FORGOTTEN FOOD:

. ANTHROPOLOGICAL MARGINALIZATION OF TOHONO O'ODHAM .

FOODWAYS DURING THE INDIAN NEW DEAL AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

By

EMILY BROOKS BURTON

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Abstract

As the Tohono O’odham diabetes epidemic has become a topic for scholars of various fields, historians investigate the past to explain the transformations in foodways.

It is crucial to understand how, when, and why diet declined in order to promote a healthy future. This thesis will argue that the Tohono O’odham traditional foodways were marginalized during the Indian New Deal. John Collier, the Commissioner of

Indian Affairs from 1933-1945, reflected Boasian anthropology in his reforms to promote cultural preservation. He hired anthropologist Ruth Underhill to study the Tohono

O’odham, as he did with anthropologists around the country, to ensure legislation respected cultural terms. While attending to cultural activities they viewed as central to preservation, such as religious practices and arts and crafts, foodways were overshadowed in anthropological studies. In an effort to return land to American

Indians, Collier and Underhill did not focus on the possibility of preserving traditional agricultural practices. After the reforms, the ensuing relationships between the Tohono

O’odham and land, water, and wage labor led them away traditional diets. The Indian

New Deal’s commitment to cultural preservation thus ironically deemphasized the foodways that encompass all facets of Tohono O’odham culture and tradition. Introduction

Destruction of the Tohono O’odham food system has led to a dramatic loss of

Tohono O’odham language and cultural traditions, as equally devastating as the

loss of the people’s physical health. Virtually all elements of traditional culture –

ceremonies, stories, songs, language – are directly rooted in the system of food

production. O’odham culture is truly an agri/culture. As a result, destruction of

the traditional food system has contributed to the significant loss of many

elements of the O’odham Himdag – Desert People’s Way.1

Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA) and the Tohono O’odham

Community College published these statements in 2002 as part of a study to promote the return to traditional diets. Calling to consume the desert as they once did, the

Tohono O’odham community is reacting to the 20th century onslaught of diabetes. The epidemic has swept the O’odham population and become a dominant topic in American

Indian health discussions. Organizations like TOCA have formed to combat the issue and encourage a healthy population. The return to traditional diet is supported, as the

O’odham nation did not suffer from diabetes when they relied solely on their customary subsistence system. According to TOCA, “during Maria Chona’s lifetime – and into the

1960’s – no member of the Tohono O’odham tribe had ever been afflicted with Type II

(adult-onset) Diabetes” and yet “today more than half the population – including children as young as seven-years old – suffer from the disease. This is the highest rate of any

1 Daniel Lopez, Tristan Reader and, Paul Buseck, Community Attitudes Toward Traditional Tohono O’odham Foods. (Sells, AZ: Tohono O’odham Community Action and Tohono O’odham Community College, 2002),11.

1 population in the world.”2 Maria Chona was the subject of anthropologist Ruth

Underhill’s studies on the Tohono O’odham in the 1930s. It is evident that changes occurred during Maria Chona’s life that influenced the health of her nation. The severity of the situation has drawn the attention of various disciplines, investigating the causes of this phenomenon.

The diversity of speculations has stemmed from the past to the present, from archaeology to public health. According to zooarchaeological investigations, the credit for changes belongs to the Spanish and the introduction of missions.3 Meanwhile public health studies are searching in the present for causes linked to heredity and obesity.4

This is significant today because the diabetes issue is being discussed so thoroughly. It is used as a case study for the larger obesity epidemic that is causing concern in the country. It is also used to encourage the return to traditional foodways and local agriculture.5 This secondary literature is important in outlining the consequences of the

