THE WALLAPAIS
It is hard to conceive of a people, numbering nearly a thousand souls,
lodged within the borders of the United States, of whom nothing has
been written. The only references to the Wallapais are to be found in
the casual remarks of travellers or soldiers, and later, the agent's
reports to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Perhaps the earliest
reference to them is in Padre Garcés' Diary, where, in describing the
Mohaves, he says the Wallapais (spelling the name Jaguallapais) are
their enemies on the east. Then, on leaving the Mohaves and journeying
east, he himself reaches the tribe in the neighborhood of where the
town of Kingman now stands. Six miles northwest of Kingman are located
Beale's Springs, which pour forth the best supply of water in the whole
region; hence it was natural that the Wallapais should have established
their homes near it. In the Wallapai Origin Legend the story of their
dispersion to this region is told. The Wallapai Mountains are close by,
a few miles to the southeast, and from the pines of these mountains
they get their name; "Wal-la," tall pine; "pai," people,--the people of
the tall pine.[6]
[6] There are several other fair springs in the vicinity, chiefly
Johnson's to the north of Kingman, and Gentile Springs, below the pass
through which the Santa Fé railway enters Sacramento Valley.
Garcés says the people received him hospitably and "conducted
themselves with me as comported with the affection that I had shown
toward them." Their dress was antelope skins and "some shirts of Moki,"
doubtless the cotton woven shirts of these primitive weavers.
Lieutenant Ives, in his interesting report of his early explorations
in this region, describes the Wallapais in Peach Springs and Diamond
Canyons, another of their favored locations, and Captain Bourke in his
"On the Border with Crook" makes passing mention of them.
On January 4, 1883, President Arthur decreed the following as their
reservation:--
"It is hereby ordered that the following-described tract of country
situated in the Territory of Arizona be, and the same is hereby, set
aside and reserved for the use and occupancy of the Hualapai Indians,
namely: Beginning at a point on the Colorado River five miles eastward
of Tinnakah Spring; thence south twenty miles to crest of high mesa;
thence south forty degrees east twenty-five miles to a point of Music
Mountains; thence east fifteen miles; thence north fifty degrees east
thirty-five miles; thence north thirty miles to the Colorado River;
thence along said river to the place of beginning; the southern
boundary being at least two miles south of Peach Spring, and the
eastern boundary at least two miles east of Pine Spring. All bearings
and distances being approximate.
"CHESTER A. ARTHUR."
Owing to the abundant supply of water at Beale's Springs the settlement
there naturally became a stopping-place for all travel across that
portion of Arizona. It was the favorite camping-place of the wagons
travelling between Fort Mohave and Fort Whipple, near Phœnix.
Johnson's and Gentile Springs also being in line, and the pass just
below Kingman leading into the Sacramento Valley being the most natural
outlet for a railway, the building of the Atlantic and Pacific, by
which name the section of the great Santa Fé transcontinental system
which extends from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Barstow, California, was
originally known--found the Wallapais and at once put them in contact
with the outside world and our civilization. Unfortunately the actual
builders of a railway and their followers do not always represent the
best elements of our civilization, and the meeting in this case was
decidedly against the best interests of the Wallapais. Close proximity,
also, to a border mining town, such as Kingman, has not tended to the
elevation of the morals or ideals of the Wallapais, and in a short time
many of those who resided near the railways became known for their
degradation. The men yielded to the white men's vices and soon inducted
their women into the same courses, so that for a long period of years
the name Wallapai seemed to be almost synonymous with drunkenness,
gambling, wild orgies, and the utmost degradation. In those days it was
no uncommon sight to see as many as twenty men, women, and children
lying around drunk in either Kingman or Hackberry, and I have personal
knowledge of several cases where fathers took their daughters and sold
them to white men, into a bondage infinitely worse and more degrading
than slavery.
Of late years this condition has been largely improved. When the
government schools were established and a field matron sent to work
with the Wallapais, new elements of our civilization were introduced to
these unfortunates, and nobly they have responded. With few exceptions
they are now industrious, sober, honest, and reliable.
The Wallapais are of Yuman stock. In appearance they more nearly
resemble the Mohaves found at Parker, on the reservation, than any
other of the peoples in the immediate region. They have the same stout,
sturdy, fleshy build, heavy faces, and general habits, though in many
respects they are a different people. They regard the Havasupais as
their cousins, and the speech of the two peoples is very similar.
Indeed any person who can speak the one can easily be understood by one
who speaks the other.
