WHEN MOJAVES MOURNED, SOULS SOARED AS BODIES BURNED

CREMATION DIDN’T CATCH ON AMONG WHITE AMERICANS UNTIL THE LATE 19TH CENTURY.

Mention the word “Mojave,” and most people think desert. But Arizona is also home to Mojave (or Mohave) Indians who have always been more about river than desert. The Yuman-speaking people’s native name is Pipa Aha Macav, which means “People by the Water,” and ancestors of the modern Mojaves first started farming along the banks of the Colorado River in the 12th century. Over the centuries they fanned out into portions of what became Arizona, California, Baja California and Sonora, Mexico. Within the family of Yuman speakers, the Mojaves belong to the northernmost group, the River branch (other branches, from north to south, include the Pai, Delta-California and Kiliwa).

Using present-day landmarks, the land of the Mojaves straddled the Colorado from the Black Canyon, just below Lake Mead, south a few hundred miles to Picacho, Calif., an hour’s drive north of Yuma, Ariz. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, the Mojaves numbered about 20,000—the largest concentration of people in the Southwest. But by the late 18th century their population had dropped to about 3,000. The Mojaves were adept agriculturists, having mastered dry farming and methods of irrigation that relied on the regular overflow of the Colorado to water their riverside crops. They were also proficient potters, expert traders and avid tattooists. As westbound Americans encroached in the 19th century, the Mojaves raided parties of fur trappers and, later, Forty-Niners bound for the California goldfields. To protect emigrants, in 1859 the Army established Fort Mohave, its troops defeating Mojaves in battle that summer and ending hostilities with the tribe.

According to the Yuman creation story, their tribal ancestors emerged into the world from a spot near Spirit Mountain (south of the Black Canyon in present-day Nevada). Dreams, which they believed were visits with the ancestors and began in the womb, informed all aspects of their waking lives, from warfare and gambling to sex and healing. While all dreams had meaning, great dreams bestowed special power on village headmen, shamans and funeral orators.

The Mojaves, like most American Indians, believed the souls of the dead passed into a spirit world and became part of the supernatural forces guiding their earthly lives. How the tribes buried their dead and the nature of the accompanying rituals varied greatly. Early Arctic tribes, for example, did not bury their dead, but left them on the frozen tundra to be eaten by animals. Like the ancient Egyptians, Northwestern tribes were known to sacrifice wives, slaves and animals to accompany the souls of their dead warriors. Some Southwestern tribes feared the ghosts of the deceased, whom they believed resented the living. Such groups were quick to bury the dead and burn their earthly homes and possessions. Following a purification ritual, mourning relatives then moved away so as not to be haunted.

The Mojaves disposed of corpses through cremation, among the most powerful of River Yuman rituals. The practice probably stemmed from their belief that Matavilya, the Great Spirit, who built the Great Dark House where dreamers received their power, was ultimately cremated and his sacred house burned. Historians who have studied Mojave oral history have suggested the practice was instituted some centuries ago after a plague or contagion swept through the tribe. “[Such rituals] were old before any white man had dreamed of the New World across the western ocean,” wrote Arizona territorial historian, journalist and poet Sharlot Hall, who took extensive notes about the mourning ceremonies she witnessed.

As an individual neared death, family members and medicine men would shake rattles, drum on baskets with sticks and sing burial songs in monotone voices to prepare the person for the afterlife. A song cycle might take a night or more to complete.

Mojaves believed cremation helped the dead enter the spirit world. Personal property was placed on a pyre along with the body, and mourners often contributed their own valuables as an offering. “With the poorest squaw are burned her beads, her extra dresses and blankets, and whatever goods of value she may possess,” wrote Hall. “The burning of a chief leaves half the tribe beggared in the morning. Blankets, beads, bolts of calico, belts, silk handkerchiefs and bright ribbons are thrown into the fire by mourning friends and relatives.” Some had favorite ponies shot, to be added to the pyre alongside prized rifles and knives.

The Mojaves prepared the pyre by digging a shallow pit, about 6 feet long and half as wide, and lining it with fallen branches, usually from a cottonwood tree. Atop the branches they placed the body, surrounded by personal belongings. As flames engulfed the pyre, the gathered mourners howled and wailed, rushing forward to toss their offerings into the blaze. Once the fire had died down, however, the living would never again speak the name of the deceased.

It was common for the Mojaves to burn corpses immediately upon death, almost before the breath had left their bodies, and perhaps in a few tragic instances when individuals had merely fallen unconscious. Once the government moved the Mojaves to reservations, agency police attended mourning ceremonies to ensure those placed atop pyres were truly dead.

Early settlers were especially mortified by the Mojave cremation rituals, and many a well-intentioned soul tried to intervene. Consequently, the Mojaves grew suspicious of the outsiders and were reluctant to allow them to watch. In later years they took to holding the ceremonies at night or in remote locales far from prying eyes.

The U.S. Army ultimately stopped the practice, instead requiring the Mojaves to conduct Christian burials. Cremation was not accepted practice in the United States until well after the first crematorium opened back East in Pennsylvania in 1876. It seems we’ve come full circle: Over the past half-century the cremation rate nationwide has steadily increased and is expected to reach 54 percent of all burials by 2020.

Written by Kellen Cutsforth in "Wild West", USA, December, 2018, vol.31, no. 4, excerpts pp. 28-29. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.