2 Lopez, Reader, and Buseck. Community Attitudes Toward Traditional Tohono O’odham Foods, 4. 3 Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman and Vincent M. LaMotta, “Missionization and Economic Change in the Primería Alta: The Zooarchaeology of San Agustín de Tucson,” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 11, no. 3 (2007), 260. 4 Dale A. Coddington and John J. Hisnanick, “Clinical Characteristics of Non-Insulin- Dependent Diabetes Mellitus among Southwestern American Indian Youths,” Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition 19, no. 1 (2001), 15. 5 Evelyne Cudel. “High Incidence of Diabetes in the O’Odham: A Community Approach in Prevention and Control for a Native American Tribe” (PhD diss., University of California, Riverside,1994); Fat and Happy? Directed by Alan Alda, 2001. (New York, NY: Films Media Group, 2009), DVD; Indian Oasis School District #40, When Everything was Real: An Introduction to Papago Desert Foods (Sells, AZ: Indian Oasis School District #40, 1980); Mariana Leal Ferreira and Gretchen Chelsey Lang, eds., Indigenous Peoples and Diabetes: Community Empowerment and Wellness (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2006); Gary P. Nabhan, Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity (Washington: Island Press, 2004, (Updated version in Nabhan, Gary Paul. “Rooting Out the Causes of Disease: Why Diabetes Is So Common Among

2 past and how this topic relates to broader issues. The Tohono O’odham diabetes topic has been an ongoing discussion in multiple sub-fields. The histories of anthropology, food, and Indian policy are three of such fields engaged in the conversation.

This thesis will examine the 20th century transformation of diet and health of the

Tohono O’odham through the context of anthropology, food, and Indian policy studies.

For the 1930s, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, John Collier, and anthropologist

Ruth Underhill’s reports are windows into the policies and effects of the policies, respectively. Historians debate about both Collier and Underhill’s approaches and how they reflect the anthropological practices of the time. Many historians agree that Collier had a radical approach in his emphasis of education, religion, politics, and land reform.

Historians have discussed his welfare reformations and the cultural preservation intentions of Underhill’s ethnographic works. Yet Collier’s determination to promote welfare programs met resistance from both Anglos and the American Indian nations.6

The land allotment and agricultural aspects of the welfare were debated and thus connect policy and diet. Sources focus on Collier’s effort toward cultural preservation, but mention neither food nor diet.7

While Collier implemented policies, Underhill recorded information about the people they were affecting. However, Underhill helped the Tohono O’odham to protest

Desert Dwellers.” In Food, Genes, and Culture: Eating Right for Your Origins, 163-185. Washington: Island Press, 2013.) 6 David W. Daily, Battle for the BIA: G.E.E. Lindquist and the Missionary Crusade Against John Collier (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2004); Kenneth R. Philp, Indian Self-Rule: First-Hand Accounts of Indian-White Relations from Roosevelt to Reagan (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1995). 7 Kenneth R. Philp, "John Collier and the American Indian, 1920-1945," in Essays on Radicalism in Contemporary America, ed. Leon Borden Blair (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), 63-80; Kenneth R. Philp, John Collier's Crusade for Indian Reform, 1920-1954, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1977).

3 some of Collier’s movements and he eventually barred her from the BIA.8 Their relationship illustrates how the BIA was not in unanimous agreement about the policies and level of federal government intervention. Historians of anthropology debate

Underhill’s strengths and weaknesses in execution of Boasian anthropology, especially in the context of a female working for the federal government.9 Underhill’s records will be used to evaluate the relationship between the United States federal government and

Tohono O’odham foodways during the New Deal Era. Since the historical sources of the 1930s refer to the Tohono O’odham as the Papago Indians, the population will be referred to as the Papago for the duration of this argument.

In the history of food, scholars present the greater context of change that was occurring in the United States in the 1930s. The developments in transportation, such as the use of the railroad and introduction of trucking agricultural goods, transformed the market and directed a shift toward commercial farming.10 One historian argues that during the New Deal “antimonopoly and agrarian rhetoric clashed with the reality of farm policies that benefited large-scale farmers…at the expense of smaller farmers, urban

8 Shirley A. Leckie and Nancy J. Parezo, Their Own Frontier: Women Intellectuals Re- Visioning the American West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008). 9 Catherine Jane Lavender, Scientists and Storytellers: Feminist Anthropologists and the Construction of the American Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006); Leckie and Parezo, Their Own Frontier; Nancy Parezo, Hidden Scholars: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993). 10 Cindy Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870-1945 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 121; Shane Hamilton, Trucking Country: The Road to America’s Wal-Mart Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 24; Ann Vileisis, Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get it Back (Washington: Island Press, 2008), 7-8.

