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Irataba (Mohave: ''eecheeyara tav'' , also known as ''Yara tav'', ''Yarate:va'', ''Arateve''; – 1874) was a leader of the Mohave Nation, known for his role as a mediator between his people and the United States. He was born near the Colorado River in present-day Arizona. Irataba was a renowned orator and one of the first Mohave to speak English, a skill he used to develop relations with the United States. Early records mention his large physical size and gentle demeanor. Irataba first encountered European Americans in 1851, when he assisted the Sitgreaves Expedition. In 1854, he met Amiel Whipple, then leading an expedition crossing the Colorado. Several Mohave aided the group, and Irataba agreed to escort them through the territory of the Paiute to the Old Spanish Trail, which would take them to southern California. He later helped and protected other expeditions, earning him a reputation among whites as the most important native leader in the region. Against Irataba's advice, in 1858 Mohave warriors attacked the first emigrant wagon train to use Beale's Wagon Road through Mohave country. As a result, the U.S. War Department sent a detachment under Colonel William Hoffman to pacify the tribe. Following a series of confrontations known as the Mohave War, Hoffman succeeded in dominating the natives, and demanded that they allow the passage of settlers through their territory. To ensure compliance, Fort Mohave was constructed near the site of the battle in April 1859. Hoffman also imprisoned several Mohave leaders. Having been an advocate for friendly relations with the whites, Irataba became the nation's ''Aha macave yaltanack'', an elected, as opposed to hereditary, leader. As a result of his many interactions with U.S. officials and settlers, Irataba was invited to Washington, D.C., in 1864, for an official meeting with members of the U.S. military and its government, including President Abraham Lincoln. In doing so, he became the first Native American from the Southwest to meet an American president. He received considerable attention during his tours of the U.S. capital, and of New York City and Philadelphia, where he was given gifts, including a silver-headed cane from Lincoln. Upon his return he negotiated the creation of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, which caused a split in the Mohave Nation when he led several hundred of his supporters to the Colorado River valley. The majority of the Mohave preferred to remain in their ancestral homelands near Fort Mohave and under the leadership of their hereditary leader, Homoseh quahote, who was less enthusiastic about direct collaboration with whites. As leader of the Colorado River band of Mohave, Irataba encouraged peaceful relations with whites, served as a mediator between the warring tribes in the area, and during his later years continued to lead the Mohave in their ongoing conflicts with the Paiute and Chemehuevi. Some consider Irataba a great leader who championed peace, but others feel he should have done more to defend the Mohave way of life. The Irataba Society, a non-profit charity run by the Colorado River Indian Tribes, was established in 1970 in Parker, Arizona, where a sports venue, Irataba Hall, is also named after him. In 2002, the US Bureau of Land Management designated in the Eldorado Mountains as Ireteba Peaks Wilderness. In March 2015, Mohave Tribal chairman Dennis Patch credited Irataba with ensuring that "the Mohaves stayed on land they had lived on since time immemorial." ==Background== Irataba's name, also rendered as Ireteba, Yara tav, Arateve, Yarate:va, and Yiratewa, derives from the Mohave language phrase ''eecheeyara tav'', which means "beautiful bird".〔: Yarate:va, : origin and variations of Irataba's name.〕 He was born into the ''Neolge'', or Sun Fire clan of the Mohave Nation . He lived near a rock formation that gave its name to Needles, south of where the Grand Canyon empties into the Mohave Canyon in present-day Arizona, near the Nevada and California border. The Mohave lived in houses along the riverbank in the Mohave Valley, during winter in half-buried dwellings built with cottonwood logs and arrowweed covered in earth, and in the summer in open-air flat-roofed houses called ''ramadas''. In the mid-19th century, the Mohave were composed of three geographical groups; Irataba was the hereditary leader of the ''Huttoh Pah'' group, who lived near the east bank of the Colorado River and occupied the central portion of the Mohave Valley. Mohave government consisted of a loose system of hereditary clan leaders with a head of the entire nation. They were often involved in conflicts with the Chemehuevi, Paiute, and Maricopa peoples. Irataba was a member of the Mohave warrior society called ''kwanami'', who led groups of warriors in battle and were dedicated to defending their lands and people.〔: the kwanami were a Mohave warrior society; : Irataba was a kwanami, which means brave or fearless; : the role of kwanami in Mohave warfare.〕 Little is known of Irataba's family relations, except for the name of his son Tekse thume, and his nephews Qolho qorau (Irataba's sister's son who succeeded him as leader) and Aspamekelyeho. Olive Oatman, who lived with the Mohave for five years, later stated that Irataba was the brother of the former chief, presumably Cairook, with whom Irataba clearly had a close relation. One anecdotal description states that Irataba had several wives, among them a Hualapai woman who had been taken as a captive and who is also described as having a young son. He also had at least one daughter, the mother of his granddaughter Tcatc who was interviewed in the 1950s. She stated that Irataba had wanted to leave his land deeds and medals to his brother's sons, but that they were eventually lost. In contemporary accounts Irataba was described as an eloquent speaker, and linguist Leanne Hinton suggests that he was among the first Mohave people to become fluent in English, which he learned through his many interactions with Anglo-Americans. Like many Mohave men, Irataba was very tall, particularly by 19th-century standards; the United States Army estimated his height at in 1861. American author Albert S. Evans, writing in ''The Overland Monthly'', referred to him as "the old desert giant". Edward Carlson, a soldier based at Fort Mohave who knew Irataba well in the 1860s, described him as having a powerful frame, but also a "very gentle" and "kind ... demeanor". Irataba lived through a tumultuous period of Mohave history where the people went from being a politically independent nation to coming under the political control of the United States, and the events surrounding his role in these encounters are well documented. Most historical sources for the life of Irataba come from descriptions by white explorers or government agents with whom he interacted, or from contemporary newspapers that reported on his visits to the East Coast and California, and on the conflicts in Arizona territory. Some Mohave versions of the events also exist: in the early 20th century anthropologist A. L. Kroeber interviewed Jo Nelson (Mohave: Chooksa homar), a Mohave man who participated in many of the events and knew Irataba personally; another version was told to ethnographer George Devereux by Irataba's granddaughter Tcatc, and versions recounted by members of the Fort Mohave band of Mohave, the descendants of Homoseh quahote, were recorded by ethnographer Lorraine Sherer during the 1950s and 1960s. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Irataba」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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