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UC Merced Journal of and Great Basin Anthropology

Title A Brief History of the San Juan Paiute Indians of Northern

Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/447601ts

Journal Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 5(2)

ISSN 0191-3557

Authors Turner, Allen C. Euler, Robert C.

Publication Date 1983-07-01

Peer reviewed

eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology VoL 5, Nos. 1 and 2, pp. 199-207 (1983).

A Brief History of the San Juan Paiute Indians of

ALLEN C. TURNER ROBERT C.EULER

HE San Juan Paiute Indians are a native San Juan Paiute were living during the past Tpeople who have resided on their present two hundred years, and the fact that they homelands since prehistoric times and indeed deserve identification as a recognizable maintained their distinctive ethnicity, their and distinct group of . language, and their customs despite the fact In brief, the record of observations of that their lands have been incorporated into Paiute people inhabiting the area south of the the Reservation. They are now San Juan River and east of the Little petitioning for federal acknowledgement is continuous from 1776, when the under the provisions of the Federal Spanish Franciscan Fathers Dominguez and Acknowledgement Act as specified in the Escalante made the first recorded contact, to Code of Federal Regulations (25CFR54). the present time when several anthropologists Documentation demonstrating their are engaged in active research with this group. "identification as an Indian entity by The consensus that can be derived from anthropologists, historians, or other scholars" the data is that the San Juan Paiute (25CFR54) has been provided to the San occupation of the area southeast of the San Juan Paiute Indians for submission to the Juan-Little Colorado confluence far predates Federal Acknowledgement Office of the that of the Navajo and that the latter (A. Turner 1983). migrated to that territory after the 1867 The law requires the submission of: Bosque Redondo incarceration. The antiquity of Paiute occupation was probably as early as a statement of facts establishing that the A.D. 1300. petitioner has been identified from historical times until the present on a substantiahy THE HISTORICAL RECORD continuous basis, as 'American Indian,' or 'aboriginal' [25CFR54.7(a)]. The documented history of the San Juan The present paper is based on the documenta­ Paiute Indians begins in 1776 when Fathers tion generated in support of the San Juan Dominguez and Escalante made the first Paiute petition. This is not an ethnographic or reported contact with them. Escalante's map an ethnohistorical study. It is simply to put of the Interior Basin (Fig. 1) shows clearly the on record the historic notations of where the location of the "Yutas Payuchis" south of the San Juan River. On November 7, 1776, the AUen C. Turner, Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology, and party made the difficult crossing of the Social Work, Idaho State Univ., Pocatello, ID 83209. Robert C. Euler, Dept. of Anthropology, Arizona State Univ., at a point known later as the Tempe, AZ 85287. "Crossing of the Fathers." Said Escalante:

[199] 200 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY

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eight or ten leagues to the northeast of the nia .... South of the San Juan River he ford, there is a high, rounded peak which the mentioned seeing Navajo Indians .... As he Payuchis, whose country begins here, called went west he passed the vicinhy of what is Tucane which means Black Peak, and it is now known as Paiute Canyon, east of Navajo the only one hereabouts which can be seen Mountain, and mentioned the water hole of close at hand from the river crossing [Bolton the Payuches Indians, where Southern Paiute 1950; 119]. Indians are stih living [Stewart 1966:180].

Tucane is known now as yet After leaving Abiquiu on November 6, 1829, the Paiutes of the area still refer to it as Armijo wrote in his journal: Tucane or as Paiute Mountain. The gentiles of the Payuche nation inhabit Escalante recognized the linguistic and the vicinity of the above mentioned river political unity of the peoples of the Interior [the Colorado]; their living quarters are jocales, and they live on grass seeds, hares Basin and included the Payuchis, or San Juan and rabbits, using the skins of the latter to Paiutes, within the larger sociopolitical cover a small part of their body [Hafen and domain with other Numic speaking peoples. Hafen 1954; 158-165].