4 workers, and consumers.”11 Government employees during the New Deal, such as

Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, directed agriculture policies toward Anglo farmers and large-scale farming.12

Food historians argue that Papago agricultural changes occurred as adaptations for survival in the invading American economy. According to these sources, the Papago changes in irrigation resulted in a transition away from gathering plants and toward commercially farmed land.13 The traditional tepary beans and other desert foods reduce blood sugar, as a way to prevent and control diabetes.14 Therefore a switch from growing the tepary beans to growing wheat or cash crops critically altered Papago diet.

There is a cross-discipline discourse about the health benefits of the traditional diet and how the United States’ introduction of other foods led to diabetes.15 The New Deal programming allowed the federal officials to promote farming products and government subsidies while spreading nutrition information.16 Therefore nutrition was not always as prioritized as profit was. Food historians, such as Ann Vileisis are looking into the agricultural past as a way to guide society toward a healthier future.17

11 Hamilton, Trucking Country, 14. 12 Hamilton, Trucking Country, 17-19. 13 David Rich Lewis, Neither Wolf nor Dog: American Indians, Environment, and Agrarian Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Gary Paul Nahan, Enduring Seeds: Native American Agriculture and Wild Plant Conversation (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1989). 14 Gary Paul Nabhan, Gathering the Desert (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985); “Farming the Monsoon: A Return to Traditional Tohono O’odham Foods,” 14-17. 15 Fat and Happy?; Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories (New York: Anchor Books, 2008); Gary P. Nabhan, Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity (Washington: Island Press, 2004). 16 Susan Levine, School Lunch Politics: The Surprising History of America’s Favorite Welfare Program (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 39. 17 Vileisis, Kitchen Literacy, 11.

5 As far as Indian policy, historians allude to food products in the sense of land and agriculture but consumption and diet are not discussed. The sources outline Collier’s role in the policy and the tensions that he faced in his land reform and the Indian

Reorganization Act.18 Rather, in the Indian policy historians place an emphasis on water rights. However, the connection between water rights changes and changes in food is missing.19 In the time of Boasian anthropology, Collier made it his mission to uphold cultural preservation. He fought for protection of religious traditions and created organizations like the Arts and Crafts Board.20 Yet in this age of cultural preservation,

Collier and the Papago expert Ruth Underhill’s cultural preservation had a blind spot: food. With all of Collier’s emphasis on returning land to the American Indians, he did not discuss how the land movement affected foodways. Likewise, Underhill devoted attention to almost all aspects of life, but reflected less on Papago food and diet.

While acknowledging that John Collier’s employment of anthropologists to assist in government policy-making was significant, his actions were not the first instances of cross-discipline methods. When John Wesley Powell founded the Bureau of American

Ethnology in 1879 he hoped it would address American Indian issues at the time. The

Bureau was in part a reaction to the “urgency of pacifying the Indians and settling them

18 Lawrence C. Kelly, The Assault on Assimilation: John Collier and the Origins of Indian Policy Reform (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983); Daily, Battle for the BIA. 19 Thomas R. McGuire, Indian Water in the New West (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993); Donald L. Parman, "New Deal Indian Agricultural Policy and the Environment: The Papagos as a Case Study," Agricultural History 66, no. 2 (1992): 23- 33. 20 Kenneth R. Philp, “John Collier 1933-1945,” in The Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1824-1977, ed. Robert M. Kvasnicka and Herman J. Viola (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970), 273-282.

6 on reservations.” 21 Almost half a century later, Collier’s motivations of using anthropology vested in the understanding and preservation of American Indian cultures.

His employment of Ruth Underhill, among other anthropologists, was part of an effort to

“avoid imposing unworkable alien forms” upon existing American Indian communities.22

I will argue that this mission influenced Collier and Underhill’s work on the Papago of southern Arizona in the 1930s. However, the Indian New Deal guided the focuses of anthropologists away from the preservation of an essential aspect of culture, traditional diet.

