SOC301

This lesson brings up important contemporary water issues and when viewed in conjunction with the reading, should give you a broad perspective regarding water issues in the country and particularly in the southwest.

In my studies on urban sprawl in the Phoenix metropolitan area, I observed several once-rural communities which are now experiencing the affects of overdevelopment. One such community, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, is situated along the Salt River bed. Scottsdale borders the west and north side of the reservation; Fountain Hills and the McDowell Mountains also border the north; the Tonto National Forest borders the east; Mesa borders the south and Tempe borders the southwest corner of the reservation. The largest portion of the reservation lies in fertile desert land. In this lesson, I will explore the affects of diverting the Salt River away from the reservation to serve the larger Phoenix area.


Before They Turned the Water Off

“... in the 1800s there was water here. Because in the late 1700s they started to migrate into the Gila River .... And we were River people and we migrated from the ocean. That’s where Authm comes from, we’re Authm people, but in the language, when you go further down south, Authm means People of the Sand. That’s what it means. We’re Authm, we’re people of the ocean. We were River people. So when the River went down, we followed the water. And when they started damming the Gila River up, some of the people came over here and this is where we migrated. And my parents met in school and they married. My father was a farmer and so they farmed the land. But in those times [it] was green here. There was a lot of vegetation. We lived off of fish, off of vegetables. I even remember when we'd go swimming, when I was really young, we would eat off of mesquite. We'd chew on that so we weren't hungry anymore. And then there was a root, it was kind of like a sweet potato, and we would look for them along the way. But you can't find it today.
I think when they brought in the canals and they started to cement them down and they started to use pesticides and all of that chemicals in the water, I think it killed a lot of the vegetation off. But there was a lot of water, they had natural water and one thing my father also kind of mentioned and I kind of expounded on it myself, is that when there's natural river, natural water, you don't bother with that. Because if you do, because of the way the world is built, if you bother those, then they will bring disaster because if you build up dams, and you build up in those pathways, then you'll get flooded, you get disasters coming in there. And I see that, when we had a flood in the early '80s. We were flooded and a lot of people died, I think about 11 or 13 people, and they built all the way down the Salt River and a lot of those places got flooded out and again I thought of my father. It does a lot of damage.”
--Loreen, 51 years old

“...they used to let it go [the Salt River] every year because the water would fill up. Back then they had more rain. Now no more. I wish it would run, I think it would be good. When they diverted the water from us, our people starved for many years.... Farmers just started diverting the water around our reservation. They put them so close to the rez that they sucked out the water from under us too. Dropped the water table.... There seems to be more buildings going up. It's just growing. It used to be a rural area, now it's all populated, houses now and it's still growing.... One of these days there probably won't be enough water for all of us. When you have things that need water to grow, that's one thing, but when you have things that don't grow there and you have to keep them alive and use more water, then we’re just wasting it. They’re just wasting water. You can't change the environment, that's the way it is. If it's desert, it's going to be desert. Yeah you can make it look different if you want, but it's not going to last forever.”
--George, 44 years old

“The water used to run all the time then. I don’ t know how it would have been. These young ones now, a lot of them would have drowned. But it was dry. But every now and then when it rains too hard, then they let the water go. And then when they turn it off, there still would be a little runny. Us kids would go down there and look for fish and collect walnuts that come from way back there- look for those. At that time fish was one of our main things to eat. When they did put up the dam, there was no more water. Every now and then two or three of the families would get together in their wagons and we’d go down to the river bed beside the side of the dam. The men would fish and the women would make their tortilla and whatever fish they got they would cook and they would eat out there. Stay and then come back in the afternoon. The kids would be swimming. We did that two or three times every summer.”
--Etta, 81 years old


“[My aunt] told me that when she was a little girl that the Salt River ran from bank to bank, but the banks weren't where they’re at right now. She said that the water was real clear, you could see the fishes while standing on the bank. You could see the fishes in the water. Where the dam is right now, in the Verde area, all the way down to Tempe. Both sides of the banks were nothing but cottonwood trees. The big cottonwood trees and some parts of the river, the trees branched over like a tunnel. And she says that's how big trees were. They swam in the river, in the bank. That's where they did their swimming, the bathing and everything. But, she says, they couldn't swim across the river. The river was too swift. It was calm and everything, but you couldn't swim. There were some guys who tried to swim across and drowned. The undercurrent was so strong. She said if you look at the river it didn't look like it floated that fast. But then when he tried to swim in it, the only way to get across was by boat. And that's what they did. They got across by boat. But that's what she said, it was so pretty. I can imagine.”
--Delbert, 48 years old


“... a place that receives seven inches [of rainfall] or less- as Phoenix, El Paso, and Reno do- is arguably no place to inhabit at all. Everything depends on the manipulation of water- on capturing it behind dams, storing it, and rerouting it in concrete rivers over distances of hundreds of miles.”
-Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water Cadillac (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 3.

