The Water Is Not Wasted: Tailwater Ponds, Habitat Conservation, and the Perpetuation of Akimel O’Odham Water Culture

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.

Akimel O’Odham are river people. During testing investigations for a roadway improvement project in Scottsdale, Arizona, sponsored by the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) and Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRP-MIC), a historical water feature was identified. Geomorphological and archival research determined that the feature represented historical tailwater deposits, possibly associated with a historic SRP-MIC irrigation system waste ditch. Evidence for a twentieth-century tailwater pond presented seemingly limited archaeological information potential. And yet tribal interest prompted additional ethnographic and archival research to explore the cultural significance of riparian micro-environments associated with tailwater ponds that once sustained Native Traditional Use plants (crucifixion thorn, arrowweed, etc.) and shade trees (cottonwood and mesquite). The role of these places in Community memory—for example, as vapchki (reservoirs)—is investigated in regard to the elimination of traditional riverine settlement by the allotment system and the introduction of large-scale irrigation and farming, traditional “water culture” (shuudag himdag), and as places for social gathering.

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): 38798.0