How was food lost in the mission of cultural preservation? Perhaps if food and diet had received greater attention, the Papago situation would be different today.

Nonetheless, it is valuable to understand how diet was dismissed, ignored, or forgotten.

TOCA stated:

it is not enough to simply preserve cultural activities, such as ceremonies, songs

and stories. The material basis out of which these cultural practices grew must

also be maintained. A ground blessing dance looses [sic] much of its power

when only ever performed for an audience in an auditorium rather than in the

fields were [sic] the O’odham have planted for generations.23

With the material basis being the desert foods that served as the foundation for cultural practices, the central element of life was not preserved. The emphasis on land

21 Regna Darnell, And Along Came Boas (Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1998), 36-37. 22 D'Arcy McNickle, "Anthropology and the Indian Reorganization Act," in The Uses of Anthropology, ed. Walter Goldschmidt (Washington: American Anthropological Association, 1979), 53. 23 Lopez, Reader and Buseck, Community Attitudes Toward Traditional Tohono O’odham Foods, 5.

7 autonomy and economic assimilation marginalized the continuation of the traditional

Papago diet, leading to dire consequences in the future. This link between anthropology, food, and Indian policy illustrates how food was forgotten. It is said that farming declined when the Papago lost their land, but I will argue that it declined when it was returned to them. The land was returned in the context of the government utilizing anthropology and supporting cultural preservation. Yet the culture that was to be preserved did not extend to the foodways of the Papago.

Early Anthropology and the Papago

It is important to understand the developments in anthropology in the context of

American Indians and culture at this time. John Collier, belonging to the Boasian era of anthropology, was not isolated in his approach to cultural anthropology and ethnography. Prior to Franz Boas, the school of thought was less marked by a respect for the value in diversity. For instance, John Wesley Powell viewed language as the foremost factor to organize anthropology whereas Boas insisted that it was the combination of all facets that classify a group.24 Boas’ stresses on valuing all aspects of culture and cultural relativism were debuting onto the anthropology stage. Collier and

Underhill intended to incorporate these theories in their works about land use and farming in a way previous anthropologists did not.

In 1894, WJ McGee of the Bureau of American Ethnology traveled to the

Southwest to study the Papago and recorded his experiences. He briefly mentioned

Papago food in his field notes, although it is clear that he has limited interest in the

24 Darnell, And Along Came Boas, 38-39.

8 matter. He made a point to describe one meal in which “the woman was making tortillas with great skill” and he devoted detail to his record that she was “making them some 15 inches in diameter and of paper-like thinness.”25 Unfortunately, that is the extent of

McGee’s description of Papago foodways, which may indicate a lack of his own investment rather than that of the Bureau.

About ten years later, Smithsonian ethnologist Frank Russell dedicated a substantial portion of writing to diet in "The Pima Indians," in 26th Annual Report of the

Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1904-

1905. Although it discussed the Pima, it is evidence for the Pima’s southern relatives as well. It is true that there is no mention of diabetes in this report, which was published in

1908. It was neither listed independently nor noted under the title “Epidemics”. Despite the lack of the terminology, there was a note on health. Russell reported “they are noticeably heavier than individuals belonging to the tribes on the Colorado plateau to the north and the northeast, and many old persons exhibit a degree of obesity that is in striking contrast with the ‘tall and sinewy’ Indian conventionalized in popular thought.”26

In addition to this description, there is an image on the following page with a caption that says “Fat Louisa.”27

The cultural customs surrounding food were mentioned, although Russell’s description was clearly pre-Boasian. Russell wrote about foodways in a way to explain health since he recorded “the habit of eating all the food prepared for each meal, which

25 WJ. McGee, Trails to Tiburón: the 1894 and 1895 Field Diaries of WJ McGee (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000), 38. 26 Frank Russell, "The Pima Indians," in 26th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1904-1905 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908), 66. 27 Russell, “The Pima Indians,” 67.

9 includes the rule of etiquette prescribing that one must eat all that is set before him.”28

The tone of Russell’s report alluded to gluttony and he ended the explanation there.

