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 United States federally recognized tribe is the Tohono O'odham Nation. The Ak-Chin Indian Community also has Tohono O'odham citizens.
The Tohono O'odham Nation governs the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, a major reservation in southern Arizona. It encompasses portions of Pima, Pinal, and Maricopa Counties and extends into the Mexican state of Sonora.
Name The Tohono O'odham tribal government and most of the people have rejected the common exonym Papago since the 1980s. They call themselves Tohono O'odham, meaning "desert people".
The Akimel O'odham, a neighboring tribe, referred to them as Ba꞉bawĭko'a, meaning "eating tepary beans". The Spanish colonizers learned that name from the Pima and transliterated it as Pápago. Anglo settlers in the area adopted that term.
History The historical lands of the Tohono O'odham stretched over much of what are now the jurisdictions of southern Arizona and Northern Mexico, across most of the Sonoran Desert. In the south, their land abutted against that of the Seris and Opata peoples. To the east, they ranged to at least the San Miguel River valley. The people may have migrated further east in seasonal travel. The Gila River represents the northern limits. To the west, their lands extended to the Colorado River and the Gulf of California. The frontiers of their territory would have been shared to an extent with neighboring tribes.
These lands are characterized by wide plains bordered by tall mountains. Water is scarce but is believed to have been more plentiful before European colonization. Their practices of cattle grazing and well drilling decreased stream flows. Localized natural springs provided water in some areas. In some areas, the people also relied on tinajas, or potholes, that were filled with rainwater in the mountains. Rains are intensely seasonal in the Sonoran Desert, with much rainfall occurring in late summer monsoons. Monsoon storms are generally fierce and produce flooding. The remainder of rainfall generally falls in winter and is more gentle. Snows are extremely rare, and winters have a few days below freezing. The growing season is very long, up to 264 days in places. Summer temperatures are extreme, reaching up to for weeks at a time.
The Tohono O'odham migrated between summer and winter homes, usually moving to follow the water. They built their summer homes along alluvial plains, where they channeled summer rains onto fields they were cultivating. Some dikes and catchment basins were built, as was typical of Pima practices to the north. But most streams were not reliable enough for the people to build permanent canal systems. Winter villages were built in the mountains, to take advantage of more reliable water, and to enable the men to engage in hunting games.
Historically, the O'odham were enemies of the nomadic Apache from the late 17th until the beginning of the 20th century. The O'odham word for the Apache 'enemy' is ob. The O'odham were settled agricultural people who raised crops. According to their history, they knew the Apache would raid when they ran short on food or hunting was bad.
The relationship between the O'odham and Apache was especially strained after 1871 when 92 O'odham joined 48 Mexicans and six Anglo-Americans and killed an estimated 144 Apache in the Camp Grant massacre. All but eight of the dead were women and children. The O'odham also captured 29 Apache children, whom they sold into slavery in Mexico. Conflict with European settlers encroaching on their lands eventually led the O'odham and the Apache to find common interests.
Little of early O'odham history is known. That recorded by Europeans reflects their biases. The first European exploration and recording of O'odham lands was made in the early 1530s by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca of the ill-fated Narváez expedition. Esteban the Moor passed through these lands, one of the four survivors of the Narvaez expedition. He returned later to lead Fray Marcos de Niza in an attempt to find the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. Esteban was killed by the Zuni when he dishonored their customs, and de Niza cut short his journey. De Niza wrote that the native cities were grander than Mexico City, which led to the Coronado expedition.
Considerable evidence suggests that, before the late 17th century, the O'odham and Apache were friendly and engaged in the exchange of goods and marriage partners. But according to O'odham oral tradition, intermarriages resulted instead from raiding between the two tribes. It was typical for women and children to be taken captive in raids, for the victors to use as slaves. Women often married into the tribe in which they were held captive and assimilated under duress. Both tribes thus incorporated "enemies" and their children into their cultures.
The San Xavier District is the site of Mission San Xavier del Bac, the "White Dove of the Desert". This is a major tourist attraction near Tucson. Jesuit missionary and explorer Eusebio Kino founded the mission in 1700. Both the first and current church building were constructed by O'odham. The second building was constructed under direction of Franciscan priests, during a mission period from 1783 to 1797. The oldest European building in present-day Arizona, the mission is considered a premier example of Spanish colonial design. It is one of many missions built in the Southwest by the Spanish on what was then the northern frontier of their colony.
