Mohave people
Yavapai[1] |
Mohave or Mojave (
The original Colorado River and Fort Mojave reservations were established in 1865 and 1870, respectively. Both reservations include substantial senior
The four combined tribes sharing the Colorado River Indian Reservation function today as one geo-political unit known as the federally recognized Colorado River Indian Tribes; each tribe also continues to maintain and observe its individual traditions, distinct religions, and culturally unique identities.
Culture
In the 1930s, George Devereux, a Hungarian-French anthropologist, did fieldwork and lived among the Mohave for an extended period of study. He published extensively about their culture and incorporated psychoanalytic thinking in his interpretation of their culture.
Language
The
Religion
The Mohave creator is Matevilya, who gave the people their names and their commandments. His son is
History
Much of early Mojave history remains unrecorded in writing, since the Mojave language was not written in precolonial times. They depended on oral communication to transmit their history and culture from one generation to the next. Disease, outside cultures and encroachment on their territory disrupted their social organization. Together with having to adapt to a majority culture of another language, this resulted in interrupting the Mojave transmission of their stories and songs to the following generations.[citation needed]
The tribal name has been spelled in Spanish and English transliteration in more than 50 variations, such as Hamock avi, Amacava, A-mac-ha ves, A-moc-ha-ve, Jamajabs, and Hamakhav. This has led to misinterpretations of the tribal name, also partly traced to a translation error in
Ancestral lands
The Mojave held lands along the river that stretched from
19th–20th centuries
In mid-April 1859, United States troops, led by Lieutenant Colonel
Under American law the Mohave were to live on the Colorado River Reservation after its establishment in 1865. However, many refused to leave their ancestral homes in the Mojave Valley. At this time, under jurisdiction of the War Department, officials declined to try to force them onto the reservation and the Mojave in the area were relatively free to follow their tribal ways. In the midsummer of 1890, after the end of the
Beginning in August 1890, the Office of Indian Affairs began an intensive program of
The assimilation helped to break up tribal culture and governments. In addition to English, schools taught American culture and customs and insisted that the children follow them; students were required to adopt European-American hairstyles (which included hair cutting), clothing, habits of eating, sleeping, toiletry, manners, industry, and language. Use of their own language or customs was a punishable offense; at Fort Mojave five lashes of the whip were issued for the first offense. Such corporal punishment of children scandalized the Mojave, who did not discipline their children in that way.
As part of the assimilation the administrators assigned English names to the children and registered as members of one of two tribes, the Mojave Tribe on the Colorado River Reservation and the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation. These divisions did not reflect the traditional Mojave clan and kinship system. By the late 1960s, thirty years after the end of the assimilation program 18 of the 22 traditional clans had survived.
Population
Estimates of the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially.
Current status
The Mohave, along with the Chemehuevi, some Hopi, and some Navajo, share the Colorado River Indian Reservation and function today as one geopolitical unit known as the federally recognized Colorado River Indian Tribes; each tribe also continues to maintain and observe its individual traditions, distinct religions, and culturally unique identities. The Colorado River Indian Tribes headquarters, library and museum are in Parker, Arizona, about 40 miles (64 km) north of I-10. The Colorado River Indian Tribes Native American Days Fair & Expo is held annually in Parker, from Thursday through Sunday during the first week of October. The Megathrow Traditional Bird Singing & Dancing social event is also celebrated annually, on the third weekend of March. RV facilities are available along the Colorado River.
See also
- Mohave traditional narratives
- Blythe geoglyphs
- Fort Mohave, Arizona
- Bullhead City, Arizona
- Population of Native California
- Hi-wa itck, a syndrome triggered by separation from a loved one
References
- ^ a b c d "Mohave." Ethnologue. Retrieved April 11, 2012.
- ^ Pritzker 47
- ^ "Sacred Datura". www.angelfire.com. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
- ^ Munro, Pamela; Brown, Nellie; Crawford, Judith G. (1992). A Mojave Dictionary. p. 80.