The report lacked any further investigation of why this may be, or what the cultural influences of meal times and meal practices may be. Russell’s discussion continued when he specifically mentioned the Papago’s subsistence strategy as a comparison to the Pima’s. He said “the resort to uncultivated products such as their Papago cousins to the southward wholly subsisted upon did not prevent the Pimas from attaining proficiency in agriculture.”29 The phrasing of the Papago subsistence as a “resort” rather than a strategy shows Russell’s context of anthropology. At this time, it was still common thought that societies were progressive and thus gathering was a primitive step toward civilized agriculture.

It is noteworthy that where McGee’s study lacked understanding of cultural complexity, Russell’s lacked cultural sensitivity. When Boas entered the anthropology scene, he motivated his students to feel conscience and responsibility toward their work.30 This is perhaps what inspired Collier to connect anthropological studies to policy-making in the Indian New Deal. In the 1930s, anthropology recognized a

“growing interest in processes of acculturation and culture change.”31 Despite Boas’ influence on Collier’s thoughts, Boas did not support Collier’s position as Indian

Commissioner.32 Boas believed that Collier’s attempts to reverse land allotment back to

28 Russell, “The Pima Indians,” 69. 29 Russell, “The Pima Indians,” 67-68. 30 May Ebihara, "American Ethnology in the 1930s: Contexts and Currents," in Social Contexts of American Ethnology, 1840-1984, ed. June Helm (Washington: American Anthropological Association, 1985), 113. 31 Ebihara, “American Ethnology in the 1930s,”110. 32 George W. Stocking Jr., "Anthropology as Kulturkampf: Science and Politics in the

10 communal ownership would fail because “the communal ties binding these Indians had been largely destroyed.”33 However, Collier and his anthropologists set out to disprove the common belief that American Indian traditional lifestyles could no longer contribute usefulness to society.34

Collier dedicated the Indian New Deal to the reorganization of tribal lands to their original owners. Unfortunately, while focusing on land use, especially soil conservation and livestock of the Navajo, Collier’s administration dedicated little focus to foodways and diet. This was unfortunate since Collier’s land act was in response to the

1887 Dawes Act, which divided reservations in an effort to “encourage each family to farm its own land” and support assimilation. Yet the bill resulted in increasing white settlement of Indian lands and the government neither secured traditional lands nor protected traditional farming for the tribes involved in allotment.35 When Collier introduced the Wheeler-Howard Act to end allotment, there was an opportunity to respond to the decline in farming as well; nonetheless, Collier did not pursue farming as much as land ownership in general. Collier asserted rather “the bill would not compel

Indians to use their lands instead of renting them; but it would help the use of their lands by Indians, and would lay the basis for increased rentals.”36 Thus the bill opened the door to return to farming while it simultaneously provided rental and credit opportunities to assimilate in the American economy. Collier acknowledged the failures of

Career of Franz Boas", in The Uses of Anthropology, ed. Walter Goldschmidt (Washington: American Anthropological Association, 1979) 45. 33 Lawrence C. Kelly, "Anthropology and Anthropologists in the Indian New Deal," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 16 (1980): 7. 34 McNickle, "Anthropology and the Indian Reorganization Act," 53. 35 Carlson, “Federal Policy and Indian Land,” 34. 36 John Collier, The Purpose and Operation of the Wheeler-Howard Indian Rights Bill, (S. 2755; H.R. 7902), (Washington: 1934), 8.

11 government dealings in Indian affairs in the past but assured the Senate and House committees, “the bill does not bring to an end, or imply or contemplate, a cessation of

Federal guardianship and special federal services.”37 It is these special federal services promoting land, water, and agriculture programs that served New Deal programs. It is noted that under Collier and the Department of Agriculture, “efforts to convince farmers to conserve top soil, to reduce farm surpluses, and to resettle sharecroppers and marginal farm workers were set in motion.”38 Yet American Indians were not the able to reap the benefits of these plans, as seen in the case of the Papago.

