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The Tohono O'odham are a Native American people of the Sonoran Desert, residing primarily in the U.S. state of Arizona and the northern Mexican state of Sonora. The federally recognized tribe is known in the United States as the Tohono Oʼodham Nation.
The Tohono Oʼodham Nation, or Tohono Oʼodham Indian Reservation, is a major reservation located in southern Arizona, where it encompasses portions of three counties: Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa in the United States. It also extends into the Mexican state of Sonora.
The Tohono Oʼodham tribal government and most of the people have rejected the historical name Papago used by European colonizers. They call themselves Tohono Oʼodham, meaning "desert people".
The Pima, a competing tribe in this territory, referred to them as Ba꞉bawĭkoʼa, meaning "eating tepary beans". The Spanish colonizers learned that name from the Pima and transliterated it as Pápago, in their pronunciation. Anglo settlers in the area adopted that term.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tohono_O%CA%BCodham
Tohono O'odham
Our origins are linked to our homeland, the Sonoran Desert. Thousands of years ago, our predecessors, the Hohokam, settled along the Salt, Gila, and Santa Cruz Rivers. The Hohokam were master dwellers of the desert, creating sophisticated canal systems to irrigate their crops of cotton, tobacco, corn, beans, and squash. They built vast ball courts and huge ceremonial mounds and left behind fine red-on-buff pottery and exquisite jewelry of stone, shell, and clay.
Following our ancestral heritage, we became scientists of our environment. We used and continue to use meteorological principles to establish planting, harvesting, ceremonial cycles and we developed complex water storage and delivery systems. We learned to make the best of our environment, migrating with the seasons from our homes in the valleys to our cooler mountain dwellings. On our Oidag in the valleys, near the washes that crisscrossed our land, we raised a tapestry of crops, including tepary beans, squash, melon, and sugar cane. We gathered wild plants such as saguaro fruit, cholla buds, and mesquite bean pods, and we hunted for only the meat that we needed from the plentiful wildlife, including deer, rabbit, and javelina.
We continue to live this proud heritage today as 21st century Tohono O’odham.
http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/tohono-oodham-history/
History
Historically, the O’odham inhabited an enormous area of land in the southwest, extending South to Sonora, Mexico, north to Central Arizona (just north of Phoenix, Arizona), west to the Gulf of California, and east to the San Pedro River. This land base was known as the Papagueria and it had been home to the O’odham for thousands of years.
From the early 18th Century through to the present, the O’odham land was occupied by foreign governments. With the independence of Republic of Mexico, O’odham fell under Mexican rule. Then, in 1853, through the Gadsden Purchase or Treaty of La Mesilla, O’odham land was divided almost in half, between the United States of America and Mexico.
According to the terms of the Gadsden Purchase, the United States agreed to honor all land rights of the area held by Mexican citizens, which included the O’odham, and O’odham would have the same constitutional rights as any other United States citizen. However, the demand for land for settlement escalated with the development of mining and the transcontinental railroad. That demand resulted in the loss of O’odham land on both sides of the border.
Following the Plan de Iguala, O’odham lands in Mexico continued to decrease at a rapid rate. In 1927, reserves of lands for indigenous peoples, were established by Mexico. Today, approximately nine O’odham communities in Mexico lie proximate to the southern edge of the Tohono O’odham Nation, a number of which are separated only by the United States/Mexico border.
On the U.S. side of the border, the Gadsden Purchase had little effect on the O’odham initially because they were not informed that a purchase of their land had been made, and the new border between the United States and Mexico was not strictly enforced. In recent years, however, the border has come to affect the O’odham in many ways, because immigration laws prevent the O’odham from crossing it freely. In fact, the U.S.-Mexico border has become “an artificial barrier to the freedom of the Tohono O’odham. . . to traverse their lands, impairing their ability to collect foods and materials needed to sustain their culture and to visit family members and traditional sacred sites.” O’odham members must produce passports and border identification cards to enter into the United States.
On countless occasions, the U.S. Border Patrol has detained and deported members of the Tohono O’odham Nation who were simply traveling through their own traditional lands, practicing migratory traditions essential to their religion, economy and culture. Similarly, on many occasions U.S. Customs have prevented Tohono O’odham from transporting raw materials and goods essential for their spirituality, economy and traditional culture. Border officials are also reported to have confiscated cultural and religious items, such as feathers of common birds, pine leaves or sweet grass.
