Tohono O'odham

Beans, Borders, & Belonging: How food-ways in Tohono O'odham lands have been interrupted by settler colonialism

Who are the Tohono O'odham?

The Tohono O’odham (once known as the Papago) are a Native American people who reside in the Sonoran Desert. Historically the land they inhabited stretched across the land base once known as Papagueria, which extended north to central Arizona, east to San Pedro River, south to Sonora, Mexico, and west to the gulf of California. 

_____ Tohono O’odham = “desert people”_______

However, following initial contact with the Spanish a variety of politically charged invasions have transformed the cultural and physical landscape that the Tohono O’odham occupy. A border wall between southern Arizona (U.S.) and northern Sonora (Mexico) now separates their drastically diminished ancestral lands into two sections. Health problems plague the population, lands have been encroached upon, and rights violated. Settler colonialism has invaded and altered the lifeways of the Tohono O’odham. The persistent legacy of the colonial structure impacts all aspects of O’odham culture, however, it is in the food sowed and eaten that the crumbs of colonialism and the changes they wrought can be traced.


Why food?

Food is the substance that sustains us as a people throughout our day. Access to affordable nutritious food allows for a person to be food secure, a notion that is easily disrupted in the footprints of colonialism. However, it is in looking beyond food security to food sovereignty that the notion and importance of food is further unveiled.

“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.” ~Declaration of Nyéléni

Food is not only a life-giving substance, it is a culture-defining substance. To have food sovereignty is to have control over lifeways. In similar fashion, the disruption of food sovereignty is the loss of power to determine a cultural system. Therefore, the mapping of the food sovereignty through the framework of settler colonialism illuminates more than a change of taste, it shows an intrusion and imposition of invaders.


Pre-colonial food subsistence systems

The Hohokam

According to O’odham oral tradition, “thousands of years ago, our [O’odham] predecessors, the Hohokam, settled along the Salt, Gila, and Santa Cruz Rivers. are the ancestors of the Tohono O’odham and Pima people.” (Tohono O'odham History) 


Comparison of overlapping lands of the Tohono O'odham and the Hohokam


The Sonora desert is “the richest of the four American deserts in diversity of plant communities and in number and variety of life forms”, a fact that allowed for the Hohokam to take advantage of a diverse number of foodways (Masse 6). The Hohokam, who moved from farther south in Mexico and resided in the North American southwest (Arizona and Sonora today) in 850 AD to around 1250 AD, were well known “masters of the desert” for one specific technology used as a part of their subsistence strategy: irrigation canals (Tohono O'odham History). 

Map taken archaeological fieldwork (Masse)

Fieldwork done at Gu Achi, an archaeological site in Arizona, has uncovered that the Hohokam had a diverse number of substance-related activities. These include “[the] storage of wild plants and cultigens in pits and ceramic containers, the preparation of plants (and animal?) foods through the use of fire (hearths), including the possible boiling of saguaro syrup, the spinning of cotton and other fibrous material as suggested by the perforated disc and pitted stone and the grinding of foodstuffs, most likely corn”–– all of which suggest three major facets of Hohokam subsistence: hunting, gathering, and agriculture (Masse 193). 

The archaeological evidence found at Gu Achi further details each of these subsistence strategies. A scarcity of faunal remains provide little information on hunting practices at the site of Gu Achi, however, 22 animals were identified, with rabbits emerging as the most numerous. Through flotation and pollen analyses, gathering practices were highlighted by the sizable collection of “corn kernels and a few traces of cotton… mesquite [bean] and paloverde beans, cholla buds, tansy mustard seeds, and reeds… the grain of agave pollen… [and] possible grain of Opuntia (prickly pear)” (Masse 196). The recovery of several hundreds of charred corn and corn pollen, cotton seed agricultural remains in addition to the runoff canals for controlling water and remains of small agricultural processing plants scattered throughout provide ample archaeological evidence of agricultural practices. All three strategies combined allowed for a flexible and autonomous food structure that not only permitted for the hHohokam to be food secure in a desert environment, but to also have food sovereignty.

