The Havasupais know no process of fermentation so far as I have been able to learn, and the elders of the people long objected to the coming of the white man because one of the bad things he brought to the Indian was whiskey and other intoxicants.
Quail and ducks abound in various parts of the Havasu Canyon region. Even to this day many of the latter are shot, for sale to the white man, with the arrow instead of the gun. The Havasupais claim that the arrow is far less liable to scare away the flock than is the loud report of a gun, so they keep up their practice with the antiquated bow and arrow, and some of them show wonderful skill in their use. I have often placed a ten-cent piece in a notched stick and enjoyed watching the young men as they fired their arrows at it at a distance of fifty paces. Their skill was such that on one occasion I lost a dollar thus within half an hour.
At one time in February I found the canyon alive with quail, the whirring of whose wings met us on every hand as we rode along from hawa to hawa.
I am told there is no fish in Havasu Creek above Mooney Falls, but from the base of this fall on to the river both large and small fish are abundant. I rather doubt this, as on the occasion of my attempt to reach Beaver Falls down the course of the creek from Mooney Falls I saw no fish, nor signs of any.
One of the Havasupais tells me that mountain sheep may be seen on the northern rim of the Grand Canyon in small bands. When the snow is deep upon the Buckskin Mountains and the Kaibab Plateau they descend to the more temperate regions of the canyon where grass may be found in plenty, and then the Paiuti and Paieed Indians kill them, drying the flesh for later use. This they do regardless of a territorial law, which forbids even an Indian killing mountain sheep at any time. The Indian regards his as a prior right, existing long before there was any territorial legislature, and he acts accordingly.
Mountain lions, wildcats, lynxes, coyotes, badgers, deer, and antelope, with an occasional mountain sheep and bear, are the larger quarry of the Havasupai hunters. The deer and antelope they find in the open grassy glades of the forests on the canyon rim and reaching towards the desert. The other game is generally found in the recesses of the canyons or on the slopes of the far-away mountains of Hue-han-a-patch-a (the San Franciscos), Hue-ga-wool-a (Williams Mountain), or Hue-ga-da-wi-za (Red Butte).
Some of the skins are dressed with the hair on and are used for clothing, as sleeping mats, or are sold to the travellers at the trains or traded at the stores on the railway. But many of the better skins are carefully tanned and dressed and converted into buckskins, as before stated.
This, indeed, is one of their staple articles of trade, good buckskins fetching as high as five dollars and even ten dollars cash. I have several times seen a blanket for which I had offered eight dollars or ten dollars readily exchanged for a simple buckskin, and it is not an unusual occurrence to note a trade where a fair Navaho pony is given for a large and well-dressed skin.
The outside Indians that the Havasupais are familiar with are the friendly Wallapais, whom they call their cousins, the Hopis and the Navahoes. They have often had wars with the hated Mohaves, Apaches, and Paiutis. The Chemhuevis, Pimas, and Maricopas are their distant, little known, but accepted friends. Far-away Zuni is Si-u, and still farther Acoma is Ac-o-ca-va, and though intercourse with the people of these villages is rare, it has always been friendly.