A quarter of a million dams have been built in the United States over the past century. Several thousand of these dams hold back the largest rivers in the country including the Colorado River which has been diverted to support the Phoenix metropolitan area as well as Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Such dams are four miles long and contain enough concrete to build an interstate highway. Archeologists believe that it is likely that the Hoo-hoogam overtaxed their environment through controlling the Gila River to a point where it could no longer sustain life. Reisner (1993) wonders what future archeologists will think of a civilization that built so many dams. Future archeologists may look at the tremendous amount of time and resources spent in Congress debating dam constructions, but in the end, written records “... will be of little help in explaining the psychological imperative that drove us to build dam after dam (Reisner, 105).”
In the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of irrigation companies sought to “reclaim the West,” making the desert habitable and gaining quick wealth. The irrigation companies faced short careers as the task of building dams large enough to supply a year-round flow of water proved daunting and costly. The federal irrigation movement began in the 1890s, partly due to a series of natural catastrophes and partly due to the failure of private irrigation efforts. Federal Reclamation Acts enabled settlement of the American West. The Reclamation Acts turned the American West into “the first and most durable example of the modern welfare state (Reisner, 111).” Widespread support for the Reclamation program seems particularly curious considering the West’s values of strict individualism and controls on federal power. Nonetheless, “The government was immediately flooded with requests for project investigations. Local chambers of commerce, real estate interests, and congressmen were convinced their areas were ideal for reclamation development. State legislators and officials joined the chorus of promoters seeking Reclamation projects.... Legislative requirements and political pressures sometimes precluded careful, exhaustive surveys of proposed projects.... Projects were frequently undertaken with only a sketchy understanding of the area’s climate, growing season, soil productivity, and market conditions (Reisner, 115).”
The Salt River Project enabled the settlement and growth of Phoenix. Prior to the project the Gila and its tributaries, the Salt and Verde Rivers, wandered through the arid Sonoran Desert and evaporated. The Salt River Project directed the river for effective irrigation.
Prior to the Reclamation project, an acre of desert had been worth five or ten dollars. Now it was worth 50 times the original amount. Farmers sold out to wealthy speculators. Such wealthy speculators all but took over the Salt River Project. “Elwood Mead... Commissioner of Reclamation, called speculation, ‘a vampire which has done much to destroy the desirable social and economic purposes of the Reclamation Act.’ But the big, distant new owners were often better at paying their water bills than the stone-broke small farmers, so the Reclamation Service, in a number of instances turned a blind eye toward what was going on. It was a case of lawlessness becoming de facto policy, and it was to become more and more commonplace (Reisner, 117).”
Reisner holds that the congressional public works committees, led by members from the South and West, together with the water development agencies, reward those who vote in favor of water projects and punish those who oppose the projects. The power of these committees and agencies is so strong that they have managed to stop any federal money from going to a particular district. “To a degree that is impossible for most people to fathom, water projects are the grease gun that lubricates the nation’s legislative machinery. Congress without water projects would be like an engine without oil, it would simply seize up (Reisner, 308).”
Thus, “the west was won.” Phoenix continues to grow and experience economic prosperity. “Responsible development” promises growth in harmony with the surrounding environment. Developers must prove that they have rights and access to 100 years of water in order to build. Water appears all over this desert city. From the largest fountain in the world surging 560 feet into the air at Fountain Hills, to man-made lakes flowing around master planned communities, to the elaborate pools with waterfall and tropical trees surrounding opulent resorts, water is revered with seeming religious fervor.
However, before it was dammed to enable and promote the growth of Phoenix, the Salt River ran through the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Older Community members remember when the Salt River flowed and told me stories about the way life was before “they turned the water off,” as one resident put it. Through listening to their stories, we not only acquire a sense of how the area has been transformed since the damming of the Salt River, but we gain insight into what was and is still valued by many Community members. Their memories of life before the Salt River stopped flowing through the Community offer us a sense of the relationship between traditional Pima and contemporary American values that shape Salt River participants perceptions of the environment.

