The neighboring Akimel O'odham (Pima) and future allies, called these people the Kokmalik'op ('enemies in the big mountains'),[citation needed]. The Spanish transliterated this to Maricopa. They call themselves Piipaa, Piipaash or Pee-Posh (″people″).
The "Maricopa"[5] of the American explorers of the 19th century at this time consisted of descendants of five (possibly six) originally independent River Yuma tribes (see Spier, 1933: 1-41):[6] the "Maricopa/Piipaash"-speaking original "Piipaash" together with the "Halchidhoma", "Kavelchadom" and "Opa/Piipaa Nyaa" as well as the "Delta Yuma/Cocopa"-speaking "Halyikwamai" and "Kohuana/Kahwan".
Since in the 19th century the two originally "Delta Yuma/Cocopa"-speaking "Halyikwamai" and "Kohuana/Kahwan" lived together with four "Maricopa/Piipaash"-speaking "Piipaash", "Halchidhoma", "Kavelchadom" and "Opa/Piipaa Nyaa" along the Gila and Salt Rivers in several villages for mutual protection, these river Yuma groups and their languages/dialects used to be mistakenly referred to by Spaniards and Mexicans as "Cocomaricopa" and "Opa" respectively.
Only the descendants of the "Piipaash" and "Halchidhoma" (Xalychidom Piipaa / Xalychidom Piipaash - ″people who live toward the water″) were able to preserve their own tribal identity and refer to themselves in English as "Maricopa" or "Maricopa of Lehi", the descendants of the other three (possibly four) River Yuma tribes, which found shelter on the Gila River and Salt River under the "Piipaash" in the 19th century - the "Kavelchadom" (Kavelchadom Piipaash / Kavelchidom Piipaash - "downstream person/people", "river people in the west"), "Opa/Piipaa Nyaa" (Piipaa Nyaa / Thxpaa Nyaa - "eastern people"), "Halyikwamai" (Xalykawaam) and "Kohuana/Kahwan" (Kaxwaan - "river people") – however, have not been able to preserve their own language as well as their separate identity and now generally identify themselves as "Maricopa".
History
Saguaro gatherers, Maricopa, Arizona, 1907
They formerly consisted of small groups of people who lived for generations along the banks of the Colorado River. In the 16th century, they migrated to the area around the Gila River, to avoid attacks by the Quechan and Mojave peoples.
During the 1840s, epidemics of new infectious diseases took a toll on the tribe.
In 1825 a party of American trappers, James Ohio Pattie among them, massacred a group of 200 Maricopa in revenge for an earlier attack.[7]
In the 19th century, the Maricopa formed a confederation with the Pima, and in 1857 they successfully defeated the Quechan and Mojave at the Battle of Pima Butte near Maricopa Wells. They became successful farmers, and in 1870, they produced three million pounds of wheat. Drought and water diversion by non-Indians brought widespread crop failures.[2]
In the 19th and the 20th centuries, the Bureau of Indian Affairs implemented policies to try to assimilate the Maricopa into mainstream European-American society, and they brought Presbyterian missionaries into the communities. In 1914, the US federal government broke up communal tribal landholdings for distribution as individual allotments in order to encourage subsistence farming according to the European-American model. It was not appropriate for the geography and climate here. The Pima Advisory Council was formed by the BIA in 1926 to speak on behalf of the Pima and Maricopa communities. Following congressional passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, in 1936 the Pima and Maricopa agreed on a constitution to restore some measure of self-governance.[2]
Through the 1930s, surface flow on the Gila River was reduced to nothing, and the tribe suffered greatly due to the loss of their river. But the BIA ignored water issues. The tribe resorted to using brackish well water, but it would not support growing edible crops. They began to cultivate cotton as a commodity crop.[2]
Redware pot by Piipaash (Maricopa) artist Barbara Johnson
The Maricopa are known for their basket weaving and textiles,[1] in particular, for their highly burnished red-on-redware pottery. Their traditional pottery practices enjoyed a revival from 1937 to 1940. Elizabeth Hart, a US Home Extension Agent, worked with a leading Maricopa potter, Ida Redbird, to form the Maricopa Pottery Cooperative. Redbird served as president of the cooperative, which had 17 to 19 master potters. Hart encouraged members to sign their work. Swastikas were a common traditional motif that was abandoned in the 1940s, due to the Nazi usurpation of the symbol. The paddle and anvil method of construction is used, and, while utilitarian cookware is tempered, decorative Maricopa pottery has no temper.[8]
Notable Maricopa
Ida Redbird (1892–1971) – Master potter of the Maricopa; instrumental in the 1937–1940 Maricopa pottery revival; first president of Maricopa Pottery Makers Association;[8] translator and informant for Leslie Spier's Yuma Tribes of the Gila River, thus helping to preserve her American Indian heritage.
Pritzker, Barry. A Native American Encyclopedia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN978-0195138771
Zappia, Natale A. Traders and Raiders: The Indigenous World of the Colorado Basin, 1540–1859. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. ISBN978-1469615844
The Cocopah are Native Americans who live in Baja California, Mexico, and Arizona, United States.
