Of no people of the Southwest, perhaps, has so much utter nonsense been written as of this interesting People of the Blue Water, the pai (people) of the vasu (blue) haha (water)—the Havasupais. As far as we know, Padre GarcÉs was the first white man to visit them in their Cataract Canyon home, and he speaks of his visit in his interesting Diary translated and annotated by the lamented Elliott Coues shortly before his death. Captain Sitgreaves, Lieutenant Ives, Captain Palfrey, Major J. W. Powell, Lieut. F. H. Cushing, and others in turn visited them, but very little was either known or written about them when, over a dozen years ago, I was conducted to their marvellously picturesque home by Mr. W. W. Bass, the well-known guide of the Grand Canyon. The journey on that occasion was a remarkable one for me, as, though I was fairly well versed in the trails of the Grand Canyon (having then descended four of them), I had never seen such a trail as was the Topocobya Trail down which we descended late in the evening. Leaving our wagon, after sixteen miles' drive through the Kohonino Forest from Bass Camp, we packed food, blankets, and cameras on horses and burros, and, after two miles of travel in what in Western parlance is called a "draw," the real head of the trail was reached. We Stand on the slope here, where a mass of talus rises from the trail side, so that we can survey the whole of the picturesque scene. Note its setting! Towering walls of regularly laminated red sandstone, though the layers are of differing thicknesses, wind in and out, as Not even in the Green Emerald Isle, or the county of Devonshire, or the vineyards of France, is richer verdure to be found than fills up the open space between these great walls. Willows reveal the winding path of the Havasu, and everywhere else are the fields of the Indians. Patches of corn, watermelons, squash, canteloupes, beans, sunflowers, chili, onions, and alfalfa, with here and there peach, mesquite, and cottonwood trees, abound. As a rule these patches are protected and set off one from another by hedges of wattled willows or fences of rudely placed cottonwood poles. Through the fields trails meander in every direction, and they are also "cut up" by irrigating ditches. Some of the better irrigated fields are divided into small sections—like the squares of a checker-board—in order that the water may be more systematically distributed. The peaceful hawas of the Havasupais nestle here and there among these verdant growths. Themselves covered with willows, it is often hard to distinguish them from the trees, were it not that at our approach small groups of men, women, and children, some clad in flaming red, others in all the colors of the rainbow, and some in even less than Mark Twain's descriptive smile, stand forth and reveal the dwelling-places. Now and again the curling line of bluish smoke of the camp-fire reveals Chickapanagie's summer home is a type of the simplest character. Two upright poles with forks at the top, standing about six feet high, are placed in line with each other fifteen feet apart. A cross-beam is placed on these uprights. Then a row of poles, about eight to nine feet in length, is sloped against the cross-beam. These are covered with willows, and there is the completed hawa. What queer dwelling-places men have, and ever have had, and possibly ever will have. At the Paris Exposition of 1889 one whole street was devoted to a history of inhabited dwellings. At one end were the earliest "homes" of the paleolithic age, caves and huts, followed by the Lake Dwellings and the wickiups, tepees, or tents of the present-day Indian, the latter being the same primitive structures the aborigines have ever used. The other end of the street was devoted to the domestic architecture of our own day, and there, in a few hours, one could study almost every known form of home structure. But who could ever reproduce some of the homes these Havasupais live in? Wicker huts in the open, and caves in the faces of solid sandstone walls two thousand feet and more in height, these in turn surmounted by domes and obelisks and towers and cupolas that no modern architect dare attempt to rival. These massive walls absorb the heat of the sun in summer time and thus keep the canyon intensely hot This moisture renders the canyon cold in winter, although the thermometer never ranges very low. Snow falls but seldom, and then disappears almost as soon as it lights. In 1898 there was snow that stayed on the ground for several hours, but this was one of the severest winters they have had for many years. A hundred yards or so below where the springs commence to flow Wallapai Canyon enters from the left. It is similar in appearance to, though narrower than, Havasu (Cataract) Canyon, the walls being of red sandstone, the strata of which