Ft. Mojave Indian Tribe

I recently spent some time on the Ft. Mojave Indian Reservation. While I was there I learned a little of their history. The Mojave people call themselves Pipa Aha Cacav which means the people by the river. They trace their origins to Spirit Mountain which is the highest peak in the nearby Newberry Mountains. Mutavilya is the tribes spirit mentor who created the Colorado River and it's plants and animals. Mutavilya also taught them their way of life. At their peak they were the largest group of people living in the Southwest. They were farmers with large established villages and traded as far as the Pacific Ocean, almost 300 miles away. Then came the Spanish

With the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century their lives began to change. Finally after decades of fighting off the invasion, a fort was established on the Colorado River in 1859 to protect the immigrants moving into the area. In 1870 the current reservation was founded. By 1891 the fort was no longer needed and the buildings became an Indian school which operated until 1930.

Today the reservation covers 42,000 acres in three states, CA, NV and AZ. The 1,100 Mojave people are a minority on their own reservation. They least large tracts of their land for farming which employs mostly non indians. They still farm themselves with 15,000 acres under cultivation growing soybeans, cotton, wheat and alfalfa. They also operate two resort casinos in NV and AZ with plans for a third in CA.

As of 2012 in conjunction with the Univ. of Ariz they have started workshops to bring together learners with the 22 elders who still speak some of the Mojave language. The objective is to keep the language alive and teach the traditional bird songs of the Mojave people.

Indian school about 1920