In their own words, here are some of the Salt River participants stories.

Brenda, 69 years old, a former tribal council member, serves as a role model in the community. Many interviewees, primarily middle-aged and elders, referred me to Brenda, expressing a sense of reverence for her. Brenda thinks back to her childhood:
“We used to live over there where those trees are. That was where I was born. And all this area here, that was farm land. And this road here used to be just like a little trail, like a wagon trail. Mesquites lined on both sides. And we had a lot of open ditches because the Arizona canal is to the north of us and you know different areas where it branches off to supply us with water for irrigating the crops that we raised. My father raised wheat and cotton and maize. And my mother had her garden of corn, squash, tapery beans, you know the beans that we grew up with- the brown and white beans. And we also had fruit trees like apricots and peaches and some mulberries which you don’t see any more. We had pomegranates. In fact the pomegranates that you see here- when we moved here probably about 30 years ago, when we had this home built and there were still some pomegranates over there and we got them and we set them out. That’s where they came from.
“When you look out you could see for miles and miles because there were no homes, maybe here and there, but I’ve often said when I think about those things, life was so simple. You didn’t have to worry about electricity. You didn’t have to worry about paying for your gas for heating. They have what we call faucets. The city of Phoenix water line. So at each crossroad down the way they had faucets and we take the wagons and we had great big wooden barrels, we take it down and fill it up and bring it home. But everything was just so simple, it’s hard when you think about it with all of the things that we have to deal with now. So I just feel kind of homesick sometimes when I think about those things.
“And as a child we found things to play with, things to interest us. We rode the old tires down the road, we went swimming, the ditches aren’t deep you know. I don’t think we had any drownings. The ditches were all open. The water was clean, no pesticides, things of that kind. We had horses, so we knew how to ride. I was a good rider if you can imagine that! We had an old mare that I used to ride all the time. I’d saddle her up and go down to the river and ride around there. At that time it was a free flowing stream. There was always a little water going down. And it was green. There were all kinds of growth around there. So that was one of the best times I think that I spent. And of course we had our school and I don’t know why I was just thinking about it sometime last week, if we missed our bus, we would walk. It’s about two or three miles from here. And sometimes when our only bus broke down, they’d come around in this great big truck and they’d come around and take us to school. But one of the old buses, to me it looked like it was all made of wood, of lumber, it looked like a square bus. That was my life growing up.
“Of course we had to work too, we had a lot of chores to do. We chopped weeds in our garden and did all kinds of things that go along with farming. But during that time my father planted a lot of wheat, and the Tohono O’Odham, or the Papagos as they were formerly known, we had a family that came down every summer you know to cut the wheat. And in turn my father gave them whatever he thought they earned, gave them sacs of wheat. And they would come in a covered wagon, it was probably 40 miles and then about 60 miles south from here, the village that they came from. So they did that, so we had help. But we had the horses to thrash the wheat because they have a pole where they tie the horses on and they spread the wheat on the ground and make the horses go round and round to thrash the wheat. Then after they do that, then the men would gather and take the straw out or whatever. Then the women would come with their baskets and take some of the thrash out. Especially if there’s a breeze like this, it’s really really helpful. Those were just some of the things that I remember....
“I can’t really remember how old I was when they started to put in piping for the water. They did away with the open ditches and they put in the sand pipes that you see with all the graffiti on there. They put that in and that was quite some time ago, but still at that time, people still farmed. Then I believe probably in the early 50s when some of the non-Indian farmers began to leave the land to plant cotton. I think it’s always cotton or wheat that they plant. So it seems like at that point, people stopped farming, very few did. Plus the fact that I think at one time there was some kind of a disease that came and affected the horses and a lot of them were taken and slaughtered....
“When I was growing up, I chopped cotton. I picked cotton. I knew how to put the harnesses on our team of horses like when we go somewhere. And especially at that time, I was a teenager at the time when W.W.II broke out and all of my brothers went. They served in the military except for one, but he was crippled. It seemed like everything was left to me. And I learned how to drive when I was 16. My dad always had a big truck, so I had to learn how to drive that truck. So everything had changed. To me, living is harder than it was at that time. Because it seems like there is a law for everything. When you want to do something, just like you, you had to go and get permission to go out and talk to us. Even here on our own reservation, you have to get permission to go and chop wood or get wood or you have to get permission to do this and do that. So it has become tangled with all kinds of red tape that you have to go through. But I think by the time that we’re gone, it’s even going to be worse. And a lot of our young people are losing their identity and it’s not easy.
“My father was the boss, and nobody else. But he was a very very strict man. Very stern. But he was also a hard worker and he never had a job. We existed on what he planted. If we had cotton, he’d sell the cotton and get money. He’d sell the wheat and get money. So that’s how we lived. At that time people used a lot of wood. And at that time there was an abundance of mesquites up near the river. And that was a family project. Most of the older ones, I’m the baby of this family, and most of them were boys in between. So it was a family thing. We maybe would go in two wagons to chop. They chopped the mesquite trees and then you know they took lunch and we’d eat out there and it was an all-day thing. And to me, when I think about it, it felt like it was so far away and it was like maybe five miles from here. Then we would come home and then the next day they would start chopping them for the stove and all that and then he would take it into Tempe and he would sell it. So we existed on those things and mama made baskets and she would sell the baskets. So that’s how we lived. But a lot of it came from the land. A lot of the food came from the land.”

