Mohave
Encyclopedia
Mohave or Mojave are a Native American
people indigenous to the Colorado River
in the Mojave Desert
. The Fort Mojave Indian Reservation
includes parts of California
, Arizona
, and Nevada
. The Colorado River Indian Reservation
includes parts of California and Arizona and is shared by members of the Chemehuevi
, Hopi
, and Navajo people
s.
The original Colorado River and Fort Mojave reservations were established in 1865 and 1870, respectively. Both reservations include substantial senior water rights
in the Colorado River, which are used for irrigated farming. Though the four combined tribes sharing the Colorado River Indian Reservation function today as one geo-political unit, the federally recognized Colorado River Indian Tribes
, each continues to maintain and observe its individual traditions, distinct religions, and culturally unique identities.
The tribal headquarters, library and museum are in Parker, Arizona
, about 40 miles (64 km) north of I-10
. The National Indian Days Celebration is held annually in Parker, from Thursday through Sunday during the last week of September. The All Indian Rodeo is also celebrated annually, on the first weekend in December. RV facilities are available along the Colorado River.
The tribal name has been spelled with over fifty variations, such as Hamock avi, Amacava, A-mac-ha ves, A-moc-ha-ve, Jamajabs, and Hamakhav. The resulting incorrect assumed meanings can be partly traced to a translation error in Frederick W. Hodge's 1917 Handbook of the American Indians North of Mexico, which incorrectly defined it, "Mohave (from hamock, three, avi, mountain)." According to this source, the name refers to the picturesque mountain peaks called the Needles, located near the Colorado River a few miles south of the city of Needles, California
. The Mojave call these peaks Huqueamp avi, which means "where the battle took place," referring to the battle in which the God-son, Mastamho, slew the sea serpent.
, where the tall pillars of First House of Mutavilya loomed above the river, past Avi kwame or Spirit Mountain
, the center of spiritual things, to the Quechan Valley, where the lands of other tribes began. Translated into present landmarks, their lands began in the north at Hoover Dam
and ended about one hundred miles below Parker Dam
on the Colorado River
, or aha kwahwat in Mojave.
, who gave them the river and taught them how to plant. They were mainly farmers who planted in the overflow of the untamed river, following the age-old customs of the Aha macave. Also, Mohave religion believes in sacraments of Datura
(peyote). A Mohave who is coming of age must ingest the plant in a rite of passage in order to enter a new state of consciousness.
belongs to the River Yuman branch of the Yuman language family. It consists of about ten languages and various dialects, with speakers ranging from Baja California
and northern Sonora
in Mexico
, to southern California and western Arizona
in the United States.
, moved upriver into Mojave country, with the well-publicized objective of establishing a military post on the river. It was intended to protect east-west European-American emigrants from attack by the Mojave. By that time, white immigrants and settlers had begun to encroach on Mojave lands, and sometimes got into violent conflict with the indigenous people, who tried to protect their territory. Hoffman sent couriers among the tribes, warning that the post would be gained by force if they or their allies chose to resist. Instead, it was a bloodless occupation. The Mojave warriors withdrew as Hoffman's formidable armada approached and the expedition posted camp near what would later become Fort Mojave
.
Hoffman ordered the Mojave men to assemble at the armed stockade adjacent to his headquarters; two days later, on April 23, 1859, clan
chiefs came as ordered to hear Hoffman's terms of peace. Hoffman gave them the choice of submission or extermination. They chose peace. At that time, the Mojave had an old culture that had been passed down the centuries, unchanged by the few parties of white men who had traveled through their country. Twenty-two totemic clans existed among a Mojave population estimated to be about 4,000 in total.
During most of the period of military occupation, the Fort Mojave were technically under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. "Legally" they belonged on the Colorado River Reservation after it was established in 1865. But, when they refused to leave their ancestral homes in the Mojave Valley, the War Department declined to try to force them onto the reservation. The Indian Agent there was unable to supervise them. Whatever supervision they had came from the commanders at Fort Mojave. As long as Fort Mojave was garrisoned by the War Department, the Fort Mojave Indians, if peace abiding, were relatively free to follow their old tribal ways. In the midsummer of 1890, the War Department withdrew its troops and transferred the post to the Department of the Interior.