In 1852, the Assistant Surgeon of the They were ah of one race and spoke the same language . . . and might be called 'a kingdom Army, Dr. P. G. S. Ten Broeck, divided into five privincies, known by the was in one of the vhlages in northern common name of Yutas' ... the divisions Arizona. His journal records: were Muhuachis, Payuchis, Tabehuachis, Sabauganas, and Cobardes [Bolton 1950; I saw three Payoche Indians today. They live 119]. on a triangular piece of land, formed by the junction of the San Juan and Colorado of On November 9, 1776, the Spaniards lost the West [Schoolcraft 1860, Vol. IV: 82-83]. their trail and fohowed Navajo Canyon eastward to a mesa which temporarily The year 1859 saw an intensive explora­ blocked their progress. "Near this mesa they tion of portions of the San Juan Paiute found some tents of Yutas Payuchis, neigh­ territory. United States Army officers. Cap­ bors and friends of the Cosninas [Havasu- tain Walker and Major Shepherd, were in pai] " (Bolton 1950:120). From this point the charge of a reconnoitering expedition. In the party continued through the Hopi vhlages on vicinity of the present Marsh Pass and Tsegi their way to Santa Fe, thus concluding their Canyon, they remarked: fahed attempt to locate an alternative route to the missions of Monterey. In this canon which is of considerable length The next reported contact was that of there is said to be several lagunas and good grazing and [it] is the home of a band of Armijo in 1829. The Paiute were "stih in Pah-Utahs. control of at least the left bank of the Colorado when he [Armijo] passed through Later it was noted that in 1829, and the were stih to the east" (Euler 1966: 106). As Armijo, with the Beyond the Mesas de las Vacas [present first recorded pack train over the Old Spanish Black Mesa near Kayenta] there are one or two canons mentioned by my guide [a Trah, crossed the San Juan country, he first Navajo] as having water and grass, but they saw Navajo, then Paiutes. are within the Pah- country with whom Antonio Armijo . . . left Abiquiu, November the Navajos have been at war for sometime 1829, and traveled to Los Angeles, Califor­ past [Bailey 1964: 85,89]. 202 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY

Additional important evidence for San Photographs included in Stewart's study Juan residency can be derived from ethnog­ show, for example: raphies and consultant testimony collected San Juan S. Paiute Indians in their hogan. later. In 1938, for example, Omer Stewart Informant Dagaibhsi, born around 1868, on (1942) interviewed Joe Francis, a Paiute born right. The rug on the loom was made by around 1858 in the "Badaway Country" Dagaibitsi's granddaughter. between Highway 89 and the Colorado River south of Lee's Ferry. He lived in "Arizona And, in Plate 2: [north] of City and around Navajo Joe Francis standing in front of his hogan, Mountain ah of his life except for ten years at Navajo Reservation, 15 miles north of Tuba Oraibi where he went at the age of about 16 City, Arizona [Stewart 1942: 306]. years." Francis's information provided much data in Stewart's attempt to reconstruct The first acknowledgement of the San Paiute culture in the era of the consultant's Juan Paiute by U. S. Government ethnologists grandparents, presumably around A.D. 1800. occurred in 1873 when John Wesley Poweh Scalogram analysis of the resulting "cultural and G. W. Ingahs submitted a report to the element distribution hst" shown in Table 1 Commissioner of Indian Affairs (Powell and demonstrates quite clearly that the San Juan Ingahs 1874). Referring to the San Juan fit within a Shoshonean pattern of political Paiutes as the "Kwai-an-ti-kwok-its," a Paiute organization. They do so despite their having term meaning "the people living across the adopted such Navajo material culture as river," the government ethnologists noted cribbed hogans, dress styles, and weaving. their isolation and their population:

Table 1 SCALOGRAM OF POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONAL TRAITS BY BAND tsnunt s tsi u • •• ca +J o CJ 3 ^OlI E ? c 3 c ca

Lint s nu n o OlU I e .c ca 1 3 O. > —9 •5 C

oan i E ow a ow a nta r aib a osh i avi w fiiv w ca S H S H % a. S < Cfl ^ GO O Temporary larger grouping X X X X X X X X X X X X Local band sovereignty X X X X X X X X X X X Council, any men x X X X X X X X X X X Community approved chiefs x X X X X X X X X X X Council meets at chiefs house X X X X X 0 X X X Special dance chief X X X X X X X X X One head chief, two assistants X X X X X X X Successor named by incumbent X X X X X X Patrihneal succession ideal X X X X X Assistant is announcer/messenger X X X X X Special buffalo drive chief X X X X Special rabbit drive leader X X War bonnet for band chief only X

Coefficient of reproducibility = 1 - (E/N) = 1 - (3/169) = .98 Source: Stewart (1942) SAN JUAN PAIUTE 203

