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Balance and a Bean: Restoring Himdag through Traditional Farming and Sacred Knowledge

Dr. Andrea McComb Sanchez

In the summer of 2013, Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA) released the

inaugural issue of their magazine, Native Foodways. TOCA was formed in 1996 as an

independent grassroots organization, “dedicated to creating a healthy, culturally vital and

sustainable community on the Tohono O’odham Nation.”1 This magazine, one of the many

projects TOCA is involved in, is about creating “a tool for sharing between and among all people

committed to the revitalization of Native food, culture, and community.”2 Among those who

contributed to this ground breaking issue were author, activist, and environmentalist Winona

LaDuke; chef and founder of The Native American Culinary Association (NACA) Nephi Craig;

and chef, author, and Native foods historian Lois Ellen Frank. It contains articles on Hopi and

Coast Salish food traditions, food sovereignty, prickly pear harvesting, and basketry. This

magazine, writes Terrol Dew Johnson, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation and the

magazine’s Publisher and Editor at Large, “is about more than what we eat.”3 That is because

food itself is about more than sustaining one’s life. Food is connected and in many cases central

to songs, dances, ceremonies, and sacred narratives. It is about personal and communal

wellness, family, strength, economics, and Native sovereignty and is inextricably linked to

traditional culture, worldviews, religious beliefs and practices.

The Tohono O’odham call their traditional life ways O’odham Himdag, which is

translated as “The People’s Way.” Elements of O’odham Himdag such as ceremonies, sacred

narratives, stories, songs, and the language itself “are directly rooted in the systems of food

production.”4 And the knowledge needed for food production is part of environmental

knowledge more broadly. The Tohono O’odham’s collective knowledge of their environment

makes up what we call Traditional Ecological Knowledge or TEK, which is an important part of

O’odham Himdag. This chapter will tie together O’odham Traditional Ecological Knowledge,

O’odham Himdag, and foodways, with particular attention paid to the tepary bean, a central

component of Tohono O’odham foodways. I will also discuss some of the ways these systems

were and continue to be threatened by colonialism and environmental change and the

revitalization efforts that are gaining momentum within the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge, TEK, refers to the knowledge, beliefs, and practices

of communities that developed from direct experience and long term observation of their local

environment. According to Fikret Berkes, TEK is “a cumulative body of knowledge, practice,

and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural

transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and

with their environment.”5 For indigenous people, this local, relational, and situational

environmental knowledge is better thought of as a process rather than a collected body of

content.6 This process of knowledge, of living, incorporates other than human animals,

ancestors, spiritual beings, plants, and the land itself. TEK refers to a way of life that has

developed and is tied to a particular ecosystem, and where human beings are acknowledged as

just one part of the greater whole. Among indigenous people TEK has been passed on through

songs, sacred narratives (also called myths), oral histories and stories, ceremonies, community

laws, the structure of language, as well as through hunting, gathering, and agricultural practices.

As such, TEK demonstrates the interconnection of community identity, worldviews, religious

beliefs and practices, and ecological values.

For the Tohono O’odham, Traditional Ecological knowledge is an important aspect of

O’odham Himdag. Tohono O’odham Himdag, or Desert People’s Way, “consists of the culture,

way of life, and values that are uniquely held and displayed by the Tohono O’odham people.”7

Himdag incorporates everything that makes the Tohono O’odham who they are as a people; it

refers to their individual and collective life’s journey and emphasizes living in balance and

interacting correctly with the world. The people credit I’itoi with teaching them Himdag.

According to one version of the sacred narrative, I’itoi was one of the first three beings to be

created, along with Buzzard and Coyote. In ancient times he called the Tohono O’odham from

the underworld into the Sonoran desert. The people call him Elder Brother and look to him in

times of need. The stories of his life and exploits make up an important part of their sacred

narratives, as do the teachings found within. Tohono O’odham Himdag, as taught by I’itoi,

includes knowledge about basketry, correct community relations, games, language, the land and

correct relationships with the land, the seasons, medicinal plants, the past and the future, songs,

stories, beliefs, healing, ceremonies, and foodways, all which are integrated and interconnected

and tied to the Sonoran desert, their traditional homeland.8 As Ruth Underhill wrote in her

famous book Papago Woman, “it is the land that possesses the people. Its influence, in time,

shapes their bodies, their language, even, a little, their religion.”9

The Tohono O’odham have lived in the Sonoran desert for thousands of years and their

TEK consists of the knowledge, practices, and belief systems that emerged out of their

experiences and relationships with this ecosystem. There are generally thought to be three major

groups of O’odham who are differentiated based off their adapted relationships to water: the

Akimel O’odham, Hia C-ed O’odham, and the Tohono O’odham. The Akimel O’odham, or the

River People, historically lived along rivers that would constantly flow, the Gila, Salt, and Santa

Cruz rivers, and they developed a one-village system, staying in one place and farming the land.

