O'odham (Other Keyword)
1-10 (10 Records)
The O’odham and other tribes of southern Arizona and northern Sonora have occupied the Western Papaguería since time immemorial. This dry and desolate corner of the Sonoran Desert is home to rich histories and living traditions that have left their subtle marks on the land, and that archaeologists have continuously tried to identify, describe, and interpret. For too long, ethnographic and ethnohistoric records from this region have run in parallel to the archaeology; however several recent...
From Orioles to Airplanes: O’odham Traditional Cultural Properties and Traditions of Travel through the Western Papaguería (2015)
Ethnographic research conducted on Barry M. Goldwater Range East with members of the Tohono O’odham Nation identified a series of ancient and historic travel routes relevant in O’odham history and contemporary traditions. These routes range from ancient foot trails leading to the Sea of Cortez to historic wagon roads and modern highways connecting O’odham communities. The O’odham commemorate important places in their history through place-naming, storytelling, songs, and traditional cultural...
Memory Culture and the Long O’Odham History of Nanakmel Kii (Bat’s Home), Tempe, Arizona (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Collaborative Archaeology: How Native American Knowledge Enhances Our Collective Understanding of the Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists who study the relationship of memory to material culture or landscapes examine the ways in which history and cultural practice contribute to tradition-building and its perpetuation. Cultural practices are the daily embodiment of one’s traditions, beliefs, or...
Nuh nuhy Himdag. The Role of Song in the Identification of O’Odham Traditional Cultural Properties (2018)
The Gila River Indian Community Tribal Historic Preservation Office and Cultural Resource Management Program have been engaged in Traditional Cultural Property (TCP) inventory for more than two decades. This presentation considers the role of Nuh nuhy Himdag (song culture) in TCP identification with specific reference to a recent study of Vainom Do’ag (Iron Mountain), which, based on a ruling by the United States Board of Geographic Names in 2008, was named Piestewa Peak in honor of the first...
O’odham Travel in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Identifying Travel Routes on Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Transcending Boundaries and Exploring Pasts: Current Archaeological Investigations of the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The land encompassing Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument has long been a travel corridor for O’odham groups journeying across the Sonoran Desert to destinations throughout the modern Mexican state of Sonora and the Sea of Cortez. The National Park Service sponsored...
The Pima Lateral: Historic-era Native American Irrigation Agriculture on the Lehi Terrace (2021)
This is a presentation from the 2021 Arizona Archaeological Council (AAC) Fall symposium on "The Archaeology of Canals in the Arizona Desert". Recent data recovery operations conducted on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community by North Wind Resource Consulting (North Wind) resulted in two subsurface exposures of the Pima Lateral, an historic irrigation canal that served as the principal irrigation work for the early northside community prior to the creation of the Salt River Indian...
Place, Place Name and Property in the identification of O’odham and Pee Posh TCPs. (2015)
Ethnogeography considers the ways in which human beings invest places, spaces, or points on the land with names and information that render them culturally meaningful. Many places in a culture’s ethnogeography are also Traditional Cultural Properties or TCPs. TCPs are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and by definition are significant to the perpetuation of traditional worldview and living indigenous cultures. This presentation reports on recent advances in O’odham and Pee...
Traditional Perspectives on Water, Canals, Archaeology, and Cultural Resources (2021)
This is a presentation from the 2021 Arizona Archaeological Council (AAC) Fall symposium on "The Archaeology of Canals in the Arizona Desert". Research and excavation of ancient canals and archaeological sites is an academic pursuit for most archaeologists. For Native people, canals have a greater importance. Water is life, the return of irrigation water after so long is changing the landscape, emphasizing how the past is still important to living communities. This discussion will present...
When Isn’t a Va’aki? Additional New Perspectives on Ancestral O’Odham Ceremonial Architecture (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Collaborative Archaeology: How Native American Knowledge Enhances Our Collective Understanding of the Past" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Scholars of the Hohokam archaeological culture area have worked for decades to build a more comprehensive explanatory framework regarding the interpretation of vapaki, or ancestral O’Odham ceremonial houses. In 2023, an edited volume of the same name was published and represents a...
Where did the Water Go? (2021)
This is a presentation from the 2021 Arizona Archaeological Council (AAC) Fall symposium on "The Archaeology of Canals in the Arizona Desert". The Huhugam created a vast irrigation canal system that extended for miles feeding agricultural fields and villages along the Salt and Gila Rivers. When the Gila River ran dry the Gila River Indian Community worked hard to return the water to the people. The Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project, the first tribally built irrigation system would deliver...