The Tohono O'odham

The decline of O'odham ancestors’ society (which was previously given by colonial Europeans a “disappearance” narrative to delegitimize O’odham claims to water and land) eventually made way for the Tohono O'odham to populate the same area. Subsistence strategies that were utilized by the O’odham both followed Hohokam practices while also evolving into practices more attuned to the environment. The implementation of a two-village system coupled with the gathering in different regions of their traditional lands allowed for the O’odham to manipulate their foodscape to meet their dietary needs. This two-village system followed a “seasonal migratory cycle between winter villages in mountainous areas, where the group had access to water sources, and summer settlements in the desert below near the deltas of washes, where they waited for the late summer monsoons.” (Schulze 135-136) The division of time between winter and summer villages required an additional component of flexibility and mobility as one was further south, winter villages were located in Sonora whereas summer villages were located in Arizona, then the other.

Mesquite beans

With this particular subsistence strategy, the O'odham developed niche agricultural methods. In the summer hillside terracing and "akchir", or arroyo mouth, agriculture was practiced rather than extensive irrigation canals, which “allowed them to control the periodic downpours and still produce good agricultural yields.” (Seivertson 88). “Akchir” is a technique that involved the clearing and plowing of flood plain fields to plant “native crops of corn, squash, and beans” as the “summer floods were diverted from the washes onto the fields to irrigate the quick growing varieties” (Robinett 297). In addition to these crops “[w]ild annuals which grew among the crops were used for seed and greens”–– these include species such as “pigweed (chelite), pursley (verde lago), devils claw, and annual panic grass”–– and a variety of cactus fruits were harvested in cactus camps–– including saguaro, prickly pear, and pitahaya (organ pipe) (Robinett 297). These cactus camps appeared throughout the archaeological record in a series of sites. One study of 28 large sites demonstrated that all contained a majority of the manifestations which were expected at saguaro harvest camps, including “indications of the presence of a ramada, saguaro picking implements, hearth areas, rock rings, large quantities of debris, indications of repeated use… [as well as] cholla bud roasting pits, both jar and bowl for grinding implements, and ceramic tempering material consistent with ethnographic descriptions of water cooling ollas (Bruder 245-246). The importance of the saguaro harvesting and crops such as mesquite grown through agricultural practices is further highlighted in the role that surplus goods played in both the winter village and trade. In short, summer villages provided the opportunity for O’odham people to practice the subsistence strategies of agriculture and gathering during the months in which water was most plentiful in the desert. 

 At the end of fall after all the food was harvested and stored, the village group would move to their winter village which was near permanent waters. Here “[h]unting to supply meat, tallow, and hides was an important activity” as the Tohono O’odham “relied on hunting and gathering as well as on foods that they had stored from the previous season to get them through the winter months.” (Robinett 297, Fazzino 38) Seasonal patterns of movement from summer to winter villages both within traditional boundaries and beyond afforded the O’odham the subsistence system security essential to live within their climatically challenged landscape. (Seivertson 91). Despite the resources available in the winter village, the surplus grown and stored in clay pottery provided a crucial additional food source.

Additionally this semi-nomadic and flexible food strategy was complemented with a continuous working connection and trade with the Pima tribal group. Items traded by the Tohono O’odham to the Pima included valuable the Saguaro fruit products, such as Saguaro syrup, Saguaro jam, Saguaro seeds and Saguaro seed meal, whereas items traded to the Tohono O'odham included “pilkani (wheat), corn, beans, mesquite beans, cotton blankets, cotton fiber with seed, dried squash, dried pumpkin, dried melon, rings of willow splints, and rings of devil's claw splints” (Crosswhite 57-58). Trade with neighboring tribes delivered a supplementary component to their food system.

The combination of a semi-nomadic lifestyle, niche agricultural practices, hunting and gathering, and trade provided the Tohono O’odham with a diverse and secure food system. The mobility and access to food, notwithstanding drought periods that decimated crops and led to periods of starvation, empowered the O’odham to have sovereignty over their food structure.


Food-way changes due to colonialism

Despite the resilience of the O’odham foodways to the climatically challenging region, the consequences of settler colonialism, “a political and scholarly framework intended to explain the specificity of those societies and conditions defined by the permanent, ongoing dispossession of land from indigenous peoples and its occupation by an exogenous settler class”, or in this case the Tohono O’odham with (eventually) populations of United States and Mexico, ultimately proved to be a disruptive force to the food system (Gentry, Boyce, Garcia, Chambers 5). Initial contact with the O'odham in 1539 did not produce any immediate subsistence changes, as Europeans originally overlooked the region for other resource rich environments, however, that is not to say that the O’odham went unaffected: European introduced diseases produced epidemics known to have “decimated the O'odham's kin, the Pima Bajo, as well as neighboring groups such as the Opata and Yaqui” and as such it is “hard to believe the O'odham in southern Arizona were not affected by at least some of the many epidemics that swept the northern frontier between 1593-1687.” (Reff 362). Such a potentially drastic population decrease marked only the start of a series of disruptive processes that ultimately transformed the foodways of the Tohono O’odham.