In these areas there was an average of 10-15 inches of rainfall per year. The Hia C-ed O’odham,

the Sand Dune People, lived in the desert east of the Lower Colorado River Valley, where rain

was scarce, anywhere from 0-5 inches per year, and there are no rivers. The people developed a

no-village system, having to constantly travel to survive. The Tohono O’odham, the Desert

People, developed a two-village system, with winter villages located near mountains and springs

and summer villages near the flood plains. The average rainfall in their traditional homeland is 5-

10 inches a year.10

The Tohono O’odham calendar is an example of TEK, and is based around descriptions

of temperature, rainfall, and the activities of plants and animals. While this calendar is not fixed,

the Tohono O’odham year begins roughly in late June or July with the harvest of bahidaj,

saguaro fruit, and the arrival of the summer monsoons. This time is called Jukiabig Maṣad or

Big Rains Moon. Jukiabig Maṣad is followed by Sopol ҆ Eṣabig Maṣad (Short Planting Moon),

Wasai Gakidag Maṣad (Dry Grass Moon), I’al Ju:pig Maṣad (Small Rains Moon), S-ke:g S-

he:pijig Maṣad (Pleasant Cold Moon), Ge’e S-he:pijig Maṣad (Big Cold Moon), Gakimdag

Maṣad (Animals Loose their Fat Moon), U:walig Maṣad (Deer Mating Moon), Ce:dagi Maṣad

(Green Moon), Uam Maṣad (Yellow Moon), U’us Wihogdag Maṣad (Mesquite Bean Harvest

Moon), and finally Ha:ṣañ Ba:k Maṣad ( Saguaro Fruit Ripening Moon).11 As will be discussed

later, the activities of the people during Saguaro Fruit Ripening Moon and Big Rains Moon are

responsible for bringing the rains, which are necessary for planting.

Like many indigenous people of the southwest, the Tohono O’odham traditionally relied

on a combination of harvesting wild foods, hunting, and farming. And like many other Native

American groups the most important of their crops were the three sisters: maize, beans, and

squash (pumpkins). While corn or maize was one of their most important crops it was rivaled by

a bean commonly known as the tepary bean. This name refers to Phaseolus acutifolius, little

brown, white, red, yellow, and black colored beans grown throughout the southwestern United

States and northern Mexico since pre-Columbian times. The tepary bean is especially important

to the Tohono O’odham because of its unique tolerance to drought.12 In fact, the tepary bean is

one of the most heat and drought tolerant crops in the world, along with having the highest

protein content of any bean. The name “tepary” is thought by some to come from the Opata word

tepar.13 Other scholars argue that the word “tepary” comes from the Tohono O’odham phrase

t’bawĭ or t’pawi “it’s a bean.”14 The tepary bean, originally a wild plant, is particularly suited to

the mountains and canyons of the Sonoran desert not only because of its tolerance to drought, in

fact too much water will actually inhibit the production of the beans, but because of its ability to

produce both pods and pollen in heat that consistently averages above one hundred-five degrees

during the growing season.15 Whether the word “tepary” derives from the Opata or the Tohono

O’odham languages, since before Spanish colonial times the bean itself has been most closely

linked to the Tohono O’odham, who call the bean bawĭ (also spelled pawi). The two main

varieties cultivated by the Tohono O’odham were and continue to be the brown wepegi bawĭ, and

the white tota bawĭ.

Further connecting the tepary bean to the Tohono O’odham is its link to their archaic

name “Papago,” which is considered derogatory by many Tohono O’odham today. The

designation Papago is thought to be derived from the Pima language, from the Spanish

transliteration of the phrase papawi o’otam, or “tepary bean people,” from a condensation of

papavi (papawi) kuadam, which means “tepary bean eaters,” or from the phrase ba:bawĭko’a

(papawi’koa), which means “eating tepary beans.” 16 Whatever the origination of the name

“Papago”, which was officially rejected and replaced by their true name in 1986, the importance

of the tepary bean is apparent.

