Hualapai Nation Police
Peach Springs, Arizona
(Mohave County)

Hualapai Tribe established the Hualapai Tribal
Police Department on July 2002. Tribal leaders and
community members stress crime prevention and community
policing. They want their police to be proactive.
The new police department has 12 sworn law enforcement
officer positions, which includes patrol officers,
detective, assistant chief and chief of police. Tribal
police are responsible for patrol and criminal investigations.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) provides dispatch and
detention services.

Sworn officers are required to meet State of Arizona Peace
Officers Standards and Training as well as BIA
training/certification requirements. When these requirements
are met, tribal law enforcement officers have the authority
to enforce tribal, state and applicable federal laws, against
Indians and non-Indians.

Hwal`bay means "People of the Tall Pine." The Hualapai
live on a reservation encompassing a million acres along
108 miles of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon.
The Hwal`bay call this middle river corridor "Hakataya"
or "the backbone of the river".

Hwal`bay means "People of the Tall Pine." The Hualapai
live on a reservation encompassing a million acres along
108 miles of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon.
The Hwal`bay call this middle river corridor "Hakataya"
or "the backbone of the river".

The Hualapai are descendants from one people, a group known
archaeologically as the Cerbat. The Hwal`bay originally
lived in groups composed of fourteen bands. Culturally,
the Hualapai consider themselves as part of the "Pai"
meaning "the people." The earliest physical remains of
the Pai was found along the Willow Beach bank near the
Hoover Dam in the 1960's and dates back as early as A.D. 600.


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.