Friar Eusabio Kino – 1697

Despite the initial passover of O’odham lands, “[c]hange began in 1697 when the JesuIt mIssIonary Fr. Eusabio Kino introduced new species of plants and animals to the Sonoran Desert” over 150 years after the Spanish arrived (Robinett 297). Along with religion, the missions brought several Old World cultigens by 1710 including crops such as “wheat, barley, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), lentils, kidney beans, cabbage, onions, lettuce, garlic, anise, and grape” and animals such as “cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and domestic fowl” (Fazzino 38). Many of these foods, which were originally transported through the Columbian Exchange, became well integrated into Tohono O’odham society, some even reaching the label of traditional food. The introduction of cattle in particular, though known prior to Spanish arrival brought a new source of food to hunt. With his missions, Fr. Eusabio Kino ushered in a variety of plant and animal products, especially wheat and cattle, [that] added to existing agricultural patterns… [and would initiate] a series of changes that would continue to evolve into the twentieth century” (Seivertson 121). These European additions would further transform both the foodscape and landscape. 

The mid-late 1800s

The mid-late 1800s introduced 2 main disruptive forces that emerged as a result of continuously changing settler colonialism taking place on O’odham lands. The first interruption in actuality is a future consequence of the previous origination of cattle. Starting in the mid-19th century these cattle brought new dimensions in O’odham cultural patterns and lifestyle consequences. The cattle came to supplant venison as a valued meat as it provided a new economic opportunity for “many O'odham [who] were employed as vaqueros by the Anglo and Mexican cattlemen running cattle on O'odham lands” as ranching spread. Eventually O’odham obtained their own herds and took advantage of the newfound resource and became so invested that deep wells were drilled for permanent water supplies near the ranches. In this manner, “wells turned summer villages into permanent settlements and lessened the use of winter villages” and a “boom in the number of cattle and horses occurred as permanent water supplies were developed in the once dry valleys.” (Robinett 298). This increased number of cattle in one place changed the foodscape. As more and more animals grazed on the same pieces of land “large die-offs of native fauna coincided with ruined grasslands, grasslands unable to recover once the rains returned because cattle as an exogenous species had eaten both grass and its seed, leaving nothing to re-germinate.” (Gentry, Boyce, Garcia, Chamber 16) Recently, "grazing associations" and implementations of basic grazing management have been implemented within communities to protect the land, with positive results (Robinett 300). This proves that land can be grazed and produce beef, hide, and bone, as well as wood and wildlife, and still improve in condition. Despite eating habits of the cattle intruding upon the O’odham foodways, with the proper management a healthy balance can be established.

Neighboring Apache with their cattle (1950s)

The consequences of an increased reliance on cattle not only affected the soil, but also created “new raiding problems developed between the Apache and O'odham” as a result of their arrival (Robinett 298, Seivertson 112 ). The newfound conflicts between the Apache and O’odham negatively affected the O’odham due to an increased violence between a peoples and the increased presence of Spanish in response to the raids (Seivertson 113). With an increased presence of the Spanish in response to the aggression, the O’odham became more vulnerable to intrusions and seizures of land territories by invading people.

The second foodway disruption was the imposition of a dividing border between O’odham lands. The treaties and agreements that established the international boundaries between Mexico and the United States were negotiated and signed only by the colonizers, with no input from impacted indigenous groups such as the O’odham.

“In 1848, subsequent to the U.S. war with Mexico, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed… [and] ceded the land south of the Gila River to Mexico, thus locating all O'odham land in Mexico. This became a problem for the United States when it decided that a southern rail route to California was needed. As a result, in 1853 the United States purchased almost 30,000 acres in Mexico. The Gadsden Purchase included approximately half of the Tohono O'odham traditional homelands. The rest remained in Sonora, Mexico.” (Luna-Firebaugh 166)

The establishment of the border placed a physical obstacle between a people who relied upon a bi-seasonal migratory cycle between two villages, winter and summer, in distinct locations that were present prior to the creation of any border. The disruption to this “two-village” subsistence system caused its complete dismantling within a century. 

