Old Hualapai Sayings That Can Get You In Trouble

 November 16, 2025

   It was a hot July day on the Mojave Desert when I found myself surrounded by five Hualapais. The year was 1957 and I was ten-and-a-half and we were all sitting in the bleachers of the Kingman Little League Baseball Park just north of the elevated railroad tracks heading up into Railroad Canyon.

   "So, teach me how to speak Hualapai," said the skinny kid who watched "The Range Rider" on TV every week.

   Alex Suthogomie smiled and said slowly, "Waux hah-ni-ni-ha." The kid, who played right field for the Odd Fellows Yankees, repeated the phrase and all the Hualapais roared with laughter.

   Fast forward to last Saturday and I'm doing a Hualapai tribal archival interview with Philbert Watahomogie on the back patio of the Hualapai Tribal Center in downtown Peach Springs, Arizona. Philbert and I grew up together in Kingman and we have plenty of ribald stories to tell, some of them possibly even true. 

Philbert Watahomogie and BBB shooting the breeze in between the 100 trains rolling through Peach Springs every day. That is Peter Bungart running the camera and leading the interview

   Towards the end of the two-hour interview I finally asked Philbert what the phrase I have been carrying around for almost seven decades actually means and the former tribal leader said, politely, we shouldn't go there.  After the interview, on the walk back to the car show in the park, I spied an old Hualapai sitting on a park bench with his cane and I walked right up to him and said, "Waux hah-ni-ni-ha," and then added, "What did I just say to you?" Without even a hint of a smile, he said, "Your ass is stinky and (go have sexual relations with yourself)!" Well, hot damn! Finally. And it totally has the ring of authenticity! I thanked him profusely, but, as I walked away, I realized, in all fairness, he could have been offended by my remark and in fact did NOT translate what I had said and was merely telling me off. The Hualapais, it must be noted, are legendary for their sardonic humor. Still, either way, I had to laugh at the absurdity of the whole thing and I could easily imagine some early day explorer, say Beale or Ives, asking for advice from the Hualapai: "We are westbound and we're about to meet the fearsome Mojave. Is there a local phrase we could use to introduce ourselves and put the Mojave at ease?"

   And, I can just imagine a dignified Hualapai warrior saying with a subtle hint of a grin. . . 

"Waux hah-ni-ni-ha."