Leaders, Tribes & Family

If you take a close look at American Indian art you can see and feel the landscape of the tribe. Art is at once functional and beautiful and the world of a people is within the piece. With the Puebloan people their pottery skills are shown in beautiful blacks, grays and in other regions mica sparkles in the light. With rugs woven by the Navajo the colors in their rugs explain the various plants that exist in their backyards. Look at any tribe and an examination of the piece of art is an examination of the geology, geography and astronomy. So it is with the Tohono O’odham basketry. Their intricately woven baskets are made with yucca, bear grass, & devil’s claw, and speak to the area that they have lived in for thousands of years. They are the desert people and the Sonoran Desert is their home.  

Today the Tohono O’odham Nation is the approximate size of the state of Connecticut, with an estimated 28,000 members. Traditional Tohono O’odham land was a vast swath of area extending north from what is today Phoenix, west to the Gulf of California, east to the San Pedro River and south to Sonora, Mexico. Today their land is divided between four parcels. The largest known as the “main” area, is more than 2.7 million acres and located near Sells, AZ, the capital of the nation. The second largest is the San Xavier and spreads over 71,095 acres south of Tucson. San Lucy District and Florence Village are 10,409 and 20 acres, respectively. Like almost all tribes within the United States, the ancestral lands have been taken but their culture remains. The reduction of land from traditional times to the area that the Tohono O’odham maintain today is a testament to their resilience and pride in the stories and the teachings that the Desert still has to offer.

They are descendants of the ancestral Hohokam people. It was the Hohokam who lived in the areas surrounding the Salt River, Gila River and Santa Cruz River. The Hohokam are acclaimed engineers because they built a massive system of canals. Today, many of these canals are still used throughout the Phoenix-metropolitan area. Since they had a well built system, they were able to successfully grow a variety of crops including corn, beans, squash, cotton and tobacco.

One of the most important times in the Tohono O’odham calendar is the harvesting of the saguaro fruit. The saguaro fruit begins to ripen at the end of June and it is this event that begins the New Year. Ceremonies occur during this time in hopes that in the coming months the desert will be blessed with rains to assure the growth of plants. Many of these plants are sacred to the survival of the Tohono O’odham.

American culture can be an all consuming one, especially when you are part of a smaller community that is working to maintain their beliefs and language. In 1986, the Tohono O’odham Nation made a conscious effort to identify themselves when they voted to change their name from the Papago Nation to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Papago was a name applied to the Tohono O’odham Nation and it meant arguably, “bean-eaters.” What’s in a name? For many Indian nations it is an exercise of sovereignty.

To the Tohono O’odham Nation, as a quote from their website states, “education is paramount.” The establishing of the Tohono O’odham Community College in 1998 on the reservation illustrates that point. In addition, part of the requirements of a degree-seeking student are that a student must take classes to study Tohono O’odham language and culture. As the late Tohono O’odham leader, Danny Lopez, said in the book, Home: Native Peoples in the Southwest, “We need language to tell our stories. We need our language in our ceremonies…It’s kind of like a person’s heart. You need your heart to survive. When your heart stops you’re dead…It’s what keeps our culture alive.”

The threats facing the Tohono O’odham come from many sources. Whether it is the teaching of language and culture or a more silent threat, the Nation is actively mapping their future. An example of this is the threat of diabetes. Today, 70% of the community is affected by the disease. Native groups like the Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA) have been working since 1996 to reverse this threat. Their organization works to educate people about returning to the traditional foods. Some of the properties of desert foods innately help regulate blood sugar. TOCA also aims to create a healthy, sustainable and culturally vital Tohono O’odham community.

The Tohono O’odham Nation has a unique situation because of its southern reservation. Long before there was a United States and Mexico, there were the Tohono O’odham people. The border was placed on them, but they must play by the rules of the United States. The impact of an international border on their main reservation is a constant reminder of today’s challenges. Immigration laws and the current need to have passports and border identification cards has created a disconnect in the cross-border sharing that has existed since well before there was a border. There are reports of members of the community being detained and sacred items needed for ceremonies being confiscated. Events like these illustrate many tribes struggle to adjust in a society whose rules seem contrary to the free practice of religion that is a foundational piece of our country and constitution.

One does not survive in the desert without learning to adapt. Hurdles today will be opportunities tomorrow. The Tohono O’odham people will preserve because they have been tested by the desert. Their homeland can send the thermometer soaring to well over 110 degrees in the summer and fall below freezing in the winter. It is a landscape that is harsh and beautiful; it has produced a people that find beauty in simplicity and strength in starkness. They are the desert and the desert is Tohono O’odham.

Photograph: Nora Moore Lloyd  All Rights Reserved



                                Banner Graphic: www.firstpeople.us