According to their traditions, it was one of the mythical heroes of the
Wallapais--Pach-i-tha-a-wi--who made the Grand Canyon. There had been a
big flood and the earth was covered with water. No one could stir but
Pach-i-tha-a-wi, and he went forth carrying a big knife he had prepared
of flint, and a large, heavy wooden club. He struck the knife deep
into the water-covered ground and then smote it deeper and deeper with
his club. He moved it back and forth as he struck it further into the
earth, until the canyon was formed through which all the water rushed
out into the Sea of the Sunset. Then, as the sun shone, the ground
became hard and solid as we find it to-day.
In physical appearance the Wallapais are a far coarser and heavier
type than the Navahoes. They are medium in height, small-boned, and
fat. Their features are heavy and coarse. The nose is flat between the
eyes and broad at the base, and the nostrils large, denoting good lung
power and capacity. The septum is very large and heavy. The cheek-bones
generally are high and prominent, and the chin well rounded, rather
than square, like that of most of the Navahoes. Their shoulders are
broad, with head set close in. Seldom is a long-necked man or woman
seen. The upper lips are full and the under ones thick, with a slight
droop at the corners. The eyes are large and limpid, brown or black,
and capable of great seriousness or merry sparklings. The foreheads
are narrow, rounding off on each side. The heads are round without any
great fulness of the back regions. Most of them have good teeth, white
and strong, though the use of white men's coffee, baking powder, and
other demoralizing foods and drinks, have begun to work appreciable
injury to them.
The women generally wear their hair banged over the forehead, so that
the eyebrows are almost covered, and the rest of the hair is cut off
level with the shoulders, so that a well-combed head of hair falls
heavily around the whole head, covering the major part of the cheeks
and sides of the chin. I once made an interesting discovery in regard
to this almost complete covering up of the face with the hair. I wished
to make a photograph of a woman I had long known and been friendly
with. As her eyes and face were scarcely distinguishable, I took the
liberty of putting back the hair from her cheeks. She arose in anger,
and for three years refused to speak or meet me. I had given to her the
most serious insult a man could offer to a Wallapai woman. The hair is
coarse, thick, and black, though after a shampoo with amole root it
is silky and glossy. The men tie the "banda" around the forehead and
seldom wear a hat except when in the towns of the white men.
As a rule both men and women have sweet and soft voices, though a few
are harsh and forbidding.
The tattoo is common. The work is done with pins, and charcoal is
rubbed in as the punctures are made. This gives a bluish-black
appearance which is permanent. They also paint their faces in red,
yellow, and black. The chief purpose of both tattooing and painting is
to enhance their beauty, though there are times when the tattooing has
a distinct significance.
[Illustration: NAVAHO WOMAN ON HORSEBACK.]
[Illustration: THE WINNER OF THE "GALLO" RACE AT TOHATCHI.]
In school the boys and girls are slow but sure in their learning. They
read, write, spell, and figure with accuracy and speed, and compare
favorably with white children in the rapidity of their progress. Most
of the schoolgirls are heavily built and coarse,--indeed, all but two
children, the daughters of Bi-cha (commonly called Beecher), who are
slim and slight.
In another chapter I have explained the charge that Wallapai parents
were unkind, even cruel to their children. That charge can no
longer be maintained. They are kindness itself, as a rule, and from
babyhood up the children receive all the care of which the parents
deem them needful. Some of their babes are as chubby and pretty and
sweet-tempered as any I have ever seen, and much fun have I had in
photographing those who were especially attractive to me. One mother
enjoyed my appreciation of her offspring and was most good-natured in
yielding to my desire to often photograph her. The little one would
coo and laugh and kick her little feet and legs in merriment, or go
to sleep in my or her mother's arms, or even when standing up in her
wicker cradle. When I hung her up upon the wall she soberly looked at
me, but made no demonstration of fear. Her mother, however, looked to
see what I was doing. I bade her gaze upon her child, and the merry
laugh she gave would have been an astonishment to those who regard the
Indian as dull, stolid, expressionless.
Indeed one of the most laughing merry sprites it has ever been my good
fortune to know is a Wallapai maiden of some eighteen years. Seldom is
she seen any other way than smiling or cheerily laughing. She is a
perfect witch for mischief and practical jokes, and is never so happy
as when she can perpetrate one upon a white man whom she can trust.
In that word "trust" lies the whole key to the demeanor of an Indian,
either man, woman, or child, towards a white person. If you are trusted
the whole inner life is left open as a clear page; if not, the book is
closed, locked, sealed, and the key thrown away.
