Memory Culture and the Long O’Odham History of Nanakmel Kii (Bat’s Home), Tempe, 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.

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 dispositions. These practices and events become part of group memory, which in turn influences future activities, including the way that Native American Tribes help manage traditional sites and sacred places. For a recent study of Bell Butte in Tempe, Arizona, appropriately known as Nanakmel Kii or Qmpanyk Nyiva (“Bat’s Home”), researchers compiled the memory and material culture of one such place as a collaborative effort involving O’Odham and Piipaash cultural experts. Reexamination of rock art and objects recovered by the Hemenway Expedition from a ceremonial cave clearly establishes O’Odham and Piipaash affiliations with the butte and the role of O’Odham songs in perpetuating the memory culture of this sacred place. O’Odham recognition of the cave artifacts by name and function offers new insights regarding material culture and tradition, but in so doing questions previous cultural historical reconstructions that have long held sway in the Phoenix Basin that generally ignore historical connections and continuity with descendant communities.

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): 38200.0