Aside from interrupting a food subsistence strategy that had been relied upon for generations, the border also diverged the O’odham food narrative into two: north and south of the border. Each country implemented distinct practices for acknowledging the aboriginal title of the O’odham, which in turn shaped the relationships that the O’odham had to the land in Arizona and Sonora: “simply put, the United States created reservations while Mexico created ejidos, or communal lands granted by presidential decree.” (Cadava 372) Reservations established by the U.S. “ostensibly to protect O’odham from the onslaught of non-indigenous migrations following the territory’s incorporation into the union” and eventually acknowledged titles of the O’odham based on habitation “since time immemorial” (Cadava 372). In contrast the ejidos created by the Mexican government, which were granted by the president himself, remained vulnerable to encroachment by non-indigenous migrants as the Mexican government “did not ‘officially’ distinguish between indigenous people such as the O’odham and mixed-race mestizo peasants, who could also receive ejido lands... therefore [ejidos] rarely represented the reclamation of traditional O’odham homelands or claims to sovereignty.” (Cadava 373)Both implementations greatly reduced the spaces for the O’odham to continue traditional food practices and created a divisive moment in which the histories of one nation were to be divided by a line imposed upon them.

Mid 20th century

The 1900s brought forth even more unprecedented changes to the foodways to the Tohono O’odham both north and south of the dividing border. In the American Southwest, the economy began booming and the O’odham found less and less reason to venture into Mexico to see their brothers. The U.S. government, who “since the 1930s... had been encouraging O’odham... [to participate] in the larger economy through a series of programs designed to move them off the reservation and into wage work” and had also implemented relocation programs “during the 1950s proved equally influential in thrusting the O’odham into the cash economy”, they (the O’odham) found a diverse number of economic opportunities that thrust them into the same capitalist world as their colonizers (Luna-Firebaugh 143). A few examples of the type of work they became involved in includes them becoming “railroad laborers, nurserymen, truck drivers, cooks, general construction laborers,” in addition to “running tractors, bulldozers, and cotton-picking machines, while also taking responsibility for their maintenance” (Cadava 377, Luna-Firebaugh 137). The booming cotton industry was an especially important industry that further drew the O’odham off of their reservations and into wage work. Additionally, the 1940s removed O’odham men from their reservations to place them in WWII and children to place them in boarding schools. The result of these changes were twofold: they provided the O’odham with access to economic networks and new subsistence strategies (a capitalist version) but drove the O’odham away from traditionally practiced strategies (agriculture).

Over the span of a few years, the consequences of these changes became evident. The O’odham, who had mastered the manipulation of their land to provide the best foodways, were suffering as a result of the imposition of a Western food system. The health of tribe members rapidly declined in the mid-19th century as sugary foods flooded their markets and made them more susceptible to diseases, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. This fact is true of Native American populations throughout the world as prior to 1940 diabetes was virtually unknown among Native Americans, however, the “highest prevalence rate for type 2 diabetes, after adjustment for age differences, is in southern Arizona at 27.6 percent” (Fazzino 39). Not only this but the “increased exposure of Native American youth in the southwest to factors that contribute to diabetes and subsequent weight gain will translate into increased levels of mortality and end stage renal disease as this population reaches middle age” (Fazzino 40). The shift in food systems and food eaten resulted in an overall decrease in the quality of life for the O’odham. These health conditions were exacerbated by the loss of traditional ecological knowledge that occured in younger generations as adult members’ work took away their time and dedication to the land.  

The O’odham south of the border were faced with their own distinct set of challenges as their ejidos left them vulnerable to loss of their traditional lands. As the southern O’odham technically possessed no special status in the eyes of the Mexican government they had “no right to a protected land base simply by virtue of their ‘Indianness.’” (Luna-Firebaugh 140) Outsiders intruded upon their lands, sold off their acres, divided water sources, rebranded their cattle, and blocked access to grazing lands, effectively leaving southern O’odham no other option than to be absorbed and fully incorporated into nearby Mexican towns by the 1960s (Luna-Firebaugh 141). The failure to acknowledge the O’odham in even a minimal yet legal way, such as through restrictive reservations, has resulted in a complete disregard for the traditional land and culture of the O’odham. Without the proper access and control over lands, southern O’odham have been forced to adapt to harsh realities in which their rights are largely ignored. 

