MOHAVE

MOHAVE. The Mohaves are the northernmost of three culturally related groups living along the lower Colorado River. All three speak related Yuman languages. Traditional Mohave territory extends roughly forty-five miles upriver and seventy-five miles downriver from the modern city of Needles, California. To their south, in the area of the Colorado-Gila confluence, are the Quechans; farther south, straddling the modern international boundary, are the Cocopas. (Between 1827 and 1829 a fourth

Yuman group, the Halchidhomas, were driven out of the area between the Mohaves and the Quechans and absorbed by groups to the east.) The Mohaves are probable descendents of the more widespread ancient culture known archaeologically as Hakatayan or Lowland Patayan. Their own origin narratives declare this river region has always been their home, anchored by the sacred Spirit Mountain nearby.

They briefly met Spaniards in 1604, and again in 1776. In the late 1850s, after three decades of encounters with various white expeditions, the U.S. Army built Fort Mohave in their territory and subjugated them. Factionalism erupted in the 1860s and divided the Mohaves into two groups now on two separate reservations: Fort Mohave (just north of Needles, California) and, about forty miles south, the Colorado River reservation. Mohave population in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was estimated at between three and four thousand.

Like their lower Colorado Yuman relatives, the Mohaves traditionally maintained a strong sense of tribal identity despite their scattered and shifting settlement pattern and flexible leadership. They mounted tribal military campaigns, for example, sometimes allied with Quechans.

Their livelihood was linked to the Colorado: they farmed corn, beans, and pumpkins in the rich silt deposited during spring flooding. They lived as scattered extended families under sunshade shelters close by their family farm plots. Low, earth-covered winter houses squatted on elevations above the floodplain. Besides their crops, the Mohaves relied heavily on wild mesquite and screw-bean pods, which they ground into meal for gruel or baking. The pods became even more vital when there was no spring flooding. Fish were an important source of animal protein; deer and rabbit were less significant.

The scattered families were loosely clustered into larger settlements or rancherias, usually separated from one another by about four or five miles. Each rancheria in turn belonged to one of three larger named geographical subdivisions of the tribe. The tribe also included about twenty patrilineal clans, each of which had some totemic affiliation with an animal or plant (for example, frog, corn, or snake). The clans were exogamous, but their other functions remain unknown; they were not localized groups. Leadership was not highly structured; each rancheria recognized one or more leading men whose wise actions and generosity revealed their personal dream power. This informal civil leadership may or may not have included some members of a separate special category of benevolent orator-ritualists, who were endowed with extraordinary dream power. The title of tribal chief recognized by whites may not have been traditional. Especially skilled and courageous warriors belonged to a category of brave men. Other statuses included shamans, capable of curing or harm, and singers; all required power dreams.

The dominant theme of the Mohave worldview emphasized spiritual power derived from dreaming and from war. Individual spiritual power came from dreams whose specific content followed general scenarios and whose significance was publicly pondered (and sometimes under-scored in long song cycles). Evidently a collective tribal spiritual power waxed and waned; victories over traditional enemies (including principally Yuman-speaking Maricopas to the east and Cocopas to the south, as well as Halchidhoma, Pima, and Tohono O'odam groups) were a primary means of increasing the tribal power.

War parties were of two types: small-scale surprise raids and larger tribal campaigns. In tribal wars the opposing lines drew up to fling verbal insults at each other before loosing arrows and closing for hand-to-hand combat with heavy wooden clubs and short staffs. In the post-contact period, at least, these larger battles were not usually ignited to seize more territory. (The expulsion of the Halchidhomas was a qualified exception.) The small raids were more frequent, and evidently launched by younger men seeking to build their reputations and spread consternation among the enemy.

The most elaborate tribal ritual commemorated the deaths of prominent people during the preceding year or so. Its scenario portrayed successive phases of an epic war expedition as well as cremation segments of the origin narrative.

About 1,175 people live on the modern Fort Mohave Reservation, on a land base of 23,699 acres in Arizona and 5,582 acres in Nevada; 15,000 of these are under cultivation. The Colorado River Reservation includes about 2,400 people representing four ethnic groups: the Mohaves (the most numerous); the Chemehuevis; and Navajo and Hopi families who were moved on to the land in 1945. About 84,500 of the reservation's 278,000 acres are cultivated. Both reservations feature casinos.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kroeber, Alfred L. Handbook of the Indians of California. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1925. American Ethnology Bureau Bulletin 78 (1925). Reprinted by Dover Publications, New York (1976).

Kroeber, Alfred L., and Clifton B. Kroeber. A Mohave War Reminiscence, 1854–1880. Vol. 10, University of California Publications in Anthropology. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press (1973).

Stewart, Kenneth M. "Mohave." In Handbook of North American Indians. Edited by William C. Sturtevant et al. Volume 10, Southwest, edited by Alfonso Ortiz. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983.

Wallace, William J. "The Mohave Indians of the Lower Colorado River." In The Native Americans 2d edition. Edited by Robert F. Spencer, Jesse D. Jennings et al. New York: Harper and Row, 1977.

Robert L.Bee

See alsoTribes: Southwestern .