Neung'we Tuvip - Homeland of the Kaibab People (Kai'vi'vits),and Pipe Spring National Park

Windsor Castle, a fort built by Mormons over the top of so-called Pipe Spring, an ancestral spring that has been tended to by generations of Kaibab.

The former grassy oasis surrounding pipe spring is now sparse and filled with brush.

⚠️addresses settler violence and genocide⚠️

“This land is the home of the Kaibab People (Kai'vi'vits). This is the place of our origin. We were brought here by Coyote in a sack. This is where my Sehoo (umbilical cord) is buried, it is my connection to this land. It is the place to which I will return to make my leap into the spirit world.” - Kai'vi'vits member

The Kai’vi’vits and their ancestors, the E’nengweng (Ancient Ones), have lived near Mtungwa’va (Pipe Spring) since time immemorial.

The Arrow Maker and his daughter, photo by John K. Hillers, 1874

After Spanish colonization brought enslavement to the area, the Kai’vi’vits moved away from their water sources to protect “their women and children (from being taken and lost) their way of life, adapting to the desert.”

"Paiutes once lived in homes (pueblos) just like the Ancient Ones as they dwelled near the spring. When the Spanish came . . . bringing with them the slave trade, the women and children were carted off to slave markets. When the Navajos and Utes started coming into the area [slave raiding], the Paiutes made the decision to move away from the water— to retain their women and children . . . losing traditions, losing their way of life, adapting to the desert." - Kaibab Paiute tribal member

In the 1860s Mormon settlers began to occupy this spring and grassland with 1000s of cattle.

"The increase of our children, and their growing up to maturity, increases our responsibilities. More land must be brought into cultivation to supply their wants." - Brigham Young

“Just seeing the deer herd moving away and this other herd comes in. Losing the antelope...being replaced by this monstrous beast called a cow.” - Benn Pikyavit, Kai'vi'vits, Park Ranger

As cattle ate the plants that native animals would eat, local natives had fewer animals to hunt, so they’d hunt cattle. Mormon settlers didn’t like this and often killed in retribution, which led to reciprocal retribution killings.

“By direction of Brigham Young in 1869-70,” settlers built a fort over Pipe Spring “for handling the church tithing herds and as frontier refuge from Indians.” These cattle fed the laborers who built the St. George temple.

Cattle are not native to this continent, and large ungulates didn’t live in this area at all.

"The Kaibab Indians are in very destitute circumstances; fertile places are now being occupied by the white population, thus cutting off all their means of subsistence except game....The foot hills that yielded hundreds of acres of sunflowers...the grass that grew so luxuriantly when you were here...and many other plants that produced food for the natives is all eat out by stock." - Jacob Hamblin in a letter to John Wesley Powell, 1880


By 1880’s, they exceeded the grazing capacity of this desert grassland. Then, wind and rain erosion and movement of cattle removed the thin desert topsoil, desertifying this grassy oasis. This led to mass starvation among the Kai'vi'vits, killing 90% of the population in ~40 years.

Kaibab Paiute Population from 1490-2010

“One year I was going to take my daughters out to show them what kind of seeds my mother and grandmother used to gather. (Settlers) got some cattle into that area and they just loved all of that. They cleaned it out. So there were no more seeds.” - Kai'vi'vits elder, 1995

Southern Paiute women wearing Ute dresses. Women are wearing baskets for seed gathering and are carrying winnowing trays. Photograph by J. K. Hillers, 1873

“We, the Kaibab Paiute people, were placed here by the Creator. We remain connected to this land that has sustained us from the beginning of time. We have been able to survive because we live with nature and respect the land” - Kaibab Band of Paiutes (Kai'vi'vits)

Kaibab Paiutes dance at the opening ceremony of the joint visitor center of the Kaibab Paiute people and Pipe Spring National Monument, Arizona. 1973

Dancers at the Sounds of Thunder Mountain Pow Wow, 2018.

Sources:
Pipe Spring National Monument (PSNM) museum* virtual tour,
​
“Encounter on the High Desert” documentary shown at PSNM museum.

Navajo-Hopi Observer “Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation named International Dark Sky Community”

The PSNM plaque commissioned by the 1933 members of the Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association and citizens of Kanab Stake (a stake is a collection of Mormon congregations, called wards, so this basically means the vast majority of the citizens of the greater Kanab, Ut/Fredonia, AZ area, which is the Kaibab reservation’s border town.)

​*(Pipe Spring National Monument visitor’s center and museum was cooperatively funded and built, and continues to be operated, by the U.S. National Park Service and the Kaibab Paiute Tribe)