(Coconino County)

We are Havasu 'Baaja. Currently our tribe is
comprised of about 650 enrolled tribal members.
Approximately 450 people live here in Supai. Our
native language, Havasupai, is our preferred way to
communicate. It has been a written language for about
20 years. We are very resourceful people and proud of
our beautiful land.

Our people have lived in the area for many hundreds of
years. Prior to the early 1800's, when the Grand Canyon
area was made into a national park, our people roamed a
vast area on the upper plateau. During the fall and winter
months, we would move our families up to the plateau regions
subsisting by hunting and gathering what the earth provided.
During the spring and summer months, we moved back to the
canyon and planted gardens. When the reservation was created
in 1882, the federal government confined us to the 518 acres
at the bottom of the canyon and we lost almost 90% of our
aboriginal land. This loss of the economic base had a major
influence on our culture, forcing us to rely more on farming
and seeking wage labor outside of the canyon. Eventually the
Tribe began to rely on tourism, as people found their way to
our beautiful homeland. In 1975, Congress reallocated 185,000
acres of our original hunting grounds back to the tribe.