Beginning in August 1890, the Department of the Interior
began an intensive program of assimilation. Its agent forced native children living on reservations into schools to learn to speak, write, and read English. Fort Mojave was converted into a boarding school for Fort Mojave and other "non-reservation" Indians. Until 1931, forty-one years later, all Fort Mojave boys and girls between the ages of six and eighteen were compelled to live at this school or attend an advanced Indian school remote from Fort Mojave.
This was the era of trying to assimilate Indians to European-American culture by breaking up tribal ties and governments, teaching American culture, customs and English, and insisting that they follow the patterns of the majority culture. At the school the children and youth were transformed, outside, into facsimiles of white children of their day—haircuts, clothing, habits of eating, sleeping, toiletry, manners, industry, language, and so on. They were forbidden to use their own language, as with most other native ways which were also prohibited and punished. Five lashes of the whip was the penalty for the first offense of speaking in their native tongue. Corporal punishment of children scandalized the Mojave, who did not discipline their children with whips and straps.
The administrators of the reservations' school systems assigned English names to the children. They were registered with the Department of the Interior as members of two tribes, the Mojave Tribe on the Colorado River Reservation and the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation. This arbitrary naming and division did not reflect the old Mojave family system. Similarly, the word tribe is not an Aha macave concept, but some modern Aha macave do use it to describe their family.
By 1965, their number had diminished to approximately one thousand. Eighteen of the traditional clans survived.
missionary-explorer Francisco Garcés
estimated the Mohave population in 1776 as 3,000 (Garcés 1900(2):450). Alfred L. Kroeber
(1925:883) also put the 1770 population of the Mohave at 3,000.
Kroeber estimated the population of the Mohave in 1910 as 1,050.
Lorraine M. Sherer's research revealed that in 1963, the population of Fort Mojaves was 438 and that of the Colorado River Reservation approximately 550.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
people indigenous to the Colorado River
Colorado River
The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...
in the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
. The Fort Mojave Indian Reservation
Fort Mojave Indian Reservation
The Fort Mojave Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation along the Colorado River, currently encompassing 23,669 acres in Arizona, 12,633 acres in California, and 5,582 acres in Nevada. The reservation was originally established in 1870 and is now home to approximately 1,100 members of the...
includes parts of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, and Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
. The Colorado River Indian Reservation
Colorado River Indian Reservation
The Colorado River Indian Reservation is 189 miles west of Phoenix, Arizona, on highway 95. It lies in western La Paz County, Arizona, southeastern San Bernardino County, California, and northeastern Riverside County, California. It has a total land area of 432.22 sq mi , and most of it lies...
includes parts of California and Arizona and is shared by members of the Chemehuevi
Chemehuevi
The Chemehuevi are a federally recognized Native American tribe enrolled in the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of the Chemehuevi Reservation. They are the southernmost branch of Paiutes.-Reservation:...
, Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
, and Navajo people
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
s.
The original Colorado River and Fort Mojave reservations were established in 1865 and 1870, respectively. Both reservations include substantial senior water rights
Water law
Water law is the field of law dealing with the ownership, control, and use of water as a resource. It is most closely related to property law, but has also become influenced by environmental law...
in the Colorado River, which are used for irrigated farming. Though the four combined tribes sharing the Colorado River Indian Reservation function today as one geo-political unit, the federally recognized Colorado River Indian Tribes
Colorado River Indian Tribes
The Colorado River Indian Tribes is a geo-political unit consisting of the four distinct tribes associated with the Colorado River Indian Reservation: the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo. The combined tribe is governed by a council of nine members and overseen by a tribal Chairman, Secretary...
, each continues to maintain and observe its individual traditions, distinct religions, and culturally unique identities.
The tribal headquarters, library and museum are in Parker, Arizona
Parker, Arizona
Parker is a town in and the county seat of La Paz County, Arizona, United States, on the Colorado River in Parker Valley. The population was 3,140 at the 2000 census.-History:...
, about 40 miles (64 km) north of I-10
Interstate 10 in Arizona
In the U.S. state of Arizona, Interstate 10, the major east–west Interstate Highway in the southern United States, runs east from California, enters Arizona and continues through Phoenix and Tucson and exits at the border with New Mexico.-Route description:...
. The National Indian Days Celebration is held annually in Parker, from Thursday through Sunday during the last week of September. The All Indian Rodeo is also celebrated annually, on the first weekend in December. RV facilities are available along the Colorado River.
