The Tohono O’odham are a
Native American people of the Sonoran Desert, and they are recognized by the US
federal government as the Tohono O’odham Nation.
After the arrival of the
Spanish conquistadores, a competitor people (The Pima) used an insult to refer
to the Tohono O’odham, which the Spanish (and later English) mispronounced as
‘papago’, but this term has been rejected by the tribal government and most of
the people of the tribe.
The Tohono O’odham
Nation’s major reservation is located in southern Arizona, and stretches into
Sonoma county of Mexico. The Tohono O’odham share roots with the Akimel O’odham
(People of the River). Both are descended from the Sobaipuri, who resided along
the major rivers of southern Arizona as long ago as the 15th century.
The O’odham-speaking
people were a settled agricultural people who endured raids from the nomadic
Apache when the latter needed food. It wasn’t until European settlers
encroached on the O’odham people’s land that the O’odham and Apache found some
common ground. It was more traditional that they were at odds, each taking
captive woman and children during raids on the other.
The music and dance of
the O’odham lack any grand paraphernalia or ceremonies. Both the music and the
dance is subdued, with the music being ‘swallowed’ by the surrounding desert
floor, and the dancing featuring skipping and shuffling quietly in bare feet on
dry dirt to raise dust.
The traditional O’odham
diet consisted of game, insects and plants. They foraged ironwood seed, honey
mesquite, hog potato, cholla cactus, acorns and organ-pipe cactus fruit. They
cultivated corn, squash, white tepary beans, papago peas and spanish
watermelons. They hunted antelope, gathered hornworm larvae and trapped pack
rats for meat.
The land did not provide
ideal conditions for growing crops, but the O’odham developed the ‘mouth of the
wash’ farming method. When they detected imminent rainfall, they would quickly
prep the ground and seed it as the rain began to flood the area.
It is often assumed that
the desert people embraced Catholicism, but the Tohono O’odham villages
resisted change for hundreds of years. During the 1660s and the 1750s, major
rebellions forced the Spanish to retreat, and the desert people preserved their
traditions nearly intact for generations.
Apparently, the Tohono
O’odham never signed a treaty with the Federal Government, so they managed to
get a reservation by conducting trades for the land they thought was already
theirs. They have retained many of their traditions into the 21st century, and
still speak their language. However, US mass culture has started to penetrate
and erode their traditions. Diabetes has become a major health problem for the
tribe as they shifted away from their traditional food sources. There is a
movement to assist the group to return to their more traditional food choices,
and they are advocating for access to the rivers so that they can return to
growing their own crops.
The Tohono O’odham
Community Action was founded in 1996 with the intent to restore lost tribal
traditions. It started as a community garden and basketweaving classes. It now
has 2 farms, a restaurant and an art gallery. It is estimated that the
restaurant - opened in 2009, and incorporating traditional foods into each item
served - serves over 100,000 meals yearly. That’s a minimum of 274 meals a day!
I don’t want to cook for that crowd!
The basket weaving
classes were held once a week, initially, and a single basket might take an
entire year to make! The fibers that were used had to be harvested and
prepared, plus they needed to create a design that represented the tribe’s
history.
Before contact with
Europeans, the O’odham migrated north and south with the seasons, and this
continued at least until the US-Mexico border cut through their lands. Even
then, much of the O’odham continued to move about as they wanted, but efforts
were made during the 20th century to ‘close’ this open hole in this border. By
2000, the Mexican census indicated there were no more O’odham to be found in
Sonora.
Well, as the article got
closer and closer to the present, I found myself losing interest, as is often
the case when I’m looking at history. Besides, this was already a long episode.
And thirdly, it kept mentioning all the ways this tribe has been and still are being
treated as less than full citizens, which always pisses me off. I will have to
remember that when I create cultures that are not based on US culture. Heck,
even if they are based on US culture, from the looks of how things are now.
The most interesting
things I found were the descriptions of the music and dancing, and the
information on their traditional foods. This
is the kind of stuff I really want
to have available in my mind when I’m thinking up new cultures for future
stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment