The Tohono O'odhams, known to many as the Papagos, live in southern Arizona and the northern part of the Mexican state of Sonora. The Tohono O'odhams say that Elder Brother, known as I'itoi, led them into this land from the underworld. Their domain once extended from the San Pedro River to the Colorado and from the Gila River down past the Altar in Mexico.
A Piman-speaking people, the Tohono O'odhams are directly related to two neighboring O'odham groups. To survive in the desert environment, each of the three groups developed a unique lifestyle. The Akimel O'odhams (River People) settled in sedentary villages along perennial rivers and developed irrigation agriculture. Some Akimels, known as the Subiapuris, lived along the San Pedro and Santa Cruz Rivers, while others, known as the Pimas, located on the Gila River. The Hia C'ed O'odhams (Sand People) lived west of the Tohono O'odhams. One of the few truly nomadic peoples in the United States, the Hia C'eds developed a hunting and gathering lifestyle specially adapted to that extremely dry part of the desert.
The Tohono O'odhams (Desert People) settled between the Akimels and Hia C'eds. This group of desert dwellers survived by migrating between two locales—a mountain-spring village in the winter and a flood-farming village in the summer. Their semiannual move ended in the early twentieth century when the government drilled deep wells. As a result, the farming village became permanent.
An individual Tohono O'odham gave his or her loyalty to one of eleven village complexes. These village clusters originated in the nineteenth century when the Apaches forced the Tohono O'odhams to band together for defense. With the disappearance of the Apache threat at century's end, the large defensive villages broke up and the inhabitants established new kin-based communities. The newly formed villages became the central social unit of the Tohonos, but the ties and loyalties of the old fortified villages remained. The Tohonos maintained their village groupings through ceremony, marriage, economic cooperation, social interaction, and limited political association.
Water has always been key to the Tohono O'odhams' survival as desert farmers and ranchers. One of their most important ceremonies, the vi:gida, centers around the bringing of rain. In late summer, the Tohonos gather saguaro fruit, which they ferment into a wine—nawait. The vi:gida is marked by the drinking of nawait, which brings the annual rains. The vi:gida also marks the beginning of the Tohono O'odham New Year.
Spaniards were the first Europeans to make contact with the Tohono O'odhams. Starting in the 1690s, the Jesuits under Father Eusebio Francisco Kino established a series of missions for the Tohonos in what is today northern Sonora and southern Arizona. The Spanish also established garrisons, such as Tucson, to protect themselves and the missions from the Apaches. The Tohonos adopted wheat, cattle, and horses from the Spaniards. They also mixed Catholism with their I'itoi faith to create Sonoran Catholism, which is still the predominant faith among the Tohonos.
By the early 1800s, European diseases and Apache pressure had decimated the Subiapuris along the San Pedro and Santa Cruz Rivers, pushing the survivors eastward. When the Americans arrived in southern Arizona in the 1850s, only the Subiapuri village of Wa:k, on the Santa Cruz, remained. The Tohono O'odhams moved to Wa:k and intermarried with the surviving Subiapuris.
The situation changed when the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 divided the Tohono O'odham homeland. North of the new border, the Tohonos cooperated with the Americans to defeat the Apaches and restore peace by the 1870s. Unfortunately, American newcomers coveted Tohono O'odham land. In response, the U.S. government established several small reservations, starting with San Xavier in 1874 and Gila Bend in 1884. Nevertheless, the Tohonos used a much larger area. At the same time, white miners and ranchers were encroaching on the Desert People's land. As a solution, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued an executive order establishing the Papago Reservation (later renamed the Tohono O'odham Reservation). It has gone through several adjustments, including a 1917 change that gave the Tohonos surface rights but left the subsurface minerals in the public domain. A final addition in 1937 made for a total land area of 2,774,370 acres, giving the Tohono O'odhams the second-largest reservation in the United States. The government finally returned subsurface mineral rights to the Tohonos in 1955.
The Tohono O'odhams in Mexico did not fare as well. After Mexico became independent, ranchers and miners encroached on Tohono land. Many of the Tohonos either mixed into Mexican society or moved to the United States. In 1928, the Mexican government granted an ejido (a community land holding) to the village of Pozo Verde, but it covered only 7,600 acres. A 1979 census identified only two hundred Tohono O'odhams still living in Sonora.
At the turn of the century, Tohonos in the United States followed the village headman system. After several unsuccessful attempts in the 1910s and 1920s, the Tohonos in 1937 formed a single tribal government under the Indian Reorganization Act. The new constitution divided the reservation into districts that matched the former village groupings, all of which were united under a tribal council. In 1986, the tribe adopted a new constitution that better reflected Tohono O'odham society.
Except for a few ranching and mining operations, the reservation was comparatively undeveloped until the 1930s. Through government public-works projects, the Tohonos built roads, strung telephone wire, dug deep wells, and constructed schools and other buildings. World War II brought even more changes. Some 250 young men served in the armed forces, while many families moved off the reservation to take war-industry jobs. Veterans returned with new skills and knowledge that helped the people. One such individual, Thomas Segundo, served six consecutive terms as tribal chairman.
Today there are sixteen thousand members of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Over half live on the San Xavier, Gila Bend, and Tohono O'odham reservations. Most are Sonoran Catholics, although a significant number have joined the Presbyterian Church. Ranching, basket making, and government employment are the leading economic activities on the reservations. Jobs are limited, however. Consequently, many young Tohonos migrate to Tucson, Phoenix, and elsewhere in search of jobs. To improve their economic situation, the Tohono O'odhams recently opened the Desert Diamond Casino. Profits from this project are helping the tribe provide better social services. Although the people have seen many changes in the world around them, many aspects of Tohono O'odham culture remain intact: an economically diversified lifestyle, strong family ties, a love of the desert, a willingness to share, and a richly distinctive identity.
See also
Akimel O'odham (Pima).
Winston P. Erickson, Sharing the Desert: The Tohono O'odham in History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994); Bernard L. Fontana, Of Earth and Little Rain: The Papago Indians (Flagstaff, Ariz.: Northland Press, 1981; reprint, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989); Ruth Underhill, Social Organization of the Papago Indians (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939).
Peter MacMillan Booth
Purdue University
