Tohono O'odham (Papago) from Encyclopedia of North American Indians
The Tohono O'odhams, known to many as the Papagos, live in southern Arizona and the northern part of the Mexican state of Sonora. The Tohono O'odhams say that Elder Brother, known as I'itoi, led them into this land from the underworld. Their domain once extended from the San Pedro River to the Colorado and from the Gila River down past the Altar in Mexico.A Piman-speaking people, the Tohono O'odhams are directly related to two neighboring O'odham groups. To survive in the desert environment, each of the three groups developed a unique lifestyle. The Akimel O'odhams (River People) settled in sedentary villages along perennial rivers and developed irrigation agriculture. Some Akimels, known as the Subiapuris, lived along the San Pedro and Santa Cruz Rivers, while others, known as the Pimas, located on the Gila River. The Hia C'ed O'odhams (Sand People) lived west of the Tohono O'odhams. One of the few truly nomadic peoples in the United States, the Hia C'eds developed a hunting and gathering lifestyle specially adapted to that extremely dry part of the desert.
The Tohono O'odhams (Desert People) settled between the Akimels and Hia C'eds. This group of desert dwellers survived by migrating between two locales—a mountain-spring village in the winter and a flood-farming village in the summer. Their semiannual move ended in the early twentieth century when the government drilled deep wells. As a result, the farming village became permanent.
An individual Tohono O'odham gave his or her loyalty to one of eleven village complexes. These village clusters originated in the nineteenth century when the Apaches forced the Tohono O'odhams to band together for defense. With the disappearance of the Apache threat at century's end, the large defensive villages broke up and the inhabitants established new kin-based communities. The newly formed villages became the central social unit of the Tohonos, but the ties and loyalties of the old fortified villages remained. The Tohonos maintained their village groupings through ceremony, marriage, economic cooperation, social interaction, and limited political association.
Water has always been key to the Tohono O'odhams' survival as desert farmers and ranchers. One of their most important ceremonies, the vi:gida, centers around the bringing of rain. In late summer, the Tohonos gather saguaro fruit, which they ferment into a wine—nawait. The vi:gida is marked by the drinking of nawait, which brings the annual rains. The vi:gida also marks the beginning of the Tohono O'odham New Year.
Spaniards were the first Europeans to make contact with the Tohono O'odhams. Starting in the 1690s, the Jesuits under Father Eusebio Francisco Kino established a series of missions for the Tohonos in what is today northern Sonora and southern Arizona. The Spanish also established garrisons, such as Tucson, to protect themselves and the missions from the Apaches. The Tohonos adopted wheat, cattle, and horses from the Spaniards. They also mixed Catholism with their I'itoi faith to create Sonoran Catholism, which is still the predominant faith among the Tohonos.
By the early 1800s, European diseases and Apache pressure had decimated the Subiapuris along the San Pedro and Santa Cruz Rivers, pushing the survivors eastward. When the Americans arrived in southern Arizona in the 1850s, only the Subiapuri village of Wa:k, on the Santa Cruz, remained. The Tohono O'odhams moved to Wa:k and intermarried with the surviving Subiapuris.
The situation changed when the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 divided the Tohono O'odham homeland. North of the new border, the Tohonos cooperated with the Americans to defeat the Apaches and restore peace by the 1870s. Unfortunately, American newcomers coveted Tohono O'odham land. In response, the U.S. government established several small reservations, starting with San Xavier in 1874 and Gila Bend in 1884. Nevertheless, the Tohonos used a much larger area. At the same time, white miners and ranchers were encroaching on the Desert People's land. As a solution, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued an executive order establishing the Papago Reservation (later renamed the Tohono O'odham Reservation). It has gone through several adjustments, including a 1917 change that gave the Tohonos surface rights but left the subsurface minerals in the public domain. A final addition in 1937 made for a total land area of 2,774,370 acres, giving the Tohono O'odhams the second-largest reservation in the United States. The government finally returned subsurface mineral rights to the Tohonos in 1955.