The division of O’odham lands has resulted in an artificial division of O’odham society. O’odham bands are now broken up into 4 federally recognized tribes: the Tohono O’odham Nation, the Gila River Indian Community, the Ak-Chin Indian Community and the Salt River (Pima Maricopa) Indian community. Each band is now politically and geographically distinct and separate. The remaining band, the Hia-C’ed O’odham, are not federally recognized, but reside throughout southwestern Arizona. All of the groups still speak the O’odham language, which derives from the Uto-Aztecan language group, although each group has varying dialects. http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/history-culture/
Culture
The Tohono Oʼodham share linguistic and cultural roots with the closely related Akimel Oʼodham (People of the River), historically known as Pima, whose lands lie just south of present-day Phoenix, along the lower Gila River. The ancestors of both the Tohono Oʼodham and the Akimel Oʼodham resided along the major rivers of southern Arizona. Ancient pictographs adorn a rock wall that juts up out of the desert near the Baboquivari Mountains. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tohono_O%CA%BCodham
The Tohono O’odham speak a Uto-Aztecan language, a dialectal variant of Piman, and culturally they are similar to the Pima living to the north. There are, however, certain dissimilarities. The drier territory of the Tohono O’odham made farming difficult and increased the tribe’s reliance on wild foods. They moved seasonally because of the arid climate, spending the summer in “field villages” and the winter in “well villages.”
Traditionally, unlike the Pima, the Tohono O’odham did not store water to irrigate their fields, instead practicing a form of flash-flood farming. After the first rains, they planted seeds in the alluvial fans at the mouths of washes that marked the maximum reach of the water after flash floods. Because the floods could be heavy, it was necessary for the seeds to be planted deeply, usually 4 to 6 inches (10–15 cm) into the soil. Reservoirs, ditches, and dikes were constructed by Tohono O’odham men to slow and impound runoff waters along the flood channels. Women were responsible for gathering wild foods.
Early 21st-century population estimates indicated more than 20,000 individuals of Tohono O’odham descent. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tohono-Oodham
Today
The cultural resources of the Tohono Oʼodham are threatened—particularly the language—but are stronger than those of many other aboriginal groups in the United States.
Every February the nation holds the annual Sells Rodeo and Parade in its capital. Sells District rodeo has been an annual event since being founded in 1938. It celebrates traditional frontier skills of riding and managing cattle.
In the visual arts, Michael Chiago and the late Leonard Chana have gained widespread recognition for their paintings and drawings of traditional Oʼodham activities and scenes. Chiago has exhibited at the Heard Museum and has contributed cover art to Arizona Highways magazine and University of Arizona Press books. Chana illustrated books by Tucson writer Byrd Baylor and created murals for Tohono Oʼodham Nation buildings.[citation needed]
In 2004, the Heard Museum awarded Danny Lopez its first heritage award, recognizing his lifelong work sustaining the desert people's way of life. At the National Museum for the American Indian (NMAI), the Tohono O'odham were represented in the founding exhibition and Lopez blessed the exhibit.
The Tohono Oʼodham Nation within the United States occupies a reservation that incorporates a portion of its people's original Sonoran desert lands. It is organized into eleven districts. The land lies in three counties of the present-day state of Arizona: Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa. The reservation's land area is 11,534.012 square kilometres (4,453.307 sq mi), the third-largest Indian reservation area in the United States (after the Navajo Nation and the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation). The 2000 census reported 10,787 people living on reservation land. The tribe's enrollment office tallies a population of 25,000, with 20,000 living on its Arizonan reservation lands.
The nation is governed by a three branch system. The executive which includes a chairman and vice-chairman, who are elected by eligible adult members of the nation. According to their constitution, elections are conducted under a complex formula intended to ensure that the rights of small Oʼodham communities are protected, as well as the interests of the larger communities and families. The legislative branch which includes the tribal council which is made up two representatives from each of the twelve districts. The third branch is the Judical which includes five judges. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tohono_O%CA%BCodham
Districts
Gu Achi District
Pisinemo District
Sif Oidak District
Sells District
Baboquivari District
Hickiwan District
San Lucy District
Gu Vo District
Chukut Kuk District
San Xavier District
Schuk Toak District
Notable Tohono O'odham
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- Annie Antone, contemporary, pictorial basketweaver
- Maria Chona, basketweaver
- Juan Dolores, early Tohono Oʼodham linguist
- Terrol Dew Johnson, basketweaver and native food and health advocate
- Augustine Lopez, Tohono Oʼodham nation chairman
- Raul Mendoza, basketball coach
- Ponka-We Victors, Kansas state legislator
- Ofelia Zepeda, linguist, poet, writer
Photograph: Tohono O'odham girl -
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tohono-Oodham
Luzi - Papago (The North American Indian; v.02)
Source: The Pima. The Papago. The Qahatika. The Mohave. The Yuma. The Maricopa. The Walapai. The Havasupai. The Apache-Mohave, or Yavapai [portfolio] ; plate no. 53 (Seattle : E.S. Curtis, 1908.) < Wikimedia commons >