Description
The Quechan ('those who descended'), or Yuma, are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the Mexican border. Despite their name, they are not related to the Quechua people of the Andes. Members are enrolled into the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation. The federally recognized Quechan tribe's main office is located in Winterhaven, California. Its operations and the majority of its reservation land are located in California, United States.
Language
Yuman-speaking
Culture
They were were skilled warriors and active traders, maintaining exchange networks with the Pima in southern Arizona, New Mexico, and with peoples of the Pacific coast. The Quechan people seemed inviting toward Juan Bautista de Anza. He promised them to set up a mission where all people would live together instead of in a hierarchy. Alongside the promise, de Anza gave Palma’s people horses, steel weapons, clothes, and iron as a token of allegiance. Quechans traditionally believed disease could be caused by inadvertently ingesting a poisonous substance or by soul loss. Hostile sorcerers could cause either malady, as could the violation of a mourning, warfare, or menstrual taboo. Dream power was the source of a curer's abilities.