By Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribal Culture Research Director

Yavapai songs and dances were elevated to a special realm by ancestors of the Yavapai groups today. The Yavapai danced for daily needs such as rain, crops and hunting. Because Yavapai prayers were also made through dance and song, traditionalists are reluctant to perform certain aspects of Yavapai music, limiting them to a spiritual setting. Songs frequently followed the outlines of long teachings and were sung when traditional knowledge was shred. Some could be danced to, others only a medicine person could participate in.

Since deer were an important food animal, before hunting, a medicine person often sang to give hunters good luck. Men sometimes sang for success the evening before the hunt or starting out on the hunt. An example of a deer song was "I am going now, I am crossing one creek now, but I shall not cross the second creek because I shall find the deer the people want before I come to the second creek. I shall find a large fat buck."  

Dancing (iima) was for war incitement, victory celebrations, social gatherings and feasting. Circles of dancers moved clockwise (sunwise) facing one another and alternately advancing and retreating. One male dancer led the singing. The dance was vigorous, people stamped and bobbed up and down.  

Yavapai warfare involved traditional enemies. During early reservation years, Yavapai scouts continued a warrior tradition. Before scouting expeditions, dancing and feasts by the entire Yavapai community celebrated scouting warriors. They saw the scouts off with festivities and welcomed them home as victors.  Old women went to meet them, and the community danced through the night in celebration.

The Mountain Spirit Dance is a special dance called "Kakaka Iima." The dance was taught to the Yavapai by the Kakaka, protectors of the Yavapai who were here before any humans. All Yavapai had this dance: the Kewevkepaya, Wipukepa, Yavabe and Tolkepaya. Yavapai Elders Mike Harrison and John Williams of the Ft. McDowell Yavapai Reservation have written that, while the Yavapai were at San Carlos, Athabascans learned the Mountain Spirit Dance from the Yavapai.

A bullroarer summoned people to ceremonials. Musical instruments included drum, flute, gourd rattle, turtle shell rattle, deer hoof rattle (only used for mourning songs) and scraped basket (Frog songs). The gourd rattle was the main accompanying instrument, but since it was given to medicine persons for curing by Skatakaamcha, some traditional Yavapai consider it too sacred for social dances, except by Pow Wow gourd dancers. 

Performances were held at night to aid curing. The Kakaka were summoned by whirling a bullroarer, and the dance lasted until before daybreak. Telling about the masked dancers was believed to bring bad luck to the teller, causing the tradition to be held private from outsiders by the Yavapai. 

Muukyat, a surviving Yavapai medicine person during the Indian War Years, instructed the people not to talk about the dances, as the military banned dances and wounded dancers in an effort to stop the practice. Yavapai elders in the Prescott region related that they had to dance in secret because the dances were forbidden.   

Songs were used to time solar events. Sharlot Hall, founder of the Sharlot Hall Museum, recorded her observations in 1899 of the Yavapai singing during the occultation of Venus by the moon. She wrote, “When star and moon touched and the star disappeared they began their wild death songs, and when after what seemed a long time the star shone out on the other side of the moon they shouted and fired their guns in rejoicing."

Experience more Native American culture in a unique way: September 21-22, 2024,  9 A.M. – 5 P.M. SATURDAY and 9 A.M. – 4 P.M. SUNDAY the Prescott Indian Art Market will be held on the Sharlot Hall Museum campus.

“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1 The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.