The programs that were administered during this time were a part of Roosevelt’s

New Deal. The services and departments that developed as a result provided employment outside agriculture as well. In fact, during the Depression, anthropologists increasingly started to turn toward the government for employment.39 It was because of this that Ruth Underhill was able to acquire employment through the Indian Office to begin fieldwork with the Papago.40 After the American Anthropological Association supported Collier’s employment of anthropologists in 1934, he was able to hire Underhill while she was working with the Papago.41 At the same meeting of support, the

“Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace…‘vigorously and sympathetically’ expressed his interest in the preservation of the Indian subsistence economy and culture.”42 The

37 Collier, The Purpose and Operation of the Wheeler-Howard Indian Rights Bill, 8. 38 Lawrence C. Kelly, "Why Applied Anthropology Developed When It Did: A Commentary on People, Money, and Changing Times, 1930-1945," in Social Contexts of American Ethnology, 1840-1984, ed. June Helm (Washington: American Anthropological Association, 1985), 126. 39 Ebihara, "American Ethnology in the 1930s," 111. 40 Kelly, “Why Applied Anthropology Developed When It Did”, 128. 41 Kelly, “Anthropology and Anthropologists in the Indian New Deal,” 9. 42 Kelly, “Anthropology and Anthropologists in the Indian New Deal”, 8.

12 collaboration with the Department of Agriculture in the 1930s perhaps marked the beginning of the government’s recognition of the importance of the anthropology of food. As a part of the New Deal era, the U.S.D.A. expanded toward the necessities of welfare both outside and inside American Indian communities.43

However, the programs, such as the Farm Security Administration, were not geared unconditionally toward any farm. Rather than American Indian agriculture, the programs served migrant communities that farmed commercially. The use of anthropologists to study food and land use in the 1930s was part of the effort to “build upon and strengthen native lifeways, instead of weakening them as had previous federal policies.”44 However, the government’s decision to promote Anglo-American farming over traditional Papago subsistence in the Southwest, weakened foodways. As is evident in the sociology and government reports of the time, New Deal farming programs were directed toward bringing the white rural farmers out of poverty and the

American economy out the Depression. They were not focused on encouraging

American Indian traditional farming.

E.D. Tetreau was a rural sociologist and professor at the University of Arizona when he wrote about farm labor in the 1930s in Arizona.45 In his “Goals for Agriculture in the Southwest”, he wrote about the aspirations for farm populations in 1935. Writing about farmers in the Southwest, he mentioned white and black farmers with no attention

43 Edward Montgomery and John W. Bennett, "Anthropological Studies of Food and Nutrition: The 1940s and the 1970s", in The Uses of Anthropology, ed. Walter Goldschmidt (Washington: American Anthropological Association, 1979), 128. 44 Kelly, “Why Applied Anthropology Developed When It Did,” 127. 45 E. D. Tetreau, The People of Arizona Irrigated Areas (S.I.:s.n.,1938), 177.

13 to the American Indian population.46 He made a call for “agriculture’s first great goal” which he argued “would be to attain and to preserve on the land a population of men and women of superior quality physical, mental and moral, as a primary contribution to the nation’s resources.”47 He argued that, “a premier achievement for agriculture would be to domicile a population whose native abilities, bodily vigor, and inherent energy” which would then “make it capable of conserving and transmitting to future generations the hardiest and most intelligent elements of our human kind.”48 It is unknown if he was dismissing the current farmers already working the land or if he was using a call for superiority as a rally to migratory farmers. In what appears to be almost propaganda of employment, he proclaimed “an adequate living as a goal for all who are engaged in agriculture in the Southwest.”49 Yet when he described these minimum requirements he described the communities that were set up for white farmers as a part of the Farm

Security Administration. He said that, “agriculture in its relation to other major industries is striving for equality” which will “mean that living conditions for workers in agriculture will correspond to those enjoyed by workers of comparable skill and ability in other industries.”50 The equality was thus between white workers of different employment sectors, not equality among workers themselves.

The emerging employment of anthropologists in the government was allowing for the individuals who were prepared and trained to identify these inequalities to become involved. McGee and Russell studied the Papago from a removed sense of studying

46 E. D. Tetreau, “Goals for Agriculture in the Southwest” Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 16, no. 3 (1935): 49. 47 Tetreau, “Goals for Agriculture in the Southwest,” 46. 48 Tetreau, “Goals for Agriculture in the Southwest,” 45. 49 Tetreau, “Goals for Agriculture in the Southwest,” 47. 50 Tetreau, “Goals for Agriculture in the Southwest,” 47.