Because of the aridness of the region the tepary bean, along with all of their other crops,

were historically planted only during monsoon season, which is approximately late June through

September. For the remainder of the year the people gathered cholla buds and prickly pear fruit,

mesquite bean pods and acorns and hunted animals such as rabbits, deer, and javelina.17 The

time before monsoon season, May and into June, as well as being called U’us Wihogdag Maṣad

(Mesquite Bean Harvest Moon) is also known as Ko’ohk Maṣad “the Painful Moon” because of

the difficulty of finding food. During this extremely hot and dry time mesquite trees, whose

pods and the seeds inside were ground into meal, provided the majority of the people’s

sustenance.18

Since the Tohono O’odham did not live along permanent streams or rivers they relied

instead on methods of dry farming, developing what they call Ak Chin Farming, or flood water

farming. Ak Chin Farming is inextricably tied to the monsoons and is part of Tohono O’odham

Traditional Ecological Knowledge. During monsoon season in the Sonoran desert rain pummels

the earth and water is carried through channels and then released at the mouth of these washes.

It was here, after the first rains, the Tohono O’odham planted their fields, creating an irrigation

system on land that averages 5 inches of rain a year.19 These fields could be utilized year after

year because soil is renewed through the mud and sand brought by the flood waters. The tepary

bean, or bawĭ, is particularly suited to this type of agriculture and to the unpredictability of

water, because while water is needed for germination, which happens during the initial flood, the

plant will actually produce more beans if deprived of water. It required extensive knowledge of

storms and the different types of runoff they produced to know where and when and what to

plant in different places within the flood plains. Tepary beans had to be planted immediately

after water flooded the plain and planted in a location where subsequent flooding would not

carry the beans away. To accomplish this required knowledge about the clouds, the amount of

rain that would come from certain clouds, the location of the rain, and the eventual path of the

water, all of which constitute TEK.

But bawĭ is not just a plant that is cultivated and harvested, stored and eaten, it is an

integral part of the traditional O’odham food system which is the root of ceremonies, sacred

narratives, songs, and language. As well suited as bawĭ is to the desert, and as resourcefully as

Ak Chin Farming is to growing the tepary bean with extremely limited and unpredictable water,

water is still at the heart of the life of bawĭ. And for the Tohono O’odham water is not

something that is taken for granted, it is something that is asked for, something that is prayed for,

but more importantly the coming of the rains is something the people are actually responsible

for. One of the most important ceremonies within Tohono O’odham Himdag is n’awai’t, the

saguaro wine ceremony, also called jujkida, rain ceremony, because the purpose of this

ceremony is to “bring down the clouds” (Underhill 1946, 41).20

The saguaro cactus, called ha:ṣa,ñ is said to be the symbol of life, sustenance, and

harmony. It is found only in the Sonoran desert and can live to be over one hundred and fifty

years old. It provides not only the fruit for the rainmaking ceremony, this fruit is also used to

make syrups and jams, but when it dies its ribs, which closely resemble wood, are used to make

shelters and tools. The saguaro is called a person and is considered a relative, as told by Tohono

O’odham elder and lore master Camillus Lopez, “it’s not just a plant, it’s another

person…[w]e’re taught that these are people, and we try to teach our kids not to put knives and

not to mark them up with whatever…to do harm to that cactus is to do harm to yourself and your

people.”21 According to Tohono O’odham sacred narratives the first saguaro came from a

person. While there are many versions of the story the basic narrative is as follows:

There lived a young woman who was an excellent toka22 player; she was so good that she

was invited to play in all the villages. The woman had a baby but was unwilling to let that baby

interfere with her toka playing. One day a village farther away than most invited her to play and

in order to not be late to the tournament she left her child at home with food and water. When

the child awoke she took some jars of food and water and went in search of her mother. Along

the way she met various animals and birds who she asked about the location of her mother. The

order and variety of animals she asked differs depending on the teller as does the motivation of

the animals. In some versions they demanded some of her food and water in exchange for their

help, in others she offered them food and water after they helped her. In some it was the

morning dove that eventually led her to her mother, and in others it was the eagle. In all versions

she eventually found her mother, who then either ignored her or was angry and yelled at her. In

