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]

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 Ph?nix. 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.

Navaho Woman on Horseback.

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 (A-ti-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."

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?