History
Much of the pre-surrender history of the Mojave is still to be revealed and written, since the Mojave language was unwritten in precolonial times. They depended on oral communication to transmit their history and culture from one generation to the next. The impact of outside culture shattered their social organization and fragmented the Mojave transmission of their stories and songs.The tribal name has been spelled with over fifty variations, such as Hamock avi, Amacava, A-mac-ha ves, A-moc-ha-ve, Jamajabs, and Hamakhav. The resulting incorrect assumed meanings can be partly traced to a translation error in Frederick W. Hodge's 1917 Handbook of the American Indians North of Mexico, which incorrectly defined it, "Mohave (from hamock, three, avi, mountain)." According to this source, the name refers to the picturesque mountain peaks called the Needles, located near the Colorado River a few miles south of the city of Needles, California
Needles, California
Needles is a city located in the Mojave Desert on the western banks of the Colorado River in San Bernardino County, California. It is located in the Mohave Valley, which straddles the California–Arizona border. The city is accessible via Interstate 40 and U.S. Route 95...
. The Mojave call these peaks Huqueamp avi, which means "where the battle took place," referring to the battle in which the God-son, Mastamho, slew the sea serpent.
Ancestral lands
Before they surrendered to United States troops, the Mojave held lands along the river that stretched from Black CanyonBlack Canyon of the Colorado
The Black Canyon of the Colorado is the canyon on the Colorado River where Hoover Dam was built. The canyon is located on the Colorado River at the state line between Nevada and Arizona. The western wall of the gorge is in the El Dorado Mountains, and the eastern wall is in the Black Mountains of...
, where the tall pillars of First House of Mutavilya loomed above the river, past Avi kwame or Spirit Mountain
Spirit Mountain, Nevada
Spirit Mountain, also known as Newberry Peak, is a mountain in the Laughlin, Nevada area that is listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places...
, the center of spiritual things, to the Quechan Valley, where the lands of other tribes began. Translated into present landmarks, their lands began in the north at Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President...
and ended about one hundred miles below Parker Dam
Parker Dam
Parker Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam that crosses the Colorado River downstream of Hoover Dam. Built between 1934 and 1938 by the Bureau of Reclamation, it is high, of which are below the riverbed, making it "the deepest dam in the world". The dam's primary functions are to create a...
on the Colorado River
Colorado River
The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...
, or aha kwahwat in Mojave.
Religion
The Mohave believed in their creator Mutavilya, who gave them their names and their commandments, and in his son MastamhoMastamho
Mastamho, sometimes also referred to as Mustamho, is the creator deity of the first Mohave people along the Colorado River in the Mojave Desert and Colorado Desert. Mastamho is the grandson of the Earth Mother and the Sky Father. He was the son of Matavilya and a sister, Frog Woman, and a...
, who gave them the river and taught them how to plant. They were mainly farmers who planted in the overflow of the untamed river, following the age-old customs of the Aha macave. Also, Mohave religion believes in sacraments of Datura
Datura
Datura is a genus of nine species of vespertine flowering plants belonging to the family Solanaceae. Its precise and natural distribution is uncertain, owing to its extensive cultivation and naturalization throughout the temperate and tropical regions of the globe...
(peyote). A Mohave who is coming of age must ingest the plant in a rite of passage in order to enter a new state of consciousness.
Language
The Mojave languageMojave language
Mojave is the native language of the Mohave people along the Colorado River in eastern California, northwestern Arizona, and southwestern Nevada...
belongs to the River Yuman branch of the Yuman language family. It consists of about ten languages and various dialects, with speakers ranging from Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
and northern Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, to southern California and western Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
in the United States.
Post-conquest
In mid-April 1859, United States troops of the Expedition of the Colorado, led by Lieutenant Colonel William HoffmanWilliam Hoffman (U.S. Army)
William Hoffman was a 19th century officer in the United States Army. The West Point graduate was involved in the Black Hawk War, Seminole Wars, Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. During the Civil War he served as the Commissary-General of Prisoners and set policy for the treatment...
, moved upriver into Mojave country, with the well-publicized objective of establishing a military post on the river. It was intended to protect east-west European-American emigrants from attack by the Mojave. By that time, white immigrants and settlers had begun to encroach on Mojave lands, and sometimes got into violent conflict with the indigenous people, who tried to protect their territory. Hoffman sent couriers among the tribes, warning that the post would be gained by force if they or their allies chose to resist. Instead, it was a bloodless occupation. The Mojave warriors withdrew as Hoffman's formidable armada approached and the expedition posted camp near what would later become Fort Mojave
Fort Mojave Indian Reservation
The Fort Mojave Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation along the Colorado River, currently encompassing 23,669 acres in Arizona, 12,633 acres in California, and 5,582 acres in Nevada. The reservation was originally established in 1870 and is now home to approximately 1,100 members of the...
