(DOWNLOAD) "Continuing Maricopa Identities: Gila River Reservation, Arizona." by Journal of the Southwest # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Continuing Maricopa Identities: Gila River Reservation, Arizona.
- Author : Journal of the Southwest
- Release Date : January 22, 2005
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 180 KB
Description
A grant from the Doris Duke American Indian Oral History Program presented me with the opportunity to meet a challenge. The question of whether or not subordinate tribal ethnic identities are maintained in spite of inclusion in a federal reservation dominated by another tribal entity has fascinated me. There are clear examples of other distinct multiple native cultural entities, such as the Hopi and Tewa, maintaining their unique communities. Yet what about a geographic area created by nonnative outsiders, combining different ethnic identities but having one identity to the federal government, other tribes, and the outside world? Could the various distinct identities be retained over time? Or would outside influences eventually meld the distinct identities into the one viewed by outsiders? Would people in such a situation become, in effect, "a melting pot," especially when some residents had migrated from a distant geographic homeland of their origins? One such amalgamated group lives just southwest of Phoenix, Arizona. The Maricopa are a people who today share the Gila River Reservation and Salt River Reservation with the Pimas. The Pimas are the more numerous group and dominate these tribal lands near Phoenix. The Maricopas occupy one political district on the Gila River Reservation, known as Maricopa Colony. The Maricopa settlement on the Salt River Reservation is known as Lehi (Kelly 1972, 261). Years ago, driving by the Gila Reservation on Interstate 10, I wondered whether the Maricopa existed simply as a political and geographical unit of the Gila River Reservation or whether they had maintained a distinct and viable ancestral cultural/ethnic identity. The Doris Duke grant allowed me to seek an answer to that question.