June, 47 years old, an administrator for tribal court, fears that everything will look like Scottsdale in the near future. She talks about the importance of keeping your land, saying that her mother always emphasized the importance of land. Now it is June's duty to serve that role and teach her children about the importance of the land and how it feeds and nourishes the family. June remembers when...
“There was hardly anything. The dirt roads. We lived with my grandfather. I don’t know what the circumstances were why each family did not have a home. We all stayed with my grandfather. There were always three families. Sometimes the parents didn’t stay, only the kids. There was like 15 of us all together. With my mother, my father, my grandfather and two uncles. But my grandfather was the primary caretaker. We used to go in the wagon to go get water. I think the only person who went to town was my grandfather and maybe my parents asked for a ride. But my grandfather, he had horses and he went into town. But we walked everywhere. We walked all over the reservation, just to find something to do.... Sometimes we walked out to the river bottom. Where the casino is now... you could swim, the water was real warm. That’s what we used to do, just walked all over. We walked to the Day School to play in the play ground. There was a dirt road like I said. Very few people had cars...
“Now we have paved roads. Now there’s no fences on the farms. There’s running water. We used to get in the wagon and take the big barrels to get the water. This area right here was nothing but desert. We got the water and go back home again. Not all the kids got to go, only certain kids. You got to ride the wagon and just getting water was going somewhere. It’s really different because to me how I lived with my grandfather was the hard part and that helped me.... As far as I can remember they didn’t have electricity but they had a nice home. Phones, if you really wanted to call somebody we walked to somebody’s house. Then we saw more cars I guess. The horses, hardly anybody was on a horse. You had to find somebody with a car. I don’t know how they always knew, but if we wanted somebody to come over to the house, we’d flash a mirror over there and they’d come. I remember they used to do that, my grandfather, my uncle. Because then you were able to see far. But now you really can’t see too much because there’s a lot of homes now and not usually everybody’s looking around....
“In the summertime we slept outdoors. In the summertime, I was thinking, I remember we couldn’t stay in the house. We could only go in the house if we really needed something. I guess that’s why we walked here and there so much, a group of us. We slept outdoors in the summertime, in the winter we went in. If it rained, we had to bring in the wood. They’d tell us the cloud is coming, it probably is going to rain. The whole house was open so we’d put up the boards, bring in the wood, cover the water. And then go inside and wait for it to rain or not. We’d tape the boards in the windows down. If it rained, we had to stay inside. If it stopped, we would go outside. In the wintertime we had to stay inside. We didn’t have ice cans or anything, and they used to cover the can with gunnysacs and keep the water cool....
“The air. It’s more dirtier. I know when it’s going to be winter or fall. It’s more dirtier and you can’t see as far. It disturbs me because I can’t see the mountains. Sometimes when it does rain, it clears the air. I think it will get worse. There will be some days that it will be clear. I used to like to look at the buttes over here and Camelback. When I’m driving I like looking at Camelback [Mountain]. To me it’s now cluttered with the high rises. You used to be able to see way out there. In the summertime you could look around and you always knew where the town started- the light. When you looked here, it was always dark. Now when you look, you see the light. There used to be a drive-in theater in Mesa and if we looked way out there, you would see the movie. If you looked hard enough. And we lived way over here. Especially on the Fourth of July we’d be out here and you’d see the fireworks far away.
“We lived with my grandfather and he had a farm with pomegranates, corn, just a lot of fruits and vegetables they farmed for them to live off of. You don’t see that. I think that maybe some of the older people, they have their own little garden with tomatoes and ... I have an aunt that has a garden with tomatoes and squash and chili and watermelon. Not very many do that.”

