Paths of Life

Pai—The Hualapai, Havasupai, and Yavapai:
“The Great Creator Has Given Us This Country”

Three centuries ago, the Pai peoples ranged over nearly one-third of the territory that is now Arizona. This land, and their deep attachments to it, became an important part of their cultural identity. In the story of their creation Judaba:h, the Creator, told the people, "You are to be here, it is destined." Since the 1860s, the Pai people have had to fight on the battlefields and in the courtrooms to fulfill this destiny.

In 1857, the U.S. Army built a wagon road across central Arizona. Prospectors soon fanned out across lands controlled by the Pai peoples in search of gold. Over the next decade, soldiers killed hundreds of Havasupai, Hualapai and Yavapai people, many in cruel massacres and surprise attacks. In 1873, troops forced 1400 Yavapai people to walk 180 miles to the San Carlos reservation. More than 100 people died on "The Long Walk."

After this military defeat, the people fought back in other ways. Many turned to the Ghost Dance, a religious movement intended to remove the Whites from the land. Dr. Carlos Montezuma, a Yavapai physician, led a movement to establish land rights for all Indian peoples.

Threats to Pai lands from miners, ranchers, railroads, and even environmentalists continued into the 1980s. But the Pai people rose to the challenge, bringing their land claims cases to the U.S. Congress.

The Federal government finally acted to restore Havasupai lands along the Grand Canyon National Park, and stopped the construction of a dam that would have flooded the Ft. McDowell Reservation of the Yavapai.