Traditional Sports in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona

Summary

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.

The O’Odham of southern Arizona continue to participate in traditional sporting events, and a variety of organized competitions are still held today. Although they are one people, the O’Odham are currently organized into four Communities, which are collectively known as the Four Southern Tribes. People in each of these communities still practice traditional sports, although the degree of participation varies, with women generally more active than men. We report the results of a questionnaire given to members of the Four Southern Tribes regarding interest and participation in customary O’Odham sporting events. These ongoing practices include games such as Toka, which is a highly competitive sport that is played with sticks, and is exclusively practiced by women. This information is then compared with ethnohistorical and ethnographic observations regarding athletic competitions in the southern Southwest. These data are in turn used to make inferences regarding prehistoric sports, which are difficult to infer based on archaeological information alone.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative Archaeology: How Native American Knowledge Enhances Our Collective Understanding of the Past   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38210.0