February 27, 2013 - Road Trip

Today’s journey started in Parker at the Colorado River Indian Tribes Museum.

With the exception of the town of Parker, much of the area from north of Parker to north of Ehrenburg on both sides of the Colorado River is part of the Colorado River Indian Reservation.  It was established in 1865 by the Federal Government for “Indians of the Colorado River and its tributaries”.  At that time, it consisted of two tribes: The Mohave, whose ties date back to prehistoric times, and the Chemehuevi, who resided here before it was made a reservation.  People of the Hopi and Navajo Tribes were relocated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1945 from their home reservations in northeastern Arizona.

Each of the tribes have very different language, culture, and traditions and are noted for different skills.  The Mohave are noted for their skill of blending colorful beads and doing intricate designed work as well as beautiful pottery; The Navajo are known for their beautifully designed rugs and silver smithing; The Chemehuevi for their baskets; and the Hopi for their pottery, overlay jewelry and carved kachina dolls.

And the CRIT museum had them all. Beautiful work! but alas no pictures – not allowed – :-(((.

The museum is free and if you are in this area, it is worth a trip to see all the examples of the Colorado River Indian Tribes.

Another thing I found interesting was their tribal seal:

“The tribal seal of the Colorado River Indian Tribes was designed and officially accepted in 1966 as a result of a contest open to all members. This design, by John Scott, was selected because it represented all aspects of the Tribes.

The sunburst design around the edges depicts the sun's rays, with 52 points for 52 weeks of sunshine. Riverside Mountain appears on the horizon, and the Colorado River flows across the seal. A crosshatch design is included to represent the checkerboard of farmed parcels in the reservation, and a shaft of wheat crossed with a branch of cotton represent the prime agricultural resources.

The four feathers at the top of the seal represent the four Tribes - the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi and Navajo. “

Here is a link for more info on the reservation:

http://parkerareatourism.com/community/history/reservation.htm

From there we traveled south on CR-1 with a stop at Poston to see if there were any changes. 

Last year at this time, we found the Japanese Internment Camp (or what was left of it).  Here is a link to that blog:

http://thehitzels.blogspot.com/2012/02/february-25-2012-poston-and-earp.html

What I many not have told you is that after I did that blog, I was contacted by the Poston Community Alliance for permission to use some of my pictures – I was deeply honored.

Here is a link to that site:

http://postoninpictures.blogspot.com/p/today.html

This is the main site to the reconstruction of Poston and to make a museum there:

http://postonupdates.blogspot.com/

What a great site to explore and learn more about our history.

In October, the elementary school here was granted “National Historic Landmark” by the National Park Service.  Here is that information:

http://postonupdates.blogspot.com/2012/10/national-historic-landmark.html

So one of the only changes we found was this:

 

It is one of the barracks that has been relocated to the Site.    Some day, I would love to tour this whole site with a guide.

We continued on our journey of CR-1, past these burned fields.

 

These are hay bales on fire – not sure if it was on purpose or that the fire got out of hand:

 

We completed our loop by going thru Quartzsite – what a difference from a month ago.

Today:

A month ago:

We checked out the Hi-Jolly area where we expect to be next week.

It was a nice road trip and good to get out again.

Enjoy today.