There is a small tribe of Pai-Utes in Northern In the early twentieth century the federal Arizona, on the east side of the Colorado government recognized the Paiute of the San River, known as the Kwai-an-ti-kwok-hs, which was not visited by the commission. Juan area to the extent that the area in Utah This little band lives in a district so far away south of the San Juan River was the "Piute from the route of travel that your Reservation." Byron Cummings, working in commission did not think it wise to occupy Cottonwood and Montezuma Canyons in the time and incur the expense necessary to 1908, reported that vish them in their homes [Poweh and Ingahs 1874:48]. There were then a good many Piutes living on what was known as the Piute Reservation This band and others of northern Arizona extending between the San Juan River and were tabulated with respect to population and the Utah-Arizona boundary line from the political affiliation. Included in the list were 110th meridian westward to the Colorado River. That was known as the Piute Strip the now dissembled Uinkarets, the Shivwits and was a Piute reservation at that time. A who are headquartered near St. George, and good many Piutes were stih living on the the San Juan, The latter were said to be under Strip and there was continual clashing the jurisdiction of chief Tau-gu whose domain between the Piutes and the Navajos because extended to Cedar City. The San Juan the Navajos were continuahy attempting to numbered twenty-three men, seventeen go in on Piute territory and crowd out the Piutes [Cummings 1958]. women, and twenty-two chhdren in the census of Poweh and Ingahs (1874: 50). The record is not clear regarding the authority The next governmental recognition of the under which the Piute Reservation was San Juan Paiutes is in "Statistics of Indian terminated and how it feh under the Tribes, Agencies, and Schools, 1903" (United jurisdiction of the Navajo Reservation. States Bureau of Indian Affairs 1903: 108). There was a flurry of ethnographic This report included population data on eight interest in the San Juan Paiute in the 1930s. "tribes," In 1934, Isabel Kelly mapped their territory on the basis of consultants' testimony (Fig. Shewits band, Pah-utes 129 Pahranagat band, Pah-utes 53 2). Cedar band, Pah-utes 30 Roughly the area extended from Monument Kaibab band, Pah-utes 185 Valley to the Lhtle Colorado and from the Grass Vahey band, Pah-utes 25 San Juan River to Black Mesa and Moencopi Rabbh Vahey band, Pah-utes 100 Plateau, without including either of the Kanash band, Pah-utes 100 latter [Kelly 1964; 167]. San Juan band, Pah-utes 120 TOTAL 742 Her data on the San Juan Paiute are Although the reliabihty of the 1873 and categorized in terms of territory, neighbors, 1903 enumerations may be questioned be­ habitat, settlement, subsistence, shelter, dress, cause we do not know how the population crafts, manufactures, and trade (Kelly 1964: figures were determined, they do suggest a vii). doubling of the San Juan population in thirty Whliam R. Palmer, an historian and years. More important to our discussion, how­ official of the Church of Jesus Christ of ever, is the fact that there has been continuing Latter Day Saints, made an unpubhcized field de facto recognition of the Paiute Indians of trip to the San Juan country in 1935. His the San Juan area by agents of the federal purpose was to determine the ethnicity of the government. San Juan Indians, i.e., to discern whether they 204 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY

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l. 6.BEAVER ll.UINKARET 1 2. 7.CEDAR 12.KAIBAB SERRANO 3.MOAPA 8.GUNLOCK 13.PANGUITCH 4.PARANIGAT 9. ST. GEORGE 14. KAIPAROWITS 5.PANACA lO.SHIVWITS 15.SAN JUAN 0 30 60 miles

Fig. 2. Southern Paiute bands (Kelly 1934). were "true Paiutes or mixed Utes and "always." Their fathers have lived there for Navajoes." He concluded on the basis of so many generations that no one knew when hnguistic and folkloristic data that the San they went there nor where they went from. There has been practically no contact with Juan were Paiute: the Pahutes over here in Cedar, , etc., and yet their language is pure and they have Woots [a Cedar City Paiute who served as the same legends [Palmer 1936]. translator] had no difficulty in talking with [Old Jim Mike] so there was little question Photographs in Palmer's report include but that he was a Pahute .... These Indians are a long way (100 mhes or more) [from those of Jane Lehi, Annie Dutchie, Bessie Cedar City] and I tried to find out how long Box, Katie Deer, Anson Cantsee, and Mancon they have lived out there. They said George. In his photograph album. Palmer SAN JUAN PAIUTE 205