In addition to this, the schism between northern and southern O’odham was made even more acute as the economic boom north of the border granted northern O’odham (only in comparison to southern O’odham) special privileges and access to a better life. Despite a telling claim that one O’odham told a reporter that, “You can be what you want to be when you are Papago—either a Mexican or an American. We Papagos have dual citizenship. We are citizens of both nations whether we live on the Arizona side or the Mexican side of the border.” (Luna-Firebaugh 157). The rapidly changing situation in regards to how both countries’ approached the O’odham and issues along the border, including drugs and gang violence in the area that was often pinpointed on southern O’odham, caused for the northern and southern O’odham to be more divided than ever. Since the creation of the border “O’odham had traveled back and forth across it, but over time their movements became increasingly unidirectional, from Sonora to Arizona” as economic opportunities, health services, and land rights were granted north of the border (Cadava 377). Due to these multiple migrations—not only south and north but also west and east between ejidos and cities in Mexico as between reservations and cities in Arizona, —the traditional language and cultural practices (including subsistence strategies) were lost. The two-village system that brought together a nation has crumbled beneath the violence of politics and capitalism introduced by colonialism. With this fight to reclaim their own lands, southern O’odham food system ws decimated and abandoned in favor of survival through adaptation.


Food revitalization projects

With time an important shift in the definition of traditional food transpired. A clear transition in the “conceptualization of traditional foods across generations” occurred within the O’odham community, with the most striking difference apparent in the opinions of elders and young adults (Fazzino 41). Elders primarily considered “precontact foods that have been hunted and gathered from the desert as traditional foods” while middle-age adults generally agreed with elders yet also “tended to view post-contact foods as traditional with greater frequency than elders” (Fazzino 41). In comparison, “young adults more frequently mentioned post-U.S. foods as being traditional” with these foods including fry bread, potato salad, and tortillas (Fazzino 41). A shifting of the generational definition of what is traditional O’odham foods may persist due to the decreased availability and production of precontact foods.

Tohono O'odham Bahidaj Camp Harvesting

The Tohono O’odham food system, though plagued by many challenges, has also undergone a food revitalization project. The founding of Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA) in 1996 started a community-led nongovernmental organization (in Arizona) that promotes traditions including traditional foods (Fazzino 38). The basis of TOCA was created due to a want to restore and re-integrate lost tribal traditions into the community–– these include the language, specific songs for agricultural rituals, and other traditional ecological knowledge that elders could pass onto children (Eating Indigenously). Through TOCA the founding of a 180 acre farm was made possible. This farm began to promote and initiate the revitalization of Tohono O’odham culture through the reestablishing foodways and rekindling of food, arts, and language that accompanied it. Not only are traditional foodway knowledge strengthened and shared with the community, through schools and students who learn where food comes from, but also the healthy traditional foods–– squash, beans, corn melon–– that are produced on the farm promote a healthier lifestyle.

Not only has the farm project expanded across many more acres, but it has also led to the creation of a restaurant, the Desert Rain Cafe, that serves only traditional O’odham foods with a modern twist. The Desert Rain Cafe opened in 2011 and has invited non-native chefs to come and prepare meals using only traditional ingredients. The success of the restaurant within the community, both with the O’odham and other nearby community members, proves its establishment to be a celebration and sharing of traditional O’odham foods. This honoring and keeping of traditional foods on a capitalist level, is impressive in that it illuminates that the O’odham continue to adapt and claim foodways even in the face of adversity. However it is important to remember that such efforts are only possible through combined efforts of the community and government support in recognizing the traditional culture (food included) of the O’odham. 


What does this all mean for Tohono O'odham food sovereignty?

The disruptive forces that the legacy of settler colonialism has had upon the Tohono O’odham food system are evident and lasting. Introductions of new food and animals led to new food opportunities and future reconsideration of what traditional foods were. A dividing border created two different narratives for one nation as the O’odham were split between north and south with differing governmental approaches either protecting what little land they had left or entirely disregarding ancestral land claims in the eyes of the law. Colonialism has divided their nation and destroyed their foodways. Past food subsistence systems have been overlooked in favor of different survival strategies that included welcoming the capitalist system and encroaching communities, albeit begrudgingly. The result? A shrunken nation that now struggles with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and a loss of traditional food systems. Nonetheless, if the Tohono O’odham have done nothing else throughout the years it has been to adapt: in the face of the overwhelming shadow that is colonialism the Tohono O’odham nation has, and continues to, fight for their culture and food.

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Map taken archaeological fieldwork (Masse)

Mesquite beans

Neighboring Apache with their cattle (1950s)