sadness the girl wandered away where, a short distance from the village, she began to sink into

the ground. She raised her arms to the sky and cried for help, the people from the village heard

her and rushed to her aid but they could not pull her free and she sank into the earth. Later, from

that spot a cactus grew, and it got bigger and bigger growing arms that reached to the sky until it

produced large white flowers and fruit.23

Another important part of the story of saguaro involves coyote. There are different

versions of this story as well but in one version the people along with other animals and birds

continued to search for the little girl, pursuing the saguaro as she emerged from the earth. The

birds found her first and ate her fruit but noticed that her fruit made them drunk and brought

disorder to their lives. To protect the humans they decided to take the fruit and the seedlings

away to some place they would not grow. They placed this responsibility on Turtle who was told

to take them to the ocean and throw them in. Turtle began the long trek to the ocean but on the

way Coyote stopped him and inquired about what he was carrying. Turtle tried to deflect

Coyote’s questions, but Coyote being Coyote would not be deterred. He finally convinced Turtle

to show him what was in his hand and when Turtle finally opened his paw Coyote hit it,

scattering the seedlings all over the desert to where they are planted now.24 When the birds

discovered this they knew that humans would discover the fruit and make wine with it, so they

created a ceremony:

So the birds made a ceremony, and that’s when they made the ceremony for the wine

feast and said, “This is how you drink. When you drink, you recognize your relatives, and you drink to bring rain, and you always sing for it. You don’t just drink it.” So that’s

why they had the ceremonies, to bring rain so that the crops will grow for the people.25

This version of how the saguaro came to be throughout the Tohono O’odham homeland also

teaches people the importance of the n’awai’t, the saguaro wine ceremony, connecting it to

community and kinship obligations and to bringing the rains that are needed for agriculture.

The n’awai’t, is done in late June or early July, after the fruit on the saguaros has been

ripe for around three weeks. Families gather at their traditional harvesting areas and in the early

morning and the evening women pick the fruit, filling their baskets with the pulp and leaving the

skins with the red side pointing towards the sky to further help to draw the rain.26 The pulp is

cooked that same day, reduced to jam, seeds, and syrup. The boiled syrup is poured in jars and

set aside until the appropriate time to pull down the clouds. After the necessary saguaro fruit is

gathered the people return to their summer villages and prepare for the rainmaking ceremony.

Traditionally, the proper day was discussed by the elders and a formal announcement was made

4 days prior to the ceremony. Two days before the ceremony the syrup was brought to the

ceremonial house where it was mixed with water and set to ferment, accompanied by prayer,

songs, and other important activities necessary to bring the wine into being and pull down the

clouds. To aid in the fermentation, people outside the ceremonial house danced and sang for a

full two nights. Approximately two and a half days after the syrup is set to ferment, it becomes

the ceremonial wine, and the community, minus the children, is responsible for consuming all of

it.27

It is the ceremonial consumption of the wine along with the vomiting drinking such large

quantities of low alcohol wine induces, that calls the clouds; and the saturation of the body with

the wine is thought to produce the saturation of the earth with the monsoon rains. As Chona

said, “Much, much liquor we made, and we drank it to pull down the clouds…people must make

themselves drunk like plants in the rain, and they must sing for happiness.”28 Once the ceremony

brings the clouds, the people can plant their crops.

This entire process involves religious elements. Before picking the fruit the saguaro is

asked to bless the harvest, and only fruit at the correct stage of ripeness is ever taken, leaving the

rest for the animals and birds. Every part of it from picking, to fermenting, to drinking, is

accompanied by songs, by dancing, and by the recitation of sacred narratives that tell of rain, of

growth and of I’itoi, the one who in distant times taught them Himdag.29 According to Maria

Chona it was I’itoi who taught the people about the saguaro and taught them the ceremony,

telling them that all the wine must be drunk during this ceremony and none made again until the

following year.30 This and more is evoked through songs and recitations. Christine Johnson, an

elder of No:lig village recalls a particular song that is sung to the saguaro with the words “they

are ripening red, standing so visible in the distance, cloud rises over me, and moistens the earth.”

