The Yavapai peoples were not a political or social unit, but rather four separate autonomous groups. Although culturally, linguistically and ethnically related, they did not identify as Yavapai in a centralized way. These four groups were, for geographical, historical, cultural and familial reasons, in various alliances with neighboring tribes, without regard to the concerns of the adjacent Yavapai groups. The four groups consisted of different local groups, composed primarily of kinship groups known as clans.Timothy Braatz: Surviving Conquest: A History of the Yavapai Peoples, 2003, University of Nebraska Press,