Pam, 69 years old, formerly worked with the Tribal Police Department. Pam has a “traditional” look with long gray hair, yet she claims not to be very traditional. While she grew up with many traditional ways, she no longer practices a traditional way of life, but wishes life was the way it used to be:
“I remember there was plum trees, peach trees, pecan trees- it was always shady around there. Little frame houses with a lot of grass and meadow. And that little frame house, it was one big room that was used for a living area and one big double bed, one single bed and a big old wood stove, the kind that heats in the center. Then there was the kitchen and dining area off to the side. Then out in a little building by itself was another thing for bedrooms. Then have a storage area, schools shed. So there was about three, four buildings.... In the evenings they do their plowing and all that stuff that had to be done. Then they have this big old pond where the animals drank and the wastewater went- it will go into this big pond. And all kinds of birds there, a lot of trees. Of course they ate, the plums, and whatever was in season – the orange trees, grapefruit trees. It was a good place to live. I stayed on and off. And after school I never went back there. We had two sets of white horses. They were neat. They were those with the big feet. They were work horses. And then he had his cow horses that were trained for different things. And his cows, and chickens. I think everybody at that time had chickens, ducks, turkeys, you know all that stuff that you eat. Over here my uncle built a big cage that you could walk in and he had doves in them and he had pigeons—stuff that you could eat. He didn't have to go out and shoot anything, they were right there. And he fed them from the fields.
“One time they brought home a big old mountain tortoise. And they went wood hunting, they used to go way out there where Fountain Hills is, that's where they used to go to get wood. They brought this big old tortoise home. The tortoise was neat. In summertime he used to let me ride on his back and he used to take me to the out-house because I didn't always wear shoes and then he'd take me back. I think maybe they took him back to the mountains the next trip they made. Then we had a box turtle who lived out in the pond where the ducks live. The quails were in with the doves and the pigeons. And of course the chickens and the ducks and the what ever, they made their homes underneath the pomegranate trees. They had a place where the hens went to lay their eggs and the ducks and the turkeys. That one, she was mean. She's used to chase me and always want to peck at my head! And to this day I’m still afraid of those big old gobblers—but they still taste good! A lot of changes. And back then those families had all that. And some of them were given a young bull and a couple of heifers to start a herd. That's how my dad got started. But over at my grand folks, what they had was a milk cow, I don't know, I think they took their milk cow to someone else to be bred because it was always calves and we always had milk. Two milk cows.
“And back then you could feed these animals like the red fox. He used to come down early in the morning I could see him running around. Down below, way over here, there used to be a run of water from the fields and it would be collected in big ponds and they would let out the horse. They would take off down there, drink the water and come back home. They gave them water early in the morning and at about this time. And that was the ritual, every morning, every evening. My cousins, they did that, they were the ones who had to dig ditches, chop the grass, keeping clean so the water could run. It was a lot of work. That kept them out of trouble.
“These changes came in a very short time. It was really short because from my toddler time to time I was six- all that went. The oldest boy went into the service. My uncle, who was a bachelor, he went into the service. My youngest aunt, she worked across the street, cooked. My dad, I don't know where he fit in and my other uncle, that was when he went to Los Angeles, I don't think he worked in the service at all. This was World War II. They all went away. They scattered, those boys. This is why he [father] said, you're time will come. He never gave me any money. The most I could expect from him on Christmas was a pair of socks and sometimes that didn't even happen. He didn't shell out money to me and I didn't expect it. And I guess when he'd feel guilty that's when he tell me, my time would come. Well my time came. My mom passed away, her dad passed away. They started leasing land. Pima Road was just a little wagon thing. There was mesquite growing on the side. Johnson grass that grew as high as whatever. That was the first and last time I ever saw a badger. I never saw a badger because I was never allowed to go out there. But once they died off… Pima Road was still a wild road. It went into the northern part of Scottsdale, a little wagon road that went to this way and that way. It was real marshy there—always wet, I guess from the canal. There was a lot of water here. And you didn’t have to pay for your water.
“Then there came a time, I don't know when it happened, somewhere between the time I went to school and the time I came back, which was when I was twenty-something, and I came back with two boys and a girl and then I had the other two boys when I was here. Things have been real fast. To me it was fast. In a little short span of time there was so many changes and I really didn't notice those changes until now when I think about it. There are times when I sit down and I think about it and I say, “my gosh, it was such a short time.” Some people see these changes in 20, 30 years, but here things were changing fast.”