.
Hoffman ordered the Mojave men to assemble at the armed stockade adjacent to his headquarters; two days later, on April 23, 1859, clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
chiefs came as ordered to hear Hoffman's terms of peace. Hoffman gave them the choice of submission or extermination. They chose peace. At that time, the Mojave had an old culture that had been passed down the centuries, unchanged by the few parties of white men who had traveled through their country. Twenty-two totemic clans existed among a Mojave population estimated to be about 4,000 in total.
During most of the period of military occupation, the Fort Mojave were technically under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. "Legally" they belonged on the Colorado River Reservation after it was established in 1865. But, when they refused to leave their ancestral homes in the Mojave Valley, the War Department declined to try to force them onto the reservation. The Indian Agent there was unable to supervise them. Whatever supervision they had came from the commanders at Fort Mojave. As long as Fort Mojave was garrisoned by the War Department, the Fort Mojave Indians, if peace abiding, were relatively free to follow their old tribal ways. In the midsummer of 1890, the War Department withdrew its troops and transferred the post to the Department of the Interior.
Beginning in August 1890, the Department of the Interior
United States Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native...
began an intensive program of assimilation. Its agent forced native children living on reservations into schools to learn to speak, write, and read English. Fort Mojave was converted into a boarding school for Fort Mojave and other "non-reservation" Indians. Until 1931, forty-one years later, all Fort Mojave boys and girls between the ages of six and eighteen were compelled to live at this school or attend an advanced Indian school remote from Fort Mojave.
This was the era of trying to assimilate Indians to European-American culture by breaking up tribal ties and governments, teaching American culture, customs and English, and insisting that they follow the patterns of the majority culture. At the school the children and youth were transformed, outside, into facsimiles of white children of their day—haircuts, clothing, habits of eating, sleeping, toiletry, manners, industry, language, and so on. They were forbidden to use their own language, as with most other native ways which were also prohibited and punished. Five lashes of the whip was the penalty for the first offense of speaking in their native tongue. Corporal punishment of children scandalized the Mojave, who did not discipline their children with whips and straps.
The administrators of the reservations' school systems assigned English names to the children. They were registered with the Department of the Interior as members of two tribes, the Mojave Tribe on the Colorado River Reservation and the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation. This arbitrary naming and division did not reflect the old Mojave family system. Similarly, the word tribe is not an Aha macave concept, but some modern Aha macave do use it to describe their family.
By 1965, their number had diminished to approximately one thousand. Eighteen of the traditional clans survived.
Population
Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. The FranciscanFranciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
missionary-explorer Francisco Garcés
Francisco Garcés
Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás Garcés was a Spanish Franciscan missionary who explored much of the southwestern part of North America, including what are now Arizona, southern California, and northeastern Baja California. Garcés was born April 12, 1738, in Morata de Jalón , Zaragoza province,...
estimated the Mohave population in 1776 as 3,000 (Garcés 1900(2):450). Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber was an American anthropologist. He was the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and played an integral role in the early days of its Museum of Anthropology, where he served as director from 1909 through...
(1925:883) also put the 1770 population of the Mohave at 3,000.
Kroeber estimated the population of the Mohave in 1910 as 1,050.
Lorraine M. Sherer's research revealed that in 1963, the population of Fort Mojaves was 438 and that of the Colorado River Reservation approximately 550.
External links
- Colorado River Indian Tribes Public Library/Archive
- "History of the Mohave", National Park Service
Listening
- "Creation Songs of the Mohave people", NPR audio documentary
See also
- Mohave traditional narrativesMohave traditional narrativesMohave traditional narratives include myths, legends, tales, and oral histories preserved by the Mohave people on the lower Colorado River in southeastern California, western Arizona, and southern Nevada....
- Blythe geoglyphs
- Population of Native CaliforniaPopulation of Native CaliforniaEstimates of the Native Californian population have varied substantially, both with respect to California's pre-contact count and for changes during subsequent periods. Pre-contact estimates range from 133,000 to 705,000 with some recent scholars concluding that these estimates are low...
- Indigenous peoples of the AmericasIndigenous peoples of the AmericasThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...