(1935) recorded Paiutes north of Tuba City, domain of the Navajo .... There are in Arizona, near where Paiute continue to live. highly isolated pockets a few Paiute families These photos carry the fohowing notation: that have yet to be absorbed by the increase in number of Navajo. The extent and (1) Pa-lan, Alfred Lehi, Unk-kah, Answ- duration of Paiute occupation in the Glen wein, and Nattle, Tall man with turban is Canyon region is currently (not known) but Alfred Lehi. His home is 6 miles from Tuba it is felt that the Paiute preceded the Navajo City at Water Spring. Other man is Pa-lan. into the region .... Whether or not the He lives now at Koosharem. Two httle girls Paiutes (as living remnants of the Desert are Alfred's children Anse-wood and Nat-tie. Culture) were living in (2) San-ats, Kat-ats, 0-wat-se, Anse-wood, concurrently with the Anasazi still remains Nat-tie, Ka-tah and Alfred Lehi. 1. San-ats, to be fully explored [C. Turner 1962; 8]. 2. Kat-ats (1, 2, Alfred's boys), 3. 0-wat-se (Alfred's brother), 4. Anse-wood, 5. Nat-tie Just how long their occupancy precedes (Alfred's girls), 6. Kat-tah (Alfred's grand­ that of the Navajo remains unclear, although son), 7. Alfred Lehi (Kina). Ah live at Water data gathered by the junior author suggest Spring (Pah-it-spika) 6 miles from Tuba City. that the Paiute may have been in place as Also, in the 1930s is Stewart's recognition early as A.D. 1300 (RCE). of the San Juan people and their historical Subsequent studies in the 1960s and early occupancy of the area. The photograph on 1970s have not been located. In 1977, how­ page 27 of his study (Stewart 1938) of the ever, the senior author (ACT) made a series of Navajo wedding basket is captioned: fact-finding visits to the San Juan Paiute at Whlow Springs, Paiute Canyon, and Navajo Hannah Splitting-meat and Dagaibitsi, Mountain. These people expressed concern Southern Paiute Indians, in their hogan, near over the continuing Navajo pressure on Paiute Tuba City. Hannah's third attempt at weav­ ing a Navajo-type blanket is on the loom, homesites and gardening areas, especially and a wedding basket made by Dagaibitsi is those in Paiute Canyon. It was their claim between them. that the Navajo political system was not responsive to Paiute problems and that they Stewart recounted that: were powerless within their own homelands I saw them [wedding baskets] being made (A.Turner 1977). by the Southern Paiute near Tuba City . . . Several meetings were held that were and I was told that they were made by the Southern Paiute near Navajo Mountain . . . attended by representatives of several South­ the Paiute now on the Navajo Reservation ern Paiute bands including Kaibab, Shivwits, have been surrounded by Navajo since about Cedar City, Indian Peaks, and Las Vegas. As a 1860 when the latter took over the former result of these meetings, a sohdarity among Southern Paiute area (from about Tuba City these several bands emerged and a short-term and Kayenta north to the Colorado and San and long-term strategy were determined. The Juan Rivers [Stewart 1938: 27]. first involved soliciting legal assistance from There is a thirty-year hiatus in the eth­ attorneys for the Tuba City office of the nographic record which ended with Christy Peoples' Legal Service. Heretofore, the Paiute Turner's report of house types in the Navajo had had the misapprehension that this Mountain community (C. Turner 1962). organization served only the Navajo, but on Turner's study seems to indicate a long-term introduction to the legal staff the Paiute occupancy of the area by Southern Paiute spokesman was assured that the staff would that long precedes that of the Navajo. provide personal legal services involving tres­ Today the canyons and mesas are the pass but that they were not whling to engage 206 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY in intertribal disputes because of a potential anthropologists, but mostly because of their conflict of interest (A. Turner 1977). determination and persistence. The long-term strategy involved analysis SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION of federal statutes with respect to federal recognition of the San Juan Paiute as a It is generally accepted by anthropologists distinct legal entity. It was reasoned that if that the San Juan Southern Paiute Indians the San Juan were recognized they would no were the established occupants of the longer be dependent on the Navajo tribe but territory south of the San Juan River in would qualify for direct federal assistance in northem Arizona long before the recent such areas of critical concern as road expansion of the Navajo and the estabhsh­ construction, housing, employment, and ment of a Navajo Reservation on ancestral other kinds of community development Paiute lands. They may weh have been in projects. To that end, the senior author place as long ago as A.D. 1300. assisted the San Juan in drafting a petition for The historical record shows that the San acknowledgement in accord with the provi­ Juan Paiute were in place in 1776 when they sions of the Federal Acknowledgement were contacted by Dominguez and Escalante. Program as specified in the Code of Federal They were stih there in 