14 the “other”. The changes of Boasian anthropology that Collier integrated into his practice sought to eradicate this ethnocentrism. Collier focused on cultural preservation and land reform, yet there was no link between preserving food systems on the land.

Where agriculture was discussed in the New Deal context, as Tetreau exemplified, it was still discussed in terms of Anglo farmers. The use of anthropologists to study

American Indian culture presented the opportunity to see how people were affected first-hand by United States government policies and programs. Ruth Underhill, the anthropologist who studied the Papago during this time, provided an essential source of insight into the tribe’s culture and the ways in which it adapted due its relationship with the federal government.

Ruth Underhill and the Papago

Ruth Underhill had already been working with the Papago when Collier hired her as a teacher for the BIA in 1934.51 Boas had sent her to work with the Papagos in 1930 as a part of her graduate education to acquire fieldwork experience.52 She performed her ethnology as instructed by Ruth Benedict, her Boasian mentor at Columbia, who she met when she first arrived at Columbia. Underhill followed the Boasian tradition in her ethnography, as she devoted great attention to detail in order to understand Papago life.53 The Boasian ideas of anthropology encouraged Underhill to use key informant

51 Kelly, “Anthropology and Anthropologists in the New Deal,” 1. 52 Katherine Spencer Halpern, “Women in Applied Anthropology in the Southwest: The Early Years,” in Hidden Scholars: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest, ed. Nancy J. Parezo (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), 191. 53 Kelly, “Anthropology and Anthropologists in the Indian New Deal,” 9.

15 interviews and participant observation to dictate her research.54 An approach that is now called “emic”, or understanding a culture from the inside, was precisely what Collier was looking for in his search for understanding of American Indian cultures. After

Collier hired her, Underhill continued to work for the BIA in different positions until

1949.55

Underhill’s publications, including The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their

Relatives the Pima, A Papago Calendar Record, Papago Woman, and The

Autobiography of a Papago Woman, are some of her roughly one dozen works on the

Papagos.56 As Catherine J. Lavender and Nancy J. Parezo have argued, Underhill found value in presenting their past as well as present in the way that they themselves saw it to show they were a dynamic culture in modern society.57 She was successful in building rapport with the Papago community, and her age helped her gain respect since she was 47 years old when she enrolled in the graduate program at Columbia.58 In fact,

“her quiet, serious, studious demeanor and personality were ideal for ethnographic participation in southwestern American Indian cultures.”59 These qualities (age, personality, and gender), allowed her to develop her personal relationships with community members such as Maria Chona. Underhill’s conversations with Chona ranged from topics of social and political organization to religious ceremonies to gender

54 Catherine J. Lavender and Nancy J. Parezo, “Ruth Murray Underhill: Ethnohistorian and Ethnographer for the Native Peoples,” in Their Own Frontier: Women Intellectuals Re-Visioning the American West, ed. Shirley A. Leckie and Nancy J. Parezo (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), 339. 55 Halpern, “Women in Applied Anthropology in the Southwest,” 191. 56 Lavender and Parezo, “Ruth Murray Underhill,” 337. 57 Lavender and Parezo, “Ruth Murray Underhill,” 339. 58 Lavender and Parezo, “Ruth Murray Underhill,” 344. 59 Lavender and Parezo, “Ruth Murray Underhill,” 342.

16 roles. Chona even divulged some thoughts about land and food to Underhill. While this was not an original focus of Underhill’s, she provided a voice of Papago views of land and the changes that were occurring during the Indian New Deal.