- ^ Kroeber, A. L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
- ^ Sherer 1965
Further reading
- Devereux, George. 1935. "Sexual Life of the Mohave Indians", unpublished PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California.
- Devereux, George. 1937. "Institutionalized Homosexuality of the Mohave Indians". Human Biology 9:498–527.
- Devereux, George. 1939. "Mohave Soul Concepts," American Anthropologist 39:417–422.
- Devereux, George. 1939. "Mohave Culture and Personality". Character and Personality 8:91–109, 1939.
- Devereux, George. 1938. "L'envoûtement chez les Indiens Mohave. Journal de la Société des Americanistes de Paris 29:405–412.
- Devereux, George. 1939. "The Social and Cultural Implications of Incest among the Mohave Indians". Psychoanalytic Quarterly8:510–533.
- Devereux, George. 1941. "Mohave Beliefs Concerning Twins". American Anthropologist 43:573–592.
- Devereux, George. 1942. "Primitive Psychiatry (Part II)". Bulletin of the History of Medicine 11:522–542.
- Devereux, George. 1947. "Mohave Orality". Psychoanalytic Quarterly16:519–546.
- Devereux, George. 1948. The Mohave Indian Kamalo:y. Journal of Clinical Psychopathology.
- Devereux, George. 1950. "Heterosexual Behavior of the Mohave Indians". Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences 2(1):85–128.
- Devereux, George. 1948. "Mohave Pregnancy". Acta Americana 6:89–116.
- Fathauer, George, H.. 1951. "Religion in Mohave Social Structure", The Ohio Journal of Science, 51(5), September 1951, pp. 273–276.
- Forde, C. Daryll. 1931. "Ethnography of the Yuma Indians". University of California Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology 28:83–278.
- Garcés, Francisco. 1900. On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer: The Diary and Itinerary of Francisco Garcés. Edited by Elliott Coues. 2 vols. Harper, New York. (on-line)
- Hall, S. H. 1903. "The Burning of a Mohave Chief," Out West 18:60–65.
- Hodge, Frederick W. (ed.) Handbook of the American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1917), I, 919
- Ives, Lt. Joseph C. 1861. Report Upon the Colorado River of the West, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. Pt. I, 71. Washington, D.C.
- Kroeber, A. L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
- Sherer, Lorraine M. 1966. "Great Chieftains of the Mohave Indians". Southern California Quarterly 48(1):1–35. Los Angeles, California.
- Sherer, Lorraine M. 1967. "The Name Mojave, Mohave: A History of its Origin and Meaning". Southern California Quarterly 49(4):1–36. Los Angeles, California.
- Sherer, Lorraine M. and Frances Stillman. 1994. Bitterness Road: The Mojave, 1604–1860, Menlo Park, California: Ballena Press.
- Stewart, Kenneth M. 1947. "An Account of the Mohave Mourning Ceremony". American Anthropologist 49:146–148.
- Whipple, Lt. Amiel Weeks. 1854. "Corps of Topographical Engineers Report". Pt. I, 114.
- White, Helen C. 1947. Dust on the King's Highway. Macmillan, New York.
- Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1890–1891, II, vi
- Reports of the Secretary of the Interior, 1891–1930, containing the annual reports of the superintendents of the Fort Mojave School from 1891 through 1930.
- Pritzker, Barry M. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0195138771.
- Sherer, Lorraine Miller. 1965. "The Clan System of the Fort Mojave Indians: A Contemporary Survey." Southern California Quarterly 47(1):1–72. Los Angeles, California.
- Zappia, Natale A. (2014). Traders and Raiders: The Indigenous World of the Colorado Basin, 1540–1859. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
External links
- Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, official website
- Colorado River Indian Tribes, official website
- Colorado River Indian Tribes Public Library/Archive
- National Park Service: History & Culture
- "Creation Songs of the Mohave people", NPR audio documentary