Delbert, 48 years old, a mental health case manager, is highly skeptical about the future of the reservation. Despite his skepticism, Delbert connects to memories when he felt a strong sense of community and a deep connection to the land:
“... there was no electricity, the toilets were outside, no running water. We got our water mostly from the ditches that you see around. They're mostly grated up or plowed up. But that's where the water came from, from the river.... And that's where we got our water. Also at the time there's a lot of things that I've seen, they made the ditches smaller and the Salt River was wide open. You could see a lot of natural things. At that time there was a weed that you could use as a shampoo, just pull it from the side of the bank of that canal and mash up in your hands and turns into suds. There are some weeds that you bite at the end and its rough and you use that as your toothbrush. This all grew along the canal bank. We don't see it no more. With all of the pesticides and all of the stuff that the farmers are using, that go into the canal, you don’t see none of that stuff. That was back then. I helped put in the pipes for the water lines. I helped build the first modular homes- HUD homes, the first HUD homes, I helped. Each family that was selected for a home had to help one family build their home. So every Saturday and Sunday we'd go to one home, and all of us, just build the home.... each family, that home that your building, had to feed you. That’s how the first HUD homes got started. Everybody helped each other. But a long time ago, if I can remember right, everybody helped each other anyway. If somebody's house burned down, or somebody needed their crops done, if somebody needed help in any kind of way, the whole village would help that one person. That tradition stopped. Right now it's not fair. Nobody helps anybody no more. Even the church goers who think that they are so holy, they don't help. They won’t go out of their way to help. Our tradition is lost. And then with all the intermarriage, a lot of whites and Indians, there’s no tradition anymore. Being so close to Mesa, Scottsdale, Fountain Hills, this reservation right now is a gold mine. I mean I have many offers of non-Indian companies coming in and wanting to build.