She says,

This is a song to encourage the saguaro to be strong and to bear fruit and to thank the saguaro for its harvest, and for helping to bring the rain; which will help the seeds grow;

which will help us grow our crops and help grow the materials to make our baskets which we use to carry the ripe saguaro fruit. In our family we sing this song before any saguaro

fruit is harvested, as we pick the ripe fruit, and as we dance the dance to encourage the saguaro to grow. (117)

Songs, as the strongest form of vocalization during ceremonies, are aimed at the beings who are

the subjects of the sacred narrative, such as I’itoi and ha:ṣañ (saguaro). The ritual recitations of

sacred narratives during ceremonies are aimed at both these beings and humans; they are meant

to reach the ears of the spiritual beings as well as teach the people who are listening.31 In the

words of Christine Johnson we are told that this song is sung for ha:ṣañ, it is sung before the

fruit is harvested, while picking the fruit, and as they dance, because without the saguaro and the

rain she brings there would be nothing, no crops, no baskets, and therefore no people.

But not all songs are sung in a strict ceremonial context. As Christine Johnson again

relates, “song is an everyday thing. We use it to wake up, to go to sleep. There are songs about

planting, harvest, rain, rainbows, clouds…You sing to get up, sing to go walking, sing to

cook.”(117) And like all beings in the Tohono O’odham universe, the tepary bean, bawĭ, who

could not exist without the rain brought forth by the saguaro wine ceremony, has its own songs

and its own stories. The people sing these songs, which ask I’itoi for a good harvest and for the

earth to be blessed and which describe the desired planting and harvesting process, as the ground

is being prepared for the beans and as the beans are placed within the holes. People sing as they

tend and weed the fields, when they pull the dried and brown bean plants from the earth and

when they are placed on a flat hard surface and pounded with sticks or stomped on to release the

beans from their pods. People sing when the beans are placed in baskets and tossed in the air to

remove the debris (though today easier methods are used for this step) and there are songs for

when beans are cooked. The songs, which in part describe the desired event, are thought to help

bring about that desired event, and every aspect of the agricultural process is attended to, is paid

attention to.32

The proper ways to plant and harvest bawĭ are found within the narratives. Long ago

there was a grandfather who hated his grandchild. This child left and went to live up above, but

saw that his grandfather was searching for him and returned to give him a gift. “Take care of it”

he told his grandfather, “and when it multiplies, eat it and be filled and think of me.” He gave

his grandfather some seeds and told him to plant them by his head when he slept, and to watch it

so nothing will remove it. He told him that after a short while it will grow and blossom and bear

beans, it will then dry and its seeds will scatter. The grandfather should gather the seeds and

wait one year “until the rain moistens the earth,” then bury four of them together, watching so

animals do not eat or trample them or grass and weeds choke them. The boy then teaches his

grandfather the proper way to harvest them. “When they ripen, pull up and pile them where

you’ve cleared a place. Then get a stick to beat them with. The seed will be removed. When the

wind blows, you will take them in your hands and throw them up, and it will blow away the

stalks and leave the seed.” He then instructs him to take it, store it away, and do the same thing

next year. When he has repeated this four times this will be enough and he can finally eat the

beans.33

Within this narrative we can see many important lessons, these involve proper and

improper kinship behavior, as well as agricultural knowledge including the correct way to plant

beans, how to harvest them and guidelines for how many can be eaten while keeping enough to

plant the following year. At the end of the narrative we see what can be interpreted as more than

basic agricultural knowledge and we are shown how foundational bawĭ is to Tohono O’odham

lifeways, to Himdag. After giving this knowledge to his grandfather he tells him, “Then you will

eat it, and be full from me. You will be alive and happy from me, your grandchild, who is the

white bean. That gray streak stretched across the sky is my home.” The narrative continues,

[s]o that is why the white bean is the child of the Desert People [Tohono O’odham]. It is born here and grows here and endures dryness. When it doesn’t rain enough, the white bean still comes up. The Desert People will always eat it and live here. The Milky Way

is said to be the white bean. He lives clear across the sky. Beans grow in abundance and we see them scattered across the sky.34

Bawĭ, is a relative of the Tohono O’odham, is their child, and like the people is connected to, is

an integral part of their land, the Sonoran Desert. Both the bean and the people belong here. All

things in the desert endure dryness, and bawĭ endures it better than most, giving itself to the

people, providing for the people even in years of very little rain. The importance of this cannot

be overemphasized.