Tourists sometimes assume that the desert people had embraced the Catholicism of the Spanish conquistadors. Tohono O'odham villages resisted such change for hundreds of years. During the 1660s and in 1750s, two major rebellions rivaled the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in scale. Their armed resistance prevented the Spanish from increasing their incursions into the lands of Pimería Alta. The Spanish retreated to what they called Pimería Baja. As a result, the desert people preserved their traditions largely intact for generations.
Culture
The Tohono O'odham share linguistic and cultural roots with the closely related Akimel O'odham (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 O'odham and the Akimel O'odham 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.
Eric Winston writes:
Debates surround the origins of the O'odham. Claims that the O'odham moved north as recently as 300 years compete with claims that the Hohokam, who left the Casa Grande Ruins, are their ancestors.
In the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library are materials collected by a Franciscan friar who worked among the Tohono O'odham. These include scholarly volumes and monographs. The Office of Ethnohistorical Research, at the Arizona State Museum on the University of Arizona campus, has undertaken a documentary history of the O'odham, offering translated colonial documents that discuss Spanish relations with the O'odham in the 17th and 18th centuries.See the special issue of Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Summer 2014), titled "O'odham and the Pimería Alta".
O'odham musical and dance activities lack "grand ritual paraphernalia that call for attention" and grand ceremonies such as pow-wows. Instead, they wear muted white clay. O'odham songs are accompanied by hard wood rasps and drumming on overturned baskets, both of which lack resonance and are "swallowed by the desert floor". Dancing features skipping and shuffling quietly in bare feet on dry dirt. The raised dust is believed to assist in forming rain clouds.Zepeda, Ofelia (1995). Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert, p. 89. .
Society Society focused on the family, and each member had a specific role. Women were in charge of food preparation and also gathered the bulk of food, although everyone helped. Older girls in the family were in charge of fetching water each morning (the duty fell to the wife if there were no daughters). Women also wove baskets, and made pottery, such as ollas. Men hunted and performed many of the farming tasks. Older men hunted larger game like bighorn sheep; younger men and boys hunted small game. Most communities had a medicine man, a usually male position. Decisions were made by men in a communal fashion, with elders holding prominence. Children were free to play until age six, around which time they began to learn their roles. Grandparents and older siblings were the most frequent teachers, as parents tended to be very busy.
Marriages were generally arranged by parents, or if the parents had died, older siblings. Since individual villages tended to be closely related, marriages were generally between villages, as close relatives were not allowed to marry. Wives generally moved to their husbands' villages, but exceptions could be made if the wife's village needed more help. Polygamy was allowed. Women had little choice in whom they married, but could leave their marriage if unhappy; they would then return to their village and a new marriage would be arranged.
Society was intensely communal, and there were few positions of authority. Hunters shared their catches with the entire village. Food and supplies were shared with those who needed it. It was expected that those who had been given things in times of need would repay the debt when they could.
Despite a shared language and heritage, the O'odham were only loosely connected across their lands. Loyalty lay with the village, not the people. But the O'odham generally got along well with neighbors. They regularly gathered with nearby villages, and even partnered with them in times of conflict against outsider tribes. Gatherings for races, trade, socialization, and gossip were frequent. Gambling was a common recreation, with men playing a game with sticks similar to dice, and women playing a game that required tossing painted sticks. They bet trinkets such as shells or beads, as well as valuables such as blankets and mats. They also bet on races, the most important sport. Girls were already generally good runners due to being water fetchers, and everyone had to be able to run to escape danger or attacks. Daylong races were popular events, and courses were . Women played toka, a field hockey-like game that is still enjoyed and is a school sport on the modern reservation.
Subgroups Though they shared a linguistic root with the Pima, and could understand the languages of nearby tribes, such tribes were considered distant cousins at best. Even within the O'odham there were linguistic and cultural differences that made the groups only loosely united. Different groups had different origin stories, linguistic quirks, and appearances. Where a person lived was the best indicator of which group they belonged to. As of the 1700s, when Europeans began to categorize the tribes, there were probably at least six groups. The actual number of groups has varied by author. The following categorization is from Eric Winston's 1994 textbook on the O'odham, and includes seven groups, along with some subgroups. Himuris They lived along the southern edge of O'odham lands, in modern Mexico. In the west they lived up to the confluence of the Altar River and the Magdalena River in what is now Magdalena de Kino. Their range extended all the way to the eastern reaches of the O'odham. They were the first to make contact with Europeans.