are as regular as if laid by masons. A few hundred yards beyond the junction of the two canyons a remarkable piece of Indian engineering is in evidence, showing how the Indians ascend from a lower to an upper platform. There is a drop here in the stratum of some twenty-five or thirty feet, and to overcome this obstacle the Havasupais built a cage with logs which they filled with stones, and then from this stretched rude logs up and across, to which other logs were fastened, thus making a fairly substantial bridge from the lower to the upper stratum over which their horses as well as themselves could safely pass. The trail from this point ascends through tortuous canyons a distance of seven miles to the territory occupied by the Wallapais. Just below the entrance to Wallapai Canyon a vast mass of talus has fallen, and two hundred yards farther down, the Cataract Canyon trail goes over a portion of These rocky pillars with their supporting walls seem as if they were once a part of a great wall that entirely spanned the canyon, the towers being sentinel outlooks to guard from attack both above and below. The portion of the wall to the right, as one descends the canyon, has been washed away, but the tower-crowned mass to the left still preserves a broad sweep into the very heart of the canyon as if it would bar all further progress. Following the sweep of this curve and passing the wall immediately underneath the outermost of the two towers, we view from the trail which ascends a mass of talus at this point another widened-out part of the canyon, which seems entirely covered with willows, here and there overshadowed by a few straggling cottonwoods. This is where the ceremonial dances of the Havasupais On the summit of the wall on the other side of the canyon from the Hue-gli-i-wa are two stone objects, one named Hue-a-pa-a, and the one farther down the canyon, Hue-pu-keh-i. These are great objects of reverence, for they represent the ancestors of the Havasupai race. Hue-a-pa-a—the man—has a child upon his back and two more by his side, and he is calling to his wife—Hue-pu-keh-i—to hurry along, as the baby is hungry and needs his dinner. The full breasts of the stone woman show that she is a nursing mother. Slightly below these stone figures, and on the right-hand side of the canyon, is the old fort, where in the days of fighting the Havasupais were wont to retire when attacked. The fort is impregnable on three sides, being precipitous, and on the fourth is accessible only up a narrow trail, which is guarded by piles of rocks which are ready to be tumbled, even by a woman, upon the heads of foes who attempt to ascend. The fortifications and stones for defence still remain, but it is many years since they were used for their original purposes. One's mind becomes very active as he looks upon this tribe of Indians and thinks of their traditions, history, and life. So far, their almost entirely isolated condition has been their preservation, although, sad to say, much of their earlier contact with our civilization was not of the best character. Even in this land of our boasted Christianity it is true that the strong prey upon the weak. The domination of physical force is giving way to the domination of mental force, but which is the greater evil? Why should the man born with a mental advantage over his Havasupai Fortress and Hue-gli-i-wa, or Rock Figures. Wallapai and Havasu Canyons, far more than the Grand Canyon, meet the popular idea as to what a canyon is. Their walls are narrow and precipitous, and one staying in their depths must be content with a late sunrise and an early sunset. Just above the rude bridge before described are several natural reservoirs of water. Here the canyon is not more than from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty feet wide. This close proximity of the walls, which fairly overshadow one, compels one to feel his insignificance far more than when he stands in the wider and more comprehensive vastness of the Grand Canyon. From leading Havasupais I learn that many years ago the various tribes of this region were at war one with another, until finally a treaty of peace was entered into and boundaries defined. The Paiutis were to remain in Nevada and Utah and not cross the Colorado River, the Wallapais had their region to the west of Havasu Canyon, the Mohaves, Hopis, Pimas, Apaches, Navahoes, Chimehuevis, and the rest their prescribed limits, over which they were not to go without permission from the chiefs into whose territory they wished to pass. And, generally speaking, this treaty has been observed. Of the exquisitely beautiful waterfalls that give the commonly accepted name to Havasu Canyon, viz., Cataract Canyon, I have not space here to treat. I have already somewhat fully described them in my book on the Grand Canyon. |