The Tohono O'odhams in Mexico did not fare as well. After Mexico became independent, ranchers and miners encroached on Tohono land. Many of the Tohonos either mixed into Mexican society or moved to the United States. In 1928, the Mexican government granted an ejido (a community land holding) to the village of Pozo Verde, but it covered only 7,600 acres. A 1979 census identified only two hundred Tohono O'odhams still living in Sonora.
At the turn of the century, Tohonos in the United States followed the village headman system. After several unsuccessful attempts in the 1910s and 1920s, the Tohonos in 1937 formed a single tribal government under the Indian Reorganization Act. The new constitution divided the reservation into districts that matched the former village groupings, all of which were united under a tribal council. In 1986, the tribe adopted a new constitution that better reflected Tohono O'odham society.
Except for a few ranching and mining operations, the reservation was comparatively undeveloped until the 1930s. Through government public-works projects, the Tohonos built roads, strung telephone wire, dug deep wells, and constructed schools and other buildings. World War II brought even more changes. Some 250 young men served in the armed forces, while many families moved off the reservation to take war-industry jobs. Veterans returned with new skills and knowledge that helped the people. One such individual, Thomas Segundo, served six consecutive terms as tribal chairman.
Today there are sixteen thousand members of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Over half live on the San Xavier, Gila Bend, and Tohono O'odham reservations. Most are Sonoran Catholics, although a significant number have joined the Presbyterian Church. Ranching, basket making, and government employment are the leading economic activities on the reservations. Jobs are limited, however. Consequently, many young Tohonos migrate to Tucson, Phoenix, and elsewhere in search of jobs. To improve their economic situation, the Tohono O'odhams recently opened the Desert Diamond Casino. Profits from this project are helping the tribe provide better social services. Although the people have seen many changes in the world around them, many aspects of Tohono O'odham culture remain intact: an economically diversified lifestyle, strong family ties, a love of the desert, a willingness to share, and a richly distinctive identity.
See also Akimel O'odham (Pima).
Winston P. Erickson, Sharing the Desert: The Tohono O'odham in History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994); Bernard L. Fontana, Of Earth and Little Rain: The Papago Indians (Flagstaff, Ariz.: Northland Press, 1981; reprint, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989); Ruth Underhill, Social Organization of the Papago Indians (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939).
Peter MacMillan Booth
Purdue UniversityThe Akimel O'odhams (River People), formerly known as the Pimas, are some of the oldest residents of the American Southwest. Approximately 14,400 Piman-speaking people live in Arizona on the Salt River and Gila River Indian reservations just beyond the Phoenix city limits. The Akimel creation stories tell how the River People inherited the pre-Columbian culture of the Hohokams and developed agricultural villages along the perennial Gila and Salt Rivers. Spanish missionaries first contacted the Gila River people in the 1690s. Although never under Spanish rule, the Akimels demonstrated their business acumen in trade with the presidio at Tucson. They also cooperated with the Spanish against the Yavapai and Apaches.
In the early 1800s, the Akimels welcomed the migrating Maricopas into the Gila River valley. The two groups formed a strong defensive alliance, and today they still peacefully share the Gila River and Salt River reservations.
Travelers to the California goldfields described the Akimel villages as an oasis. The River People enjoyed a brisk business in selling food and animals to the forty-niners. With federal troops diverted elsewhere during the Civil War, the territorial government relied for protection on the River People under the Akimel leader Antonio Azul.
In 1859 the U.S. government established the Gila River Reservation but failed to protect the Akimels' water supply as settlers upstream diverted the Gila River. Even though most Akimels and Maricopas stayed on the Gila River, some moved to the Salt River, where a second reservation was established in 1879. During the second half of the nineteenth century the Akimels went from being prosperous farmers and businessmen to working as dependent laborers for Anglo-American settlers. The Presbyterian missionary Charles Cook stepped into this unstable situation, and by the turn of the century most Akimels had converted to the Protestant faith.