Etta, 81 years old, a Maricopa elder, formerly worked as a cook’s aid. Etta spoke of the way things looked during her childhood and how today she is one of the few who still knows the language. She and her daughter offer language lessons to youth to try and maintain their culture. She also believes that things are changing rapidly and showed me where her childhood home was across the field. She said that they moved into the middle of the field when she was about ten years old because someone in the family had died in the first house and when someone dies you burn all of their possessions and must move.
“Well [my parents] planted their own crops and I know we never had meat of any kind. Just once in a while. I think on Sundays is the only time we ever had meat and it would just be stew meat. The rest of the time it would be beans, potatoes or whatever they raised in the garden and what they planted would be wheat and corn and pumpkin and they’d dry that and keep it for winter. And also the wheat and the corn, we’d save it for winter. That’s how we managed to get through the winter without beans. There’s different kind of beans, white and brown.
“It’s changed a lot. We never had any furniture which we have now. And no electricity, nothing. Our drinking water was from the ditch. I used to tell them [her children] it’s what I drank all my life until I went to school and I’m still alive! But they said it’s not like that anymore because they throw things in there and it’s not good to drink anymore. We picked cotton. From the beginning we hoed cotton. When it’s ripe, we’ll pick it. And I worked out in the fields most of the time to help my father because I had only one brother and he was younger than me. And I had an older sister, but she wasn’t too well, so I helped my father with almost everything- especially the horse and the wagon and we had to go after wood for our cooking and to heat up the house and when he’s not around, when he has to work, I have to go after the horses and hitch them up and with my mother, we go after wood. That’s how I started working out in the fields and got wheat and gathered them and we thrashed them on horseback. Go around. And then pretty soon the machines came in and we were out of work. But I see that the cotton is cleaned by the machines when they pick them.
“When I started school, it was right here on this corner, but the building was back a little bit. I didn’t know a word of English, I didn’t speak English, I didn’t understand English, but they sent me to school. I don’t know how I ever learned. I said, “I must have had a very patient teacher!” I didn’t learn too good, but we understood. And then when I finished the fourth year they sent me to Indian school. That was in 1927. And I stayed there and finished in 1935. I stayed around, working here and there. But right now they’re putting everything up and it seems like our reservation is getting smaller and smaller.
“And I remember when I was small, I went alone by the dam over here, we went quite a ways, but we stopped, that’s where my father started digging and picked up some clay. He got quite a bit and came back. And that was the paint for the pottery. The red paint. And I wanted to start making pottery. When they finally grew up, their father and I went up there to look for it and it was all fenced up. We couldn’t get in there. Now they have all kinds of machinery in there. I don’t know what’s going on in there. At that time there was no fences. It was all open and you could go in and get whatever you want. I know it’s hard to get the red paint anymore. And there’s not very many mesquite around anymore to get the bark of, we boil it and use for it for the black designs on it. So we had to go out to the dam where there’s still a lot of mesquites. We got some and one time we were giving lessons for pottery.
“And when we went to school we were told not to talk our language. But I had an older sister who went with me. When she went to school, she was sickly, and we had to walk from that corner to over here, so I had to walk with her and I started early. So we were both in the same grade all the way. But she got sick again and she came home. But I went on from there. And there’s a lot of things that we miss now that we had around at that time. We don’t have any horses any more. And like I said, when I came back, I was working and I felt like I still didn’t speak very good English. When I got married, from my own tribe, we both talked our language all the time. I’m sort of ashamed to talk English around my children because they grew up with it.
“This road, the water they brought in, the electricity which we never had before. That’s what I keep telling my grandchildren now. At that time we had nothing, no radio, we didn’t have any kind of entertainment. My father would sing us to sleep or they would tell us the stories, but I would never get to hear the end of the story, because half way I would fall asleep. Now they have all this, radio, TV, and they say they get bored. I don’t understand that. That’s why they are the way they are now I guess.
“[I miss] the good times we used to have! My grandfather was a singer and I heard this song as I was growing up. Every weekend he would sing. There was a vacant lot where the Nazarene church is, because that’s about the middle of the reservation. He’d sing and people from the reservation would dance and all get together, they’d dance all night until morning. And then on holiday, they go out and they don’t have any money, but they go out hunting for rabbits or whatever. Then the ladies, they cook it and then they make tortillas, whatever, and everybody goes to eat. It was mostly I guess the togetherness that I miss. And families would visit each other maybe two or three times a week. They don’t do that anymore. Even close relatives don’t know each other anymore. And we help each other and everything. When it’s time to plant, whoever starts their horses, most of the men that have horses and plows would come up and plow the field, then they’d go to the next one until they all get through. Then when it’s done, they have to cut it and everybody comes and helps. There’s no help like that anymore around here.”

Damming of the rivers changed these relationships within and among tribes and with the land. The great dams of the Southwest, among other things, represented the American frontier spirit and the promise of a better life. Businesses could flourish and opportunities abound. Control over rivers opened up the West to development and the dream of great prosperity. But prosperity and a better life for whom? All of the stories told by participants who remember life when the Salt River still flowed through the Community describe a world of immense beauty filled with lush vegetation; a world where the dark night sky glistened with stars; where you could look upon the land for miles and miles without anything blocking your view; a world where understanding the land was critical for daily sustenance. The land bestowed life. Furthermore, this was a world with strong community bonds. Neighbors helped neighbors to survive, farm, grow and thrive. Leadership was more diffuse with heads of families playing an important role in tribal relations. Tribes throughout the Southwest maintained strong ties, working for each other and sharing resources and business with each other [Only now after these relationships have been permanently changed and after years of argument regarding tribal claims to water, are Native tribes of the Southwest regaining control over water. In 1983 the Salt River Community had a water share of 13,300 acre feet. A new proposed share in 1999 could nearly triple their share of water from the Central Arizona Project to 39,200 acre feet. Shaun McKinnon, “Struggle for control of water: Pact could give tribes half of the Colorado River resource,” Arizona Republic, October 11, 1999, A1.]
As illustrated by these stories, in a very short period of time, all of this changed.
The damming of the Salt River made way for continued development around the Salt River Reservation. Whereas once thought to be remote and rural, the reservation now lies amidst the metropolitan Phoenix area. The Community stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the metropolitan area as urban sprawl surrounds farms and open space. Viewed as “undeveloped land,” Phoenix planners regard reservation land as optimal for extending a freeway through in order to accommodate continued Phoenix expansion. Despite tremendous transformations in the physical environment on the reservation and the consequent transformation in life-style that such environmental change brought, remnants of traditional ways of relating to the land continue to shape the way the Pima perceive the land.

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E-mail Janine Minkler at Janine.Minkler@nau.edu
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