Bawĭ is not just a food, it is an integral part of the ecosystem, of the people, and is an

essential component to O’odham Himdag. The Tohono O’odham community includes more

than just human kinship groups, and the conception of bawĭ as a distant child, as found in the

sacred narratives, includes it within the extended community that is rooted in the Tohono

O’odham homeland where songs and ceremonies along with other forms of Traditional

Ecological Knowledge work to establish conditions necessary for the people and the land to not

only survive but thrive. As stated in the TOCA and TOCC report, “virtually all elements of

traditional culture – ceremonies, stories, songs, language – are directly rooted in the system of

food production. O’odham culture is truly an agri/culture.”35 These relationships are thought to

be thousands of years old, and are part of a cultural continuity that has always been both added to

and changed. The most drastic of these additions and changes in recent memory came with the

arrival of Europeans.

When Father Kino arrived in the seventeenth century he brought with him not only a new

religion, Catholicism, but him and his contemporaries also introduced cattle, sheep and European

agricultural methods and crops. Wheat added another form of food that was harvested at a

different time, extending the growing season significantly, and cattle and sheep provided food

and materials for clothing. While only a minority of the Tohono O’odham population during this

time owned grazing animals, those who did, in addition to the colonists, utilized and related to

the landscape in a very different way, and where animals grazed the ecosystem changed. In earth

that is undisturbed by cattle or sheep, plants, particularly grasses, are an obstacle to the flood

waters, forcing them to disperse across the earth. When these obstacles are not there the water

tends to concentrate more significantly into channels that run into the arroyos and the rivers. As

more and more water is concentrated into these channels they become deeper and faster, and are

able to contain more of the water. More water then becomes channeled into them, which causes

more erosion, and the cycle continues. This means that the overall surface area of the land gets

less saturated with water, since it is whisked away more quickly. In addition the mouths of the

arroyos become narrower and more defined and do not end in floodplains that are as conducive

to agriculture.36

In spite of this the people were able to maintain and thrive within this environment during

the Spanish and Mexican period because much of the land during the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries remained free of livestock. But after the United States’ conquest of the southwest,

which was finalized in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase of

1854, more and more livestock were being introduced into the area. Additionally, rivers were

dammed and diverted and wells were dug. This began to significantly alter the ecosystem,

particularly the riparian habitats. Devastating floods became more common because of erosion,

while other areas ceased to see water at all. Farming methods were altered to divert this water to

bean, squash, and corn fields for trench irrigation and new sources of water such as wells were

dug and utilized for the fields and for cattle. Soon, most of this water was diverted off the

reservation where wells ran dry and Ak Chin farming was no longer feasible. In 1930 O’odham

farmers were growing around 1.4 million tons of tepary beans on 20,000 acres, in 1949 there

were only 2,500 acres of tepary beans, and in 2001 there were less than 100 acres producing only

around 110 pounds of beans.37

This loss of food sovereignty happened quickly and is unfortunately a familiar story on

reservations. In addition to the serious issue of water loss which affected the people’s ability to

farm, Tohono O’odham were recruited into federal work programs such as the migrant farm

worker program, taking them away from their fields. The boarding schools not only separated

children from their families, language, and traditions, while at these schools students were

prohibited from speaking their language and engaging in any aspect of their culture. The

children not only did not learn their agricultural techniques and the cultural and religious

practices associated with this way of life, but they were taught that these were inferior and

worthless. WWII also took many people away from their land and their crops, and thus from

their songs, ceremonies and sacred narratives. The introduction of Commodity foods (white

flour, lard, American cheese, white sugar) was particularly devastating and further separated the

people from the land and undermined agriculture. And while even in the 1960’s, diabetes was

virtually unknown, today the Tohono O’odham community has the highest rate of adult-onset

diabetes in the world, with more than half of the population affected.38

Lois Ellen Frank, a Native American foods historian and chef, divides Native American

foodways into four periods of history. The first is precontact or ancestral foodway, the second is

first contact foodways where Native people incorporated much of what was introduced by

colonists into their traditional diets. The third and most devastating is the Commodity food

period, the era of reservations, starvation, and creatively using what few resources were available

to survive. This is the advent of fry bread. The current moment is the fourth period, which she

calls New Native American cuisine. Today people are rediscovering and reinventing indigenous

food and emphasizing the connections between cultural health and physical health. This is not

just about revitalizing food but revitalizing everything associated with that food.39 For the

Tohono O’odham it is using Traditional Ecological Knowledge to revitalize agriculture that is in

harmony with the environment and with community wellness, thus revitalizing the foodways that

are the root of O’odham Himdag.

