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Book Cover
E-book
Author Bess, Jennifer, author.

Title Where the red-winged blackbirds sing : the Akimel O'odham and cycles of agricultural transformation in the Phoenix Basin / Jennifer Bess
Published Louisville : University Press of Colorado, [2021]

Copies

Description 1 online resource : illustrations (some color), maps (some color)
Contents Adaptation, innovation and co-creation : world-building in story and history -- Strategic adaptations in the PimerĂ­a Alta through the Hispanic and Early American Periods -- The Akimel O'odham and the growth of the American West, c. 1846-1871 -- Where the red-winged blackbirds sing : the contest for inclusion during the years of famine, 1871-1910 -- Pima cotton and the new Egypt : U.S. agricultural development, the agricultural experimental station in Sacaton, and the allotment of the Gila River Indian Reservation, 1907-1920 -- The price of Pima cotton : wage labor and the Akimel O'odham agricultural economy, 1907-1920 -- Agriculture and peoplehood in transition : the Akimel O'odham in the Interwar Period
Summary "Where the Red-Winged Blackbirds Sing examines the ways in which the Akimel O'odham ("River People") and their ancestors, the Huhugam, adapted to economic, political, and environmental constraints imposed by federal Indian policy, the Indian Bureau, and an encroaching settler population in Arizona's Gila River Valley. Fundamental to O'odham resilience was their connection to their sense of peoplehood and their himdag ("lifeway"), which culminated in the restoration of their water rights and a revitalization of their Indigenous culture. Author Jennifer Bess examines the Akimel O'odham's worldview, which links their origins with a responsibility to farm the Gila River Valley and to honor their history of adaptation and obligations as "world-builders"--co-creators of an evermore life-sustaining environment and participants in flexible networks of economic exchange. Bess considers this worldview in context of the Huhugam-Akimel O'odham agricultural economy over more than a thousand years. Drawing directly on Akimel O'odham traditional ecological knowledge, innovations, and interpretive strategies in archives and interviews, Bess shows how the Akimel O'odham engaged in agricultural economy for the sake of their lifeways, collective identity, enduring future, and actualization of the values modeled in their sacred stories. Where the Red-Winged Blackbirds Sing highlights the values of adaptation, innovation, and co-creation fundamental to Akimel O'odham lifeways and chronicles the contributions the Akimel O'odham have made to American history and to the history of agriculture. The book will be of interest to scholars of Indigenous, American Southwestern, and agricultural history."-- EBSCOhost resource page, viewed May 3, 2021
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (EBSCOhost, viewed May 3, 2021)
Subject Pima Indians -- Agriculture -- Gila River (N.M. and Ariz.)
Pima Indians -- Gila River (N.M. and Ariz.) -- Economic conditions
HISTORY / General
Agriculture
Pima Indians -- Agriculture
Pima Indians -- Economic conditions
SUBJECT Gila River Indian Reservation (Ariz.) -- Agriculture
Gila River (N.M. and Ariz.) -- History
Subject Arizona -- Gila River Indian Reservation
United States -- Gila River
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2021001176
ISBN 1646421051
9781646421053