I had long wished to photograph the Wallapais, but they had always
objected. When I arrived at Kingman I sent Pu-chil-ow-a, the
interpreter and policeman, to call a powwow. I sent an express
invitation to the chiefs, Serum, Leve-leve, Sus-quat-i-mi, and
Qua-su-la. Serum was away at Mineral Park with a band of Wallapais
whose services he farms out to the mine owners, Leve-leve was sick and
not expected to live, but Sus-quat-i-mi and Quasula would come.
We were permitted to use the schoolhouse, and just about sunset I was
busily engaged when there came a loud rap at the door. I hastened to
open it, and there stood a dignified, well-built, slightly bearded,
neatly dressed man, who smiled and bowed with dignity and courtesy. He
wore a cap, and at first sight looked more like a retired sea-captain
than anything, so I responded to his bow with the question as to what
did I owe the honor of his visit.
"Why, you sent for me!" he replied.
"I sent for you? When?"
Then he heartily laughed and exclaimed: "You no sapogi me? I'm
Sus-quat-i-mi, Wallapai Charley."
To say I was surprised was to put it mildly.
Later on Quasula, Big Water (Ha-jiv-a-ha), Eagle Feather
(Sa-ka-lo-ka), Acorn Flour (Ā-tī-na), Coyote Eating Fish-gut
(Ka-ha-cha-va), and other leading men came, and we had quite an
interesting meeting. I stated to them my object in coming: "There are
many of your white brothers who live between the Great Waters of the
Sunrise and Sunset who wish to know more of their red-faced brothers
of the Painted Desert. I have come for years among you to find out
and to tell them. When I speak of Quasula they ask me to tell what he
looks like, and I tell them as well as I can, but if I could show them
a sun-picture they would know so much better than my words make clear.
So I wish you no longer to be as children and babes. I have made the
sun-pictures of Navahoes, Hopis, Havasupais, Apaches, Pimas, Acomas,
Paiutis, and others; why should I not make yours?"
When they presented their superstitions, I reasoned against them, and
finally Quasula settled the whole matter in my favor by rising and
saying with great dignity: "We have heard our brother with the white
face and black beard. He speaks in one way,--not in two ways at once.
His words breathe truth. We need not fear the sun-picture. I will go
to him to-morrow and he shall make as many sun-pictures of me and
my family as he desires. I want him to be able to tell to our white
brothers who live by the Sunrise Sea all he has learned of us. We are a
poor, ignorant people, we are few and do not know much. The white men
are many and they know as much as they are many. Let them send more
people to teach us and our children and we will gladly welcome them.
Some of our people have been bad. Bad white men have made them worse.
We want the bad men to be kept away, but we will welcome good white
men, and our children shall learn from them and be wise."
Then Sus-quat-i-mi arose, and in heavy and somewhat pompous speech
said: "Many years ago our white brother made my sun-picture at Peach
Springs. He has eaten tunas, mescal, pinion nuts, and corn at my hawa.
We have slept side by side under the same stars, and the same wind has
played with his beard and my hair. I know him. He knows me. His words
are straight. When he made my sun-picture he said it would do me no
harm, and here I am, after several snows, and I am as well as ever. He
shall make more sun-pictures of me to-morrow, and I will sing for him
and dance the war-dance of my people."
Big Water and the others followed and my aim was accomplished. Next
morning we set forth,--Puchilowa, my friend and photographer, Mr. C.
C. Pierce, of Los Angeles, and myself,--laden down with four cameras
and an abundance of plates and films. We succeeded in getting many
photographs, some of which are here reproduced. But at one camp, an old
woman, the grandmother, doubtless, of two children left in her care,
refused to be pictured. She covered herself up and bade the children
hide their faces, but their curiosity overcame their fears and they
were "caught."
Poor old Leve-leve and his wife were found, both of them nearly blind,
in their miserable hawa, a mile or so from Kingman. I had some useful
medicament for their eyes, and although it hurt dreadfully, they both
patiently bore the pain while I gave their eyes treatment. By the side
of the old man was his gourd rattle, which the shaman had left to
help him drive away sickness, and for hours the old man sat quietly
singing and rattling, endeavoring to get rid of the evil powers that
were cursing him. While I made a picture of him in the dark hut, his
wife went into an inner room and soon returned clad in an elaborately
fringed apron of buckskin. This was her ceremonial costume, made by
Leve-leve for her as the mother of the tribe, when she led the annual
dance of thanksgiving for the corn and melon harvest.
Sus-quat-i-mi was as good as his word, and I not only secured some
excellent photographs of him, but he sang for me into the graphophone
some of his ceremonial songs.