The saguaro harvest and wine ceremony which starts the New Year and makes

agriculture possible in the Sonoran desert are currently only being celebrated by a small portion

of the population. The reason given for this is that people don’t participate in the ceremony

because they no longer grow their food, “People did not stop planting the fields because the

ceremony was dying out; the ceremony began to die out when people stopped planting their

fields.”40 Everything in interconnected, the land, ceremonies, sacred narratives, songs, basketry,

and agriculture. All that and more make up O’odham Himdag and help define the Tohono

O’odham.

Formed in 1996, Tohono O’odham Community Action, or TOCA, is working towards

revitalization. One of their many initiatives is The New Generation of O’odham Farmers

Program, established in 2009 its stated purpose is restoring Himdag - because learning about

farming is learning about Himdag. 41 The two different tracks in this program, the “Intensive

Farming Apprenticeships” and the “Farming and Gardening Internships” teach people farming

techniques along with the cultural knowledge necessary to understand and practice these

methods correctly. Many people involved in this program also teach workshops and hold

storytelling sessions both in the local classrooms as well as in the fields themselves.42 TOCA

introduced farming and cooking at the tribal alternative school, teaching about food in

connection with the O’odham language, the land, traditional songs, stories, and basketry. 43 They

also continue to work with the Tohono O’odham Nation and the school food service provider

Sodexo to serve locally grown traditional foods at least once a week in public schools across the

reservation. And according to the TOCA website certain traditional foods, like the brown tepary

bean quesadilla made with a whole wheat tortilla, became so popular that Sodexo added it to

their regular menu rotation.44 Serving and eating traditional foods provides opportunities to

teach not just about the health benefits of those foods, but about ceremonial songs and sacred

narratives connected to those foods. Terrol Johnson, TOCA CEO recalls, “we told the children

among other things, that the stars are tepary beans Coyote tossed into the sky. We made sure

they were familiar with the tepary bean at all levels.”45

Traditional O’odham farming practices are not just about creating a healthy food source

and practicing environmentally friendly farming techniques. They are about renewing the

people’s connection with the land, language, songs, ceremonies, and sacred narratives and

through this restoring Himdag. Perhaps a better word for food here is sustenance. Food sustains.

For the Tohono O’odham traditional foodways sustain people’s bodies and their physical health,

but they also sustain their stories, land, ceremonies, and communities. Foodways sustain

O’odham Himdag.

1 “Welcome” TOCAonline. Accessed January 21, 2016. http://www.tocaonline.org/index.html

2 M.P. Votto et al., Native Foodways: Celebrating Food, Culture & Community. Premier Issue. Summer 2013 (TOCA,

Tohono O'odham Community Action, 2013), 5. 3 Ibid

4 Tohono O'odham Community Action and Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCA and TOCC), "Community

Attitudes toward Traditional Tohono O'odham Foods," (Sells, AZ: Tohono O'odham Community Action and Tohono

O'odham Community College, 2002), 11. 5 Fikret Berkes, Sacred Ecology, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2012), 7.

6 Ibid.

7 “Himdag Policy” Tohono O’odham Community College. Accessed December 20, 2015.

http://www.tocc.edu/himdag_policy.htm 8 Ibid

9 Ruth Underhill , Papago Woman, Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,

1979), 3. 10

Trudy Griffin-Pierce, Native Peoples of the Southwest, 1st ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), 166-68. 11

“Tohono O’odham Traditional Calendar: A Reflection of Food and Culture” TOCAonline. Accessed December 20,

2015. http://www.tocaonline.org/traditional -calendar.html 12

Edward Franklin Castetter and Will is Harvey Bell, Pima and Papago Indian Agriculture (Albuquerque, N.M.,: The University of New Mexico press, 1942), 57, 73. 13

Gary Paul Nabhan, Gathering the Desert (Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1985), 112-13. 14

Castetter and Bell, Pima and Papago Indian Agriculture, 91; Nabhan, Gathering the Desert, 113. 15

Gathering the Desert, 112-13. 16

Castetter and Bell, Pima and Papago Indian Agriculture, 91; Nabhan, Gathering the Desert, 113. 17