No longer self-supporting, the Akimels referred to the period from the 1870s through the early twentieth century as "the years of famine." The situation worsened in the late 1910s, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs allotted each tribal member only ten acres of irrigable land (when there was any water). In the 1930s, an overly paternalistic BIA superintendent inadvertently damaged the quality of the soil when he leveled the Akimels' farms in an effort to improve irrigation.
The situation improved only when the River People reasserted control over their future. As early as 1911 a tribal member, Kisto Morago, organized a "business committee" to investigate issues affecting the Akimels. The group successfully forced a reservation agent to resign. The Akimels' potential for self-rule increased with the organization of a tribal government in 1936 in accordance with the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Returning World War II veterans used the Akimel government to promote tribal enterprises that could take advantage of the nearby Phoenix market. Successful ventures include the Gila River Farms, Gila River Telecommunications, Firebird International Raceway, and two industrial parks that by 1977 had attracted sixteen firms; recently, the Gila River Casino has opened for business. To help preserve Akimel culture, the tribe established the Gila River Arts and Crafts Center. The tribal constitution was amended in 1962 to increase the Akimel government's responsiveness to the River People's wishes.
Problems still exist. A settlement in 1978 from the Indian Claims Commission was far from satisfactory, and the Akimel community is still negotiating the return of an adequate water supply. Urban problems are also encroaching on the reservation. Nevertheless, the River People's prospects have improved now that the community is united in its desire to control its future.
Henry F. Dobyns, The Pima-Maricopa (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989); Frank Russell, The Pima Indians (1904; reprint, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1975); George Webb, A Pima Remembers (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1959). Peter MacMillan Booth
Purdue University
Lower Gila River Watershed from Arizona Department of Water Resources
MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE PIMA, PAPAGO, AND WESTERN APACHE With Suggestions for Museum Displays by Dr. Ralph L. Beals (1934)
THE HOHOKAM FARMERS OF THE DESERT, The Hohokam Signature
Comparing Papago and Hohokam Irrigation (from Rivers of Empire) Donald Worster
(mentions "The destruction of Papago agricultural ecology is the theme of Charles Bowden's excellent book, Killing the Hidden Waters (Austin, 1977)"
Pima Indians Living on the Gila River Indian Reservation
Previous studies have shown that there is an extremely high prevalence of diabetes Mellitus and gallbladder disease among the Pima Indians living on the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona. Diabetes in this populace is 10 to 15 times as frequent as in the general population of the United States and diabetes prevalence increases from approximately 3% in females aged 5 to 14 years to nearly 69% in those aged 55 to 64. In males, diabetes prevalence is somewhat lower, 3% in the 15 to 24 age group and 46% in those aged 65 to 74 years …see also Related Research MaterialMethod – Study Population –
The Pima and Papago Indians have resided in the region of the Gila River in south central Arizona for at least several centuries. This region is typical of the hot, dry Sonoran Desert of the southwestern region of the United States. The Pima and Papago Indians are believed to be the direct descendents of the Hohokams, whose culture dates back to the beginning of the Christian era. These people are agricultural, as were their forebears who made an amazing adjustment to an unfavorable environment through the use of an extensive canal system for irrigation…
…It as not until the 1930’s. upon completion of the Coolidge Dam and the formation of the San Carlos Irrigation Project, that adequate food supplies have been available to all on the reservation…
…these newly acquired food habits influenced changes in family eating patterns.
…The two most widely used foods in the Pima diet are beans (generally pinto) and tortillas; the latter are made from white flour, lard, salt, and water…
…Cakes, sweet rolls, and soft drinks make large caloric contributions to the pima diet. Bread and rolls are purchased when tortillas are not available. Both enriched and unenriched flour are sold in large quantities; Pima women say that unenriched flour makes the best tortillas. Cake, pancake, and various other mixes are widely used. Self-Rising flour is also sold in large quantities. Convenience foods, such as instant potatoes, macaroni and cheese dinners, and gelatin desserts are popular.
