The Maricopa or PiipaashBarry Pritzker, ''A Native American Encyclopedia.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998; p. 56 are a

Native American tribe In the United States, an American Indian tribe, Native American tribe, Alaska Native village, Indigenous tribe, or Tribal nation may be any current or historical Tribe (Native American)#Other uses, tribe, band, or nation of Native Americans in ...

, who live in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and

Gila River Indian Community The Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) ( O'odham language: Keli Akimel Oʼotham, meaning "Gila River People", Maricopa language: Piipash) is an Indian reservation in the U.S. state of Arizona, lying adjacent to the south side of the cities of ...

(both in

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

) along with the Pima, a tribe with whom the Maricopa have long held a positive relationship. The Maricopa at the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community consist mostly of Xalychidom Piipaash members and are concentrated in Lehi. The Maricopa at the

are concentrated in Maricopa Colony. The Maricopa are a River Yuman group, formerly living along the banks of the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

Names

The neighboring

Akimel O'odham The Akimel O'odham (Oʼodham language, O'odham for "river people"), also called the Pima, are an Indigenous people of the Americas living in the United States in central and southern Arizona and northwestern Mexico in the states of Sonora and Ch ...

(Pima) and future allies, called these people the Kokmalik'op ('enemies in the big mountains'),. The Spanish transliterated this to ''Maricopa''. They call themselves Piipaa, Piipaash or Pee-Posh (″people″). The "Maricopa" 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): 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

They formerly consisted of small groups of people who lived for generations along the banks of the

. In the 16th century, they migrated to the area around the

Gila River The Gila River (; O'odham ima Keli Akimel or simply Akimel, Quechan: Haa Siʼil, Maricopa language: Xiil) is a tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of ...

, to avoid attacks by the

Quechan The Quechan ( Quechan: ''Kwatsáan'' 'those who descended'), or Yuma, are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the Mexican border. Despite ...

and

Mojave people Mohave or Mojave (Mojave language, Mojave: 'Aha Makhav) are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people indigenous to the Colorado River in the Mojave Desert. The Fort Mojave Indian Reservation includes territory within the bo ...

s. During the 1840s,

epidemics An epidemic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of Host (biology), hosts in a given population within a short period of time. For example ...

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. 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. In the 19th and the 20th centuries, the

Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior. It is responsible for im ...

implemented policies to try to assimilate the Maricopa into mainstream European-American society, and they brought

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

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 The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of June 18, 1934, or the Wheeler–Howard Act, was U.S. federal legislation that dealt with the status of American Indians in the United States. It was the centerpiece of what has been often called the "Indian ...

of 1934, in 1936 the Pima and Maricopa agreed on a constitution to restore some measure of self-governance. 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.

Language

Their heritage language are/were dialects of the Maricopa and

Cocopah language Cocopah is a Delta language of the Yuman language family spoken by the Cocopah. Cocopah is believed to have derived from the Hokan language, and it is related to the other Native American languages of Mojave and Kumeyaay. Cocopah is consider ...

, which belong to the Yuman language family.

Arts

The Maricopa are known for their basket weaving and textiles, 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.

Swastika The swastika (卐 or 卍, ) is a symbol used in various Eurasian religions and cultures, as well as a few Indigenous peoples of Africa, African and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, American cultures. In the Western world, it is widely rec ...

s 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."Maricopa Potters."
August 21, 2009 (retrieved September 9, 2010)

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; translator and

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a "snitch", "rat", "canary", "stool pigeon", "stoolie", "tout" or "grass", among other terms) is a person who provides privileged information, or (usually damaging) information inten ...

for Leslie Spier's Yuma Tribes of the Gila River, thus helping to preserve her American Indian heritage. * Robert "Tree" Cody – flutist. He is also an enrolled member of the

Hunkpapa The Hunkpapa (Lakota: ) are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota tribe. The name ' is a Lakota word, meaning "Head of the Circle" (at one time, the tribe's name was represented in European-American records as ...

tribe.

Footnotes

External links

Salt River Pima–Maricopa Indian Community page on the Maricopa people
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maricopa people Native American tribes in Arizona