents' traditional homes and replacing them with cabins. As similar instances transpired throughout the years, the methods of the Park became clear: they wanted the final .
In this period, the tribe continually fought with the government to have the land that had been taken returned to them. In 1968, the tribe won its Indian Claims Commission case against the United States.The Havasupai Tribe of the Havasupai Reservation, Arizona, The Navajo Tribe of Indians v. the United States of America 20 Ind. Cl. Comm. 210 (1968) The court findings stated that the Havasupai had portions of their land taken from them illegally in 1882 and that the tribe was entitled to recover the land from the US at fair market value (ICC 210). That value ended up being 55 cents an acre, totaling just over one million dollars. Although the case was a landmark for the Havasupai in the sense that it was proven in a court of law that the federal government had inappropriately taken their land, it had still not been properly returned to the tribe.
However, the momentum that the Havasupai gained from the ICC case followed them into the 1970s as the tribe continued to fight to have their traditional territory returned to them. In 1974, garnering support from the Nixon administration as well as influential newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the San Francisco Chronicle, the tribe made their push to have the congressional bill S. 1296, which would actually return their land, passed through Congress. Months of deliberation and stalling on the part of some congressmen almost led to the bill's demise. But days before Congress went on fall break, the bill was finally passed by both Houses and made its way to the President's desk. Similarly, the bill sat on President Gerald Ford's desk until the final possible moments before it was signed and passed into law on January 4, 1975. S. 1296 granted the Havasupai a trust title to approximately ; another were designated as "Havasupai Use Lands," to be overseen by the National Park Service but available for traditional use by the Havasupai.
Mining interests also had a presence in the canyon in this period. Tunnels are a familiar sight in the campground area with the deepest of them around . The largest of the mines is in Carbonate Canyon, adjacent to Havasu Falls, where rails and timbers still can be found descending three levels. Lead was mined here for the last time during WWII. Ranger Gale Burak, who worked at the Grand Canyon for several years, spoke of her experiences as a cook for the Havasu Lead and Zinc Company hard rock mining camp, where the campground now resides. Below Mooney Falls, the famous pipe "ladder" ascended to a vanadium deposit.
1976–present Following the return of a large share of their land, the Havasupai as a tribe have once again begun to flourish. Although many of the day-to-day customs that existed before 1882 are not well established today, the Havasupai have continued to respect and preserve the traditions of their ancestors. As of 2019, the tribe consists of about 730 members, of which about 400 live on the reservation.
Presently, the tribe has begun to take advantage of the beauty of its land by turning it into a tourist destination for visitors to the Grand Canyon. Tribal members often work as packers and/or workers for tourist ventures or work at the lodge, tourist offices, the café, etc.
2003–2010 blood sample controversy In 2003, protests ensued when it was found that Arizona State University had used blood samples consensually acquired from the Havasupai people to "study the causes of behavioral/medical disorders," with an initial goal of determining whether the high rates of Type 2 diabetes among Havasupai adults were due to the same gene that causes high rates of diabetes in the Pima people. Multiple genetic research studies were done without the consent or permission of the Havasupai. This included one that indicated that their ancestors migrated from Asia to North America, which contradicts the traditional Havasupai belief that the tribe originated in the canyon. Another showed a relatively high level of consanguinity, which can result in health problems. Although this is the normal and expected result of the population bottleneck in the early 20th century, the publication of the results made people feel stigmatized.
ASU incurred legal fees of US$1,700,000 and eventually agreed to pay the 41 Havasupai participants US$700,000. Attorney Stephen Hanlon working pro bono with the law firm Holland & Knight was also able to facilitate the ceremonial return of the blood samples. It has since been claimed that scientific study of Native Northern American genomes has been hampered due to scientists' fears of getting caught up in a similar legal predicament.
Traditional culture
Agriculture