Did you know the name "Arizona" is a Uto-Aztecan Indian word?

It means "little spring" in the Tohono O'odham language!

Şam ’a’ i masma! and S-ke:g 'I-jiwadag!

Şam ’a’ i masma! and S-ke:g 'I-jiwadag! mean Greetings! and Good Arrival! in the traditional language of the southwestern native people known as the Tohono O'odham.

The Nickname
For a while, the Tohono O'odham were known as the Papago, which is really a nickname that indicates one of the main staples of the Tohono O'odham's diet: Beans, specifically tepary beans and mesquite pod beans.

An Endangered Culture
As with many native and aboriginal cultures, the insurgence of western civilization has put this tribes way of life, known as the O’odham Himdag which means the Desert People’s Lifeways, on the endangered list.

Women Know
Published during the 1930's, the story of Maria Chona an O'odham woman, originally entitled, Autobiography of a Papago Woman, is a unique portrayal of the Tohono O'odham culture as it was before and during it's fall. It is unique in that it came from a woman's point of view, a woman who had access to the goings on of government as well as traditional (not allopathic) medicine. Going deeper into the significance of the piece, it also "...illustrates the role that feminist ideology played in the transformation of the discipline of anthropology."* as well as sheds light on cultural differences of the universal female experience.

"Wheat flour makes me sick!  I think it has no strength.  But when I am weak, when I am tired, my grandchildren make me gruel out of the wild seeds.  That is food!" ~ Maria Chona in Autobiography of a Papago Woman

The wisdom and practical knowledge of traditional peoples has often been discounted as anecdotal at best.  However, when 90-year-old Maria Chona spoke these words 70 years ago, she provided an accurate assessment of the effects of nontraditional foods on the health of the Tohono O’odham.  Over the past two decades, several scientific studies have confirmed what Chona already knew: traditional Tohono O'odham foods — such as tepary beans, mesquite beans, acorns and cholla (cactus) buds — help regulate blood sugar and significantly reduce both the incidence and effects of diabetes.  Over the course of many centuries, the Tohono O’odham metabolism had become especially well adapted to the foods of the Sonoran Desert.  As the majority of Tohono O’odham moved away from traditional foods and adopted a more “Western” diet, diabetes began to appear at an extremely high rate.  Unlike the traditional foods that helped control blood sugar levels and increase insulin production and sensitivity, this new diet overwhelmed the O’odham metabolism, leading to high rates of obesity as well as diabetes. In a very real sense, the destruction of the traditional food system is literally killing thousands of Tohono O’odham.

...an excerpt from the Tohono O'odham Community Action (TOCA) Website

Every year the Tohono O’odham Community Action group invites all tribal members to gather for the Bahadaj Camp where, for three (3) days, there is saguaro fruit harvesting, basketry, games, song and rain ceremonies. Only tribal members and special invited guests are allowed to attend.

More about Maria Nona and her tribe at the following links:

TOCA

Spirit Woman

Order the Book

Related Sites of Interest:

Native Diet

Cookbooks

Native Languages

*Quoted from text by Catherine Lavender from The Department of History at The College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. website

Related Video...

The Mayan Prophecies
& A Tradition of Forward Thinking Leadership

Drunvalo Melchizedek is Editor in Chief of Spirit of Ma'at, a website dedicated to providing a central clearing house of undistorted information in the areas of spirituality, human potential, and new science. Drunvalo feels that this service is important because the Internet is forming a global brain — birthing a new way of planetary communication — and yet there is so much factual distortion and fear-based reporting that it is akin to mental imbalance: not knowing what is real and what is not.

Drunvalo, has had the honor of close participation and communication with indigeneous tribes and talks about his experiences with the Mayan leaders. He points out that the tribal traditions are much more than just primitive. They are the key to our survival. In fact, it is a tradition that tribal leaders consider the consequences of their decisions and how those choices will affect the next 7 generations.

In this interview in Sedona in May of 2008, Conscious Media Network talks with Drunvalo about what he sees is coming in the near future based on scientific findings along with the prophecies of the Hopis and Mayans.

The inspiring message is that if we knew what it was going to be like after this transition, we would be jumping up and down for joy - now that's a truly uplifting message from our future! Watch, Listen & Ponder!