The Wallapais' war-song is a stirring and exciting one, and it conveys
us back to the days when their primitive weapons were in use. After
an incitation to anger against the foe it bids the warriors "get
rocks and tie them up in buckskins; make of them fierce and deadly
battle-hammers, with which smite and kill your foes. Take the horns
of the buck and sharpen them, and with them seek the hearts of your
enemies with blows skilful and strong."
Puchilowa sang for me the Wallapai song on the death of their chiefs.
It is a weird, mournful melody, which, however, I have not yet had
time and opportunity to transcribe from the graphophone. It says: "Our
chief, our father, our friend, is dead. His voice is silent, his tread
is silent. Come together, ye his friends, and cry about with sorrow.
Burn up his body that his spirit may go to the world of spirits. Burn
up his house that his spirit may not long to stay around. Burn up all
his possessions that they may be with him in the spirit world. Then
let no one to whom he belonged stay near the place where he died. Move
away, that his spirit may feel nothing to keep him to the earth."
Hence it will be seen that the Wallapai is naturally a believer in
cremation. Indeed he still practises the burning of his dead, except
where white influences are brought to bear. These influences are not
altogether a perfect good. There is no harm in burning the dead, but,
unfortunately, the general Indian belief is that the goods of the
deceased, his horses, his guns, his clothes,--indeed, all his personal
possessions, and the gifts of his friends,--should also be burned to
accompany him to the spirit world. If this destruction of valuable
property could be arrested without interfering with the corporeal
cremation, it would be a good thing.
The thanksgiving song for harvest, though purely Indian, is a much more
cheerful melody. Puchilowa gave me the words, as well as sang the song
in the graphophone, but he was unable to tell what the words meant.
"The old Indians gave me this song long time ago. I sing it all 'a time
at harvest. I no sapogi (understand) what it means."
"Ho si a ya ma,
In ya a sonk a kīt a,
In ya va va vam
Ho si a ya ma
In ya ha sak a kīt a,"
etc., _ad infinitum_.
There are three native policemen, engaged by the Indian department,
among the Wallapais,--Puchilowa, (Jim Fielding), at Truxton;
Su-jin´-i-mi (Indian Jack), at Kingman; and Wa-wa-ti´-chi-mi, at
Chloride. Each receives ten dollars per month for his services. It was
the former who acted as interpreter during my last visit.
I had just finished making the photographs of Quasula and one or two
others, when an old woman and her husband came in from the desert. As
he sat waiting for me to photograph him, he took some prickly pears
from his bundle and began to eat them. I had often seen tourists from
the East fill their fingers with the almost invisible and countless
spines of the prickly pear, so I asked At-e-e how he gathered them.
Picking up a stick, he sharpened one end, thrust it into his fruit,
and, as if it were still on the tree, chopped it off with his knife.
Now, still holding it on the stick, he peeled it and then handed it
to me to eat. It is a slightly sweet and acid fruit, dainty enough in
flavor, but so crowded with annoying small seeds as not to pay for the
trouble of separating them.
Elsewhere I have described the method of making fire with the drill.
While talking with Atee, to whom I had given some tobacco which he
twisted into a cigarette, he suddenly asked me for a match. I said I
would give him a boxful if he would make a fire without a match. In
a minute he set to work. He borrowed the walking cane of Puchilowa,
which had just the right kind of end to it, and then, getting a piece
of softer, half-rotten but very dry wood, he bored a small hole in it.
Now, taking the stick, he placed the end of it into the hole, and then,
rubbing the stick between his hands, he made it revolve so rapidly that
in a minute or less a slight smoke could be seen in the hole where the
end of the stick was revolving. Stopping for just a moment, he got some
dry punk and put it into the hole and around the end of the stick and
began to twirl it again, at the same time gently blowing on the punk.
In less time than it takes me to write it he had got a spark. This he
blew gently until it became two, or three and more, and then with a
few pieces of shredded cedar bark he picked up the sparks, blew them
more and more until the bark was ignited, and in five minutes he had a
good camp-fire.
Mescal is one of the chief native foods of both Wallapais and
Havasupais. They call it vi-yal. It is made in winter, when the plant
is fullest of moisture. It is a species of cactus that is treated as
follows: A sharp stick is thrust into the plant to see if it is soft
and moist enough. Then the outer leaves are cut off until the white,
pulpy, and fibrous masses inside are exposed. This is the part used. It
is cooked in large pits, ten or more feet in diameter. A hole is dug in
the ground, or better still, in a mass of rocky débris. Plenty of wood
is laid in the hole, and this covered over with small pieces of rock
upon which the material to be cooked is placed four or five feet high.
