The Hualapai Indian Reservation
The Hualapai Reservation is located at the western edge of the Grand Canyon. Archeological evidences trace Hualapai presence in area back at least a thousand years. The Hualapai lands offer travel experiences one might not think of when thinking about the Grand Canyon.
Hualapai Indian Reservation is in Mohave County, in the Lake Havasu City-Kingman metro area. The Hualapai (also spelled Walapai) are a tribe of Native Americans who live in the mountains of northwestern Arizona, United States. The name is derived from “hwal,” the Yuman word for pine, “Hualapai” meaning “people of the tall pine”. Their traditional territory is a 100 mile (160 km) stretch along the pine-clad southern side of the Grand Canyon with the tribal capital located at Peach Springs.
Inhabitation
The Hualapai are a native people of the Southwest. Traditionally they inhabited an area of more than five million acres. Their homeland stretched from the Grand Canyon Southward to the Bill Williams and Santa Maria rivers and from the Black Mountains eastward to the pine forests of the San Francisco Peaks. Primarily nomadic hunter-gatherers, the Hualapai were organized in bands. Each band occupied a defined territory in pursuit of seasonally-available wild plants and animals. Farming was also practiced in locations where adequate water was available.
Reservation
The community is governed by the Hualapai Tribal Council which includes a chairperson, vice-chairperson, and seven other council members. Law enforcement is provided by the Hualapai Nation Tribal Police Department which came into existence in 2002. The department consists of a Chief of Police, Deputy Chief, Criminal Investigator and 11 sworn, Arizona State certified Patrol Officers. Alcoholism and obesity are major problems among many Native American people, so there are community-wide anti-drug and anti-alcohol efforts.
Trade and Occupation
Skillful traders, the Hualapai engaged in commerce with groups far and wide. They exchanged meat for corn, pumpkins, and squash grown by Mojave Indians along the Colorado River. They traded hides to the Havasupai of the Grand Canyon for cultivated crops. They even exchanged specialized products-dried mescal, red hematite, and exquisite basketry-to the native people as far away as the Pacific Coast and the Rio Grand Valley.
Culture
The material culture of the Hualapai reflected their nomadic lifestyle. Moving on foot - the Hualapai carried few belongings. They used stone tools, ground their food on stones found at each resting point, and cooked in pottery vessels. The people ate wild foods such as cactus, yucca fruits, pinon nuts, agave hearts and mesquite beans. They also indulged in small mammals, prong-horn, deer and mountain sheep. Hualapai Folk Arts also offers a variety of traditional and modern art for sale.
Shelter
As needed, the Hualapai assembled shelters from readily-available materials including brush and earth. The Hualapai built simple thatched brush and bark dome houses at each camp for shade in summer and sturdier mud-plastered huts in winter. Men used sweat lodges both for curing and as clubhouses; women entered them less frequently, primarily for healing.
Attractions
The Hualapai Reservation area offers hunting, fishing, hiking and camping facilities. Hualapai Wildlife Conservation sells big-game hunting permits for Desert Bighorn sheep, trophy elk, antelope and mountain lion. The Colorado River bounds the northern edge of the Reservation. The Hualapai River Runners offer one and two day trips. Offering an alternative to the congested National Park, Grand Canyon West attracts more than 3,000 guests each month. Lake Mead National Recreation area lies to the west of the reservation.
The Grand Canyon always provided important food sources for eating, for medicinal uses, and for utilitarian purposes. The major wild foods are derived from cactus fruit and from the seeds of various grasses and with the use of metates and mano stones.