1829 when Armijo led Regulations (25CFR54). The petition was a pack train through their territory. submitted by the San Juan Paiute to the Agents of the United States government Federal Acknowledgement Office of the including Army officers and ethnographers Bureau of Indian Affairs. and others observed and reported data on the Since that time several anthropologists San Juan Paiute in 1852, 1859, 1873, and have been engaged in support of the San Juan 1903. Paiute petition. Drs. Charles Hoffman and The recent ethnography of the San Juan James Sexton of Northern Arizona University Paiute includes the studies of Wihiam R. conducted extensive ethnohistorical and dem­ Palmer (1928, 1935, 1936) in the 1920s and ographic research on behalf of the Paiute. In 1930s, of Isabel Kelly (1934, 1964) in the 1983, the early historical (1776-1962) con­ 1930s, of Omer Stewart (1942, 1966) in the tent of the present paper was submitted, in 1930s and 1940s (and continuing to the expanded form, to the San Juan Paiute group present), of Christy Turner, II (1962), of as material for Exhibit A of their petition Allen C. Turner (1977), of Charles Hoffman (A.Turner 1983). and James Sexton between 1979 and 1982 Petition research on behalf of the San (personal communication 1982), and finally, Juan Paiute has accelerated with their of Pamela Bunte between 1979 and 1983. acquisition of a grant from the Administra­ Despite the fact that the San Juan Paiute tion for Native Americans, administered by are a smah, isolated enclave now encompassed the Peoples' Legal Service. Drs. Omer C. by the Navajo , they have Stewart and Pamela Bunte have been retained persisted in maintaining their form of as consultants. Stewart has a long-standing self-governance and their distinctive Paiute involvement with the San Juan Paiute, it wih ethnicity. It is their stated desire to be be recalled, and Bunte has been conducting recognized as a tribal entity by the United linguistic studies since 1979. We anticipate States government and by other Indian tribal that the San Juan Paiute people wih be groups. Their claim to being continuously successful in their petition for acknowledge­ recognized by historians, anthropologists, and ment, in part because of the interest of other scholars is quite clear in the recorded SAN JUAN PAIUTE 207 history from 1776 to the present. The Poweh, John Wesley, and George W. Ingalls foregoing brief history of the San Juan Paiute 1874 Report of Special Commissioners J. W. Indians provides substantial evidence in their Powell and G. W. Ingalls on the Condition of the Ute Indians of Utah; the Paiutes of Utah, behalf. Northern Arizona, Southern , and REFERENCES Southeastern California; the Northwestern Shoshones. Washington, D.C; Government Bailey, L. R., ed. Printing Office. 1964 The Navajo Reconnaissance; A Military Exploration of the Navajo Country in 1859 Schoolcraft, Henry R. by Capt. J. G. Walker and Maj. 0. L 1860 Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, Vol. IV. Shepherd. Los Angeles; Westernlore Press. Philadelphia; J. B. Lippincott. Bolton, Herbert E. Stewart, Omer C. 1950 Pageant in the Wilderness; The Story of the 1938 The Navajo Wedding Basket-1938. Museum Escalante Expedition to the Interior Basin, of Northern Arizona Museum Notes 10(9); 1776 (Including the Diary and Itinerary of 26-28. Father Escalante Translated and Annotated). Sah Lake City: Utah State Historical 1942 Culture Element Distributions; XV, Ute- Society. Southern Paiute. Berkeley; University of California Anthropological Records 6(4); Cummings, Byron 231-361. 1958 Untrodden Trails. Manuscript on file with the Arizona Historical Society, Tucson. 1966 Tribal Distributions and Boundaries in the Euler, Robert C. Great Basin. In; The Current Status of 1966 Southern Paiute Ethnohistory. University of Anthropological Research in the Great Utah Anthropological Papers No. 78. Basin; 1964, Warren L. d'Azevedo, et al., editors. Reno; Desert Research Institute Hafen, LeRoy, and Ann W. Hafen Publications in the Social Sciences and 1954 Old Spanish Trail. Glendale; Arthur H. Clark Humanhies No. 1; 167-237. Co. Turner, Allen C. Kelly, Isabel T. 1977 San Juan Paiute Fieldnotes. Manuscript 1934 Southern Paiute Bands. American Anthro­ notes in author's possession. pologist 36; 548-560. 1983 The Historical Ethnography of the San Juan 1964 Southern Paiute Ethnography. University of Paiute Indians. Manuscript submitted to the Utah Anthropological Papers No. 69. San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, Tuba City, Palmer, William R. Arizona. 1928 Utah Indians Past and Present. Utah Turner, Christy G., II Historical Quarterly 1(2); 35-52. 1962 House Types of the Navajo Mountain 1935 Photograph Album. Cedar City; Southern Community—Utah, Arizona. Manuscript on Utah State College Library Palmer Archives. file at the Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff 1936 A Report on the Paiute Indians. Compiled from Original Sources by William R. Palmer, United States Bureau of Indian Affairs Cedar City, Utah, March, 1936. Cedar Chy; 1903 Statistics of Indian Tribes, Agencies, and Southern Utah State College Library Palmer Schools, 1903. Washington, D.C: Govern­ Archives. ment Printing Office.