By Jeanne Reid, Sandra Fullmer, Karen Pettigrew, Thomas Burch, Peter Bennett, Max Miller, and Donald Whedon
To the Indians who already lived in this land, El Camino was just another link in a vast system of trails connecting waterholes, hunting grounds, shrines, and campsites. The last people to live here were the Pinacatenos and Arenenos, both clans of the Tohono O'Odham (Papago) tribe. They ranged from the Gila River to the Gulf of California and from the Colorado River to Sonoyta, eking out a living.
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Pima County GIS data (need to register)
Greetings and welcome to my web page. I am a Ph.D. student in the Geography Department at Arizona State University. My academic interests focus on the U.S.-Mexico border region, specifically local/central government conflicts and the impact of the international boundary on Tohono O'odham society.
Tohono O'odham: Campaign for citizenship Nation Divided (Carmen Duarte)
Native Communities of the Borderlands: Introduction
These on order:
The Short Swift Time of Gods on Earth: The Hohokam Chronicles by Donald Bahr, et alAt the Desert's Green Edge: An Ethnobotany of the Gila River Pima by Amadeo M. Rea, Takashi Ijichi
By the Prophet of the Earth: Ethnobotany of the Pima by L. S. M. Curtin
The Pima Bajo of Central Sonora, Mexico by Campbell Pennington
Pima and Papago Indian Agriculture by Edward F. Castetter
The Pima-Maricopa (Indians of North America) by Henry F Dobyns
Sharing the Desert: The Tohono O'Odham in History by Winston P. Erickson
Of Earth and Little Rain: The Papago Indians by Bernard L. Fontana, John P. Schaefer
This gene was helpful as long as there were periods of famine. But once these populations adopted the typical Western lifestyle, with less physical activity, a high fat diet, and access to a constant supply of calories, this gene began to work against them, continuing to store calories in preparation for famine. Scientists think that the thrifty gene that once protected people from starvation might also contribute to their retaining unhealthy amounts of fat.
Dr. Eric Ravussin, a visiting scientist at the Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch at NIDDK, has studied obesity in the Pima Indians since 1984. He believes the thrifty gene theory applies to the Pimas.
The Pima Indians maintained much of their traditional way of life and economy until the late 19th century, when their water supply was diverted by American farmers settling upstream, according to Ravussin. At that time, their 2,000-year-old tradition of irrigation and agriculture was disrupted, causing poverty, malnutrition and even starvation. The Pima community had to fall back on the lard, sugar and white flour the U.S. government gave them to survive, says Ravussin.
However, World War II brought great social and economic change for American Indians. Those who entered military service joined Caucasian units. Many other American Indians migrated from reservations to cities for factory employment and their estimated cash income more than doubled from 1940 to 1944.
When the war and the economic boom ended, most Native Americans returned to the reservations, but contact with the larger society had profoundly affected the Pimas' way of life. Ravussin says it is no surprise that the increase in unhealthy weight among the Pima Indians occurred in those born post-World War II.
During this century people world-wide experienced more prosperity and leisure time, and less physical work. Since the 1920s, all Americans have consumed more fat and sugar and less starch and fiber. The greatest changes have occurred in consumption of fat. In the 1890s, the traditional Pima Indian diet consisted of only about 15 percent fat and was high in starch and fiber, but currently almost 40 percent of the calories in the Pima diet is derived from fat. As the typical American diet became more available on the reservation after the war, people became more overweight.
"The only way to correct obesity is to eat less fat and exercise regularly," Ravussin says.
Recently, Ravussin visited a Pima community living as their ancestors did in a remote area of the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico. These Mexican Pimas are genetically the same as the Pima Indians of Arizona. Out of 35 Mexican Pimas studied, only three had diabetes and the population as a whole was not overweight, according to Ravussin.
The Pima Indians : pathfinders for health (SuDoc HE 20.3302:P 64)
by U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services (!!!)
Perhaps via ILL:
Soil survey of Tohono O'odham Nation, Arizona : parts of Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal counties SuDoc A 57.38/3:T 57)
by Donald J. Breckenfeld
Soil survey of Gila Bend-Ajo area, Arizona, parts of Maricopa and Pima counties (SuDoc A 57.38/3:G 37)
by U.S. Dept of Agriculture