Tohono O'odham Community Action and Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCA and TOCC), "Community Attitudes toward Traditional Tohono O'odham Foods," 8; Castetter and Bell, Pima and Papago Indian Agriculture, 57. 18

Pima and Papago Indian Agriculture, 44-45. 19

Ibid. 20

Ruth Underhill , Papago Indian Religion, Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, (New York,: Columbia University Press, 1946), 41. 21

Jack Loeffler and Celestia Loeffler, Thinking Like a Watershed : Voices from the West (Albuquerque: University of

New Mexico Press, 2012), 148. 22

Toka is a traditional Tohono O’odham sport that resembles field hockey and is only played by women. 23

This narrative is taken from several sources and reworded by the author. Loeffler and Loeffler, Thinking Like a

Watershed : Voices from the West, 145-47; Dean Saxton and Lucil le Saxton, Legends and Lore of the Papago and Pima Indians (Tucson,: University of Arizona Press, 1973), 211-15; Mary Paganelli Votto, Frances Sall ie Manuel, and Action Tohono O'odham Community, From I'itoi's Garden: Tohono O'odham Food Traditions (Sells, AZ Tohono O'odham Community Action (TOCA)/Blurb, 2010). 24

This version is taken from an interview with Camillus Lopez found in Loeffler and Loeffler, Thinking Like a Watershed : Voices from the West, 147-48. Another similar version can be found in Saxton and Saxton, Legends and Lore of the Papago and Pima Indians, 79-84 and 215-19. 25

Loeffler and Loeffler, Thinking Like a Watershed : Voices from the West, 148. 26

Underhill , Papago Woman, 40; Papago Indian Religion, 41. 27

Papago Woman, 41-51; Papago Indian Religion, 41-67. 28

Papago Woman, 40. 29

Papago Indian Religion, 41. 30

Papago Woman, 26. 31

Donald M. Bahr, Pima and Papago Ritual Oratory : A Study of Three Texts = Ó'Odham Ha-ÑÍOkculida ; MáMce Ab WáIkk Há'Icu áMjed (San Francisco: Indian Hisortorian Press, 1975), 5-6.

For more information on specific songs see Ruth Underhill , Singing for Power; the Song Magic of the Papago Indians of Southern Arizona (Berkeley,: University of California Press, 1938). 33

Saxton and Saxton, Legends and Lore of the Papago and Pima Indians, 21-23. 34

Ibid., 23. 35

Tohono O'odham Community Action and Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCA and TOCC), "Community Attitudes toward Traditional Tohono O'odham Foods," 11. 36

Winston P. Erickson, University of Utah. American West Center., and Tohono O'odham Nation of Arizona. Education Department., Sharing the Desert : The Tohono O'odham in History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994), 3. 37

Tohono O'odham Community Action and Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCA and TOCC), "Community

Attitudes toward Traditional Tohono O'odham Foods," 9. 38

David Fazzino, "Continuity and Change in Tohono O'odham Food Systems: Implications for Dietary Interventions," Culture & Agriculture 30, no. 1-2 (2008): 38-46.; 39

Lois Ellen Frank, "The Discourse and Practice of Native American Cuisine: Native American Chefs and Native

American Cooks in Contemporary Southwest Kitchens" (Ph.D., The University of New Mexico, 2011), 5 -11. 40

Votto, Manuel, and Tohono O'odham Community, From I'itoi's Garden: Tohono O'odham Food Traditions, 11. 41

M.P. Votto, T.D. Johnson, and Tohono O'odham Community Action, Native Foodways: Celebrating Food, Culture

& Community. Winter 2013/14 (TOCA, Tohono O'odham Community Action, 2013), 24. 42

“New Generation of O’odham Farmers: Food System Leadership in Action” TOCAonline. Accessed July 13, 2016 http://www.tocaonline.org/new-generation-of-o-odham-farmers.html 43

M.P. Votto, T.D. Johnson, and Tohono O'odham Community Action, Native Foodways: Celebrating Food, Culture

& Community. Winter 2013/14 (TOCA, Tohono O'odham Community Action, 2013), 24. 44

“Traditional School Meals” TOCAonline. Accessed July 13, 2016 http://www.tocaonline.org/traditional -school- meals.html 45

M.P. Votto, T.D. Johnson, and Tohono O'odham Community Action, Native Foodways: Celebrating Food, Culture & Community. Winter 2013/14 (TOCA, Tohono O'odham Community Action, 2013), 24.

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