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Show 38 Nuwuvi: A Southern Paiute History Armijo left a diary of his journey, but it is very brief and descriptions of the Nuwuvi are few. He traveled a route which closely parallels the present border of Utah and Arizona, meeting Nuwuvi near Paiute Canyon before crossing the Colorado. Only three Nuwuvi were met here, and the meeting was peaceful.4 The Navajo later moved into Nuwuvi territory on the south side of the Colorado, but Armijo's diary indicates that this, as of 1829, had not occurred.5 After crossing the Colorado and approaching the Paria River, Armijo came upon another camp of Nuwuvi who he described as a gentle nation.6 The Nuwuvi allowed the caravan to pass peacefully through their country. Armijo makes no mention of conflict with Indian people the entire journey. Traveling west, Armijo arrived at the Virgin River, a little west of present-day Hurricane, Utah, and then followed Jedediah Smith's 1827 trail down to the juncture of the Virgin with the Colorado.7 Although this route took him through areas populated by the Nuwuvi, Armijo's diary makes no further mention of Indian people until, at Las Vegas Wash, a reconnaissance party once again discovered a Nuwuvi village.8 Heading southwest, Armijo's party crossed the desert and arrived "at the River of the Payuches [probably the Amargosa], where a village was found: nothing happened for it was gentle." 9 The party continued on to California. In the fall of 1830, a party of twenty fur trappers led by George C. Yount and William Wolfskill made a journey through Nuwuvi territory. Traveling from Taos to San Gabriel, California, the trappers made the first journey over substantially the route which became the Old Spanish Trail. Two accounts of the journey were written, one by Yount and the other by Ziba. Branch, a hired man on the trip. Both journals were written more than 20 years after the expedition and their limited descriptions of the Indian people, though containing some accurate observations, are marred by the authors' inability to understand a culture different from their own. Yount, for instance wrote that the Nuwuvi communicated chiefly by signs and that their language had but few words, a claim which is, of course, wholly mistaken. Unlike Escalante who was impressed by the industriousness, civility and pleasing appearance of the Nuwuvi, Yount was unable to understand their life-style. |