The Pimería Alta was an area of the 18th century Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, that encompassed parts of what are today southern Arizona in the United States and northern Sonora in Mexico.
The Akimel O'odham, also called the Pima, are a group of Native Americans living in an area consisting of what is now central and southern Arizona, as well as northwestern Mexico in the states of Sonora and Chihuahua. The majority population of the two current bands of the Akimel O'odham in the United States are based in two reservations: the Keli Akimel Oʼodham on the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) and the On'k Akimel O'odham on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC).
Indigenous peoples of Arizona are the Native American people who currently live or have historically lived in what is now the state of Arizona. There are 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona, including 17 with reservations that lie entirely within its borders. Reservations make up over a quarter of the state's land area. Arizona has the third largest Native American population of any U.S. state.
Gila River Indian Reservation was a reservation established in 1859 by the United States government in New Mexico Territory, to set aside the lands of the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the Piipaash (Maricopa) people along the Gila River, in what is now Pinal County, Arizona. The self-government of the reservation as the Gila River Indian Community was established by Congress in 1939.
The Yuman–Cochimí languages are a family of languages spoken in Baja California, northern Sonora, southern California, and western Arizona. Cochimí is no longer spoken as of the late 18th century, and most other Yuman languages are threatened.
Quechan or Kwtsaan, also known as Yuma, is the native language of the Quechan people of southeastern California and southwestern Arizona in the Lower Colorado River Valley and Sonoran Desert. Despite its name, it is not related to the Quechua language of the Andes.
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Patayan is a group of prehistoric and contemporary Native American cultures residing in parts of modern-day Arizona, west to Lake Cahuilla in California, and in Baja California. This cultural grouping also included areas along the Gila River, Colorado River and Lower Colorado River Valley, the nearby uplands, and up north toward the vicinity of the Grand Canyon. Evidence shows that Patayan lifeways have persisted from AD 700 to the 1900’s.
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The Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) comprises two distinct Native American tribes—the Pima and the Maricopa —many of whom were originally part of the Halchidhoma (Xalchidom) tribe. The community was permanently created by an Executive Order of US President Rutherford B. Hayes on June 14th, 1879. The community area includes 53,600 acres (217 km2), of which 19,000 remain a natural preserve. As of 2022, the total population is 7,386. The community is a federally recognized tribe located in Arizona.
Maricopa or Piipaash is spoken by the Native American Maricopa people on two reservations in Arizona: the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the Gila River Indian Community. Most speakers live in Maricopa Colony. The language is considered severely endangered by UNESCO.
The Halchidhoma or Alchedoma are a Native American tribe now living mostly on the Salt River reservation, but formerly native to the area along the lower Colorado River in California and Arizona when first contacted by Europeans. In the early nineteenth century, under pressure from their hostile Mohave and Quechan neighbors, they moved to the middle Gila River, where some merged with the Maricopa, and others went on to Salt River and maintained an independent identity.
The Yavapai are a Native American tribe in Arizona. Historically, the Yavapai – literally “people of the sun” – were divided into four geographical bands who identified as separate, independent peoples: the Ɖulv G’paaya, or Western Yavapai; the Yaavpe', or Northwestern Yavapai; the Gwev G’paaya, or Southeastern Yavapai; and the Wiipukpaa, or Northeastern Yavapai – Verde Valley Yavapai.
The Inaja Band of Diegueño Mission Indians of the Inaja and Cosmit Reservation is a federally recognized tribe of Kumeyaay Indians, who are sometimes known as Mission Indians.
Pima Villages, sometimes mistakenly called the Pimos Villages in the 19th century, were the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee-Posh (Maricopa) villages in what is now the Gila River Indian Community in Pinal County, Arizona. First, recorded by Spanish explorers in the late 17th century as living on the south side of the Gila River, they were included in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, then in Provincias of Sonora, Ostimuri y Sinaloa or New Navarre to 1823. Then from 1824 to 1830, they were part of the Estado de Occidente of Mexico and from September 1830 they were part of the state of Sonora. These were the Pima villages encountered by American fur trappers, traders, soldiers and travelers along the middle Gila River from 1830s into the later 19th century. The Mexican Cession following the Mexican American War left them part of Mexico. The 1853 Gadsden Purchase made their lands part of the United States, Territory of New Mexico. During the American Civil War, they became part of the Territory of Arizona.
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Ida Redbird was a Native American potter from the Gila River Indian Community of the Gila River Indian Reservation in Arizona. She was the first president of the Maricopa Pottery Maker's Association and was widely credited with the revival of ancient Maricopa pottery techniques and forms. Her polished black-on-redware pottery was highly prized with collectors. Texas photographer Ted Sayles shot a series documenting Redbird sculpting her pottery. The series toured museums throughout the Western United States
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The Halyikwamai were a Native American tribe who lived along the Colorado River in the Lower Colorado River Valley between the 16th and 19th centuries in what is modern day region around San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora and San Luis, Arizona. The tribe spoke an extinct variation of the Cocopah language. The tribe was incorporated into the Maricopa in the middle of the 19th century.
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