This, in turn, is also covered with small stones, grass, and dirt to
keep in the heat. The wood is then fired and allowed to burn for two or
more days. Then the dirt and grass are taken off, and if the mass has
cooked brown it is removed, piled upon flat rocks, and then pounded by
the women into big flat sheets, three or four feet wide and twice as
long. Exposure in the sun rapidly dries it, when it is folded up into
two or three feet lengths, taken home, and stored for winter use.
Sometimes the mescal is pounded and eaten raw, and again it is pounded,
soaked in plenty of water, partially fermented, and the liquor used as
a drink.
The fruit of the tuna (a-te-e) is sometimes pounded and rolled into a
large mass, dried, and put away for future use. Thus prepared it will
keep for a long time, very often being brought out a year after, when
the new crop is nearly ripe.
Other natural vegetable foods of the Wallapais are a black grass seed
(a-gua-va), white grass seed (i-eh-la), the acorn and the pinion nut
(o-co-o).
The shamans and others sometimes take the jimson-weed
(smal-a-ga-to´-a), pound it up, soak it, and drink the decoction. It
is a frightful drink, producing results worse than whiskey. For a time
the debauchee sees visions and dreams dreams, then he becomes crazy
and frantic, and then, exhausted, tosses in a quieter delirium until
restored to his senses, to be nervously racked for days afterwards.
The Havasupais are so bitter against its use that their children are
brought up to regard it as one of the most dangerous and evil of plants.
Until Miss Calfee, of the Indian Association, was sent to work among
the Wallapais, they had so entirely neglected the art of basket weaving
as to let it almost entirely die out amongst them. By her endeavors,
however, it has been resuscitated, and now there are quite a number
of fairly good Wallapai baskets made. The inordinate love of bright
colors manifested by the average white tourist--note I say tourist,
and not Indian--is so completely perverting the taste of the Wallapais
as to render it almost impossible to buy a basket which contains only
the primitive colors. These are mainly the white of the willow and the
black of the martynia. A straw-color, a yellow, and a red are also
native with them, the dyes being vegetable and mineral secured from
plants, roots, and rocks close at hand. Some of the younger girls
have set themselves to learn the art, and one of them is already most
successful. She is a bright and cheerful maiden, and the basket she
holds in her lap is of her own manufacture. The design is worked out
in martynia. It represents the plateaus and valleys of her home, and
the inverted pyramid is the tornado or cyclone. It is her prayer to
Those Above to keep the cyclone in the centre of the plateaus so that
no injury may be done to her parents' corn-fields, melon-patches, and
peach-trees which are in the canyon depths.
The Wallapais have had the same trouble about the white man seizing the
best land on their reservation that most other tribes have been subject
to. When the reserve was set apart by executive order a man named
Spencer was living on land included therein, and he claimed two of the
finest of the springs, one, that of Mattaweditita, being their most
sacred of places. He was soon murdered, whether by Indians or whites I
am unable to say, and no one occupied these springs until a man named
W. F. Grounds, regardless of the executive order, took possession of,
and claimed, Mattaweditita to the exclusion of the Wallapais. This he
sold to a man named J. W. Munn. Later he and Munn had quarrels about
it and both claimed it. Then the Indian Agent interfered, and, finding
that the Indians had always claimed it as their own, that it was on
their reserve, and that they actually wished to continue to cultivate
it, he ordered both men to leave. Grounds had about seventy-five
head of cattle and Munn had a garden. The latter vacated quietly,
but Grounds brought back his cattle after they were removed. In the
meantime the Indians had planted their gardens, and when the cattle
came in their crops were speedily demolished. Again the cattle were
removed and again brought back. About this time some one generously
gave to the Indians, or left where they could be picked up, some
melons or cucumbers or both, of which fourteen of the Wallapais living
in Mattaweditita Canyon partook. Of the fourteen, thirteen sickened
and died. Of course there was no way of fastening this dastardly and
cowardly crime upon any one, but whites as well as Indians are pretty
generally agreed as to who was its perpetrator.
The few remaining Indians were now given wire to fence in the canyon,
but the old animals of Grounds' herds pushed the wires down in their
eagerness to get to and eat the Indians' wheat. The trails were now
fenced, and this proved an effectual bar. Later this exemplary white
man turned a band of saddle horses into an Indian's garden on the
reservation for pasturage. This brought upon him an order of exclusion
from the reservation and a command to entirely remove his stock within
a year. Whether this has been done or not I am unable to say, although
the Department at Washington confirmed the order and required that it
be done.
During all this squabbling it can well be imagined how the crops of the
Indian suffers; but what must be his conception of white men, their
government, and their justice?