Ruth Underhill was hired as she was working on documenting the Papago way of life. While food and diet were by no means a central theme of her interests, her writings unveil the contemporary opinions of the time. In her pamphlet about the Papago calendar, Underhill explained her fieldwork on the Sells and San Xavier del Bac reservations on which “between June, 1931, and November, 1935, the writer spent, altogether, fifteen months in a study of the Papago.”60 Throughout these years with the

Papago, Underhill wrote a number of works to contribute to Collier’s mission. With her

Boasian aspirations toward integrity and responsibility, she recorded the Papago calendar as she heard it. Under the years 1856-57 she documented a part of the calendar when

an old man made a speech and told the Whites:

‘Every stick and stone on this land belongs to us. Everything that grows on it is our food – cholla, prickly pear, giant cactus, Spanish bayonet, mesquite beans, amaranth, all the roots and greens. The water is ours, the mountains. There is gold in the mountains. Everywhere I go I walk on gold; I lied down at night as though on a bed of gold, my head rests on gold and silver. These mountains, I say, are mine and the

Whites shall not disturb them’.61

In this work, Underhill did not provide commentary or explanation on behalf of the

60 Ruth Underhill, A Papago Calendar Record (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1938), 3. 61 Underhill, A Papago Calendar Record, 26.

17 government. She committed to fulfilling her duty of presenting the Papago view of the calendar, despite the sometimes-ominous feelings it invoked at the white man’s atrocities. This technique allowed for a voice that the Papago did not previously have in the federal conversations.

Yet Underhill’s affiliation with the government and its policies is evident in her stated appreciation of the wells. In the bulletin she wrote, “deep wells have been dug in many villages, so that the people no longer have to move when summer is over. Many reservoirs have been dug and tanks have been set up” and she celebrates these changes, insisting “the Papago country is no longer so hard to live in as it used to be.”62

This thought that the wells would have improved the lifestyle of the Papago reveals the conflict in Underhill’s commitment to Boasian anthropology traits. When she praised the introduction of the wells so that the Papago would not have to move, she was lacking the awareness of the disruption of a migration pattern that has worked for generations.

Underhill showed that she was impressed by the use of water in the arid desert. She said “there was irrigation a thousand years ago. Was it these very Papago and Pima who did such important work? Were they the first farmers in the Southwest?”63 It is unclear if Underhill was trying to provoke the reader’s interest with this questioning or if she was actually skeptical of the pre-Mission irrigation patterns.

Due to the rapport that Underhill developed with the Papago community, she was able to grasp a wide understanding of the culture. She chose to focus on certain subsets of culture and, similar to Collier, food was not one of those. Yet because the

Papago informed her about all aspects of Papago lifestyle, she included these findings

62 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 63. 63 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 7.

18 in her published works. It is by linking her brief mentioning of land and water that one can trace agricultural developments at this time. Her conversations with Maria Chona about food revealed these connections.

Underhill and Papago Food

It was during Underhill’s fieldwork with the Papago that the anthropology of food began to be a significant subfield of anthropology. Despite earlier ethnographic interests, such as the previously discussed reports by McGee and Russell, historians of anthropology credit the 1930s for the emergence of the field.64 In her 1940 bulletin, The

Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, Underhill presented a more narrative tone when she presented the Papagos on behalf of the U.S. Office of Indian

Affairs. Anthropology of food historians Edward Montgomery and John W. Bennett attribute studies like Underhill’s to Collier’s influence that anthropologists “came to view

American Indians more broadly as a people, rather than merely as tribal enclaves.”65

Underhill’s fieldwork serves as an example of the changes in the field.

In The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, Underhill included a section about food and admired the Papago ability to sustain life in the harsh desert. “It does not look like good country for farming. Yet the Papago have been farming here for hundreds of years…In fact, they knew how to live where no white man could have lived at all, in former days.”66 Underhill did not attempt to hide her admiration of the Papago foodways. Her indication that the Papago knew where to live where a

64 Montgomery and Bennett, Anthropological Studies of Food and Nutrition, 128. 65 Montgomery and Bennett, Anthropological Studies of Food and Nutrition, 125. 66 Ruth Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima (Washington: Education Division, U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, 1940), 5.

19 white man could not was a bold statement that reflects the influence of cultural relativism on her school of thought. Yet, the addition of ‘in former days’ alludes to her belief that the white man’s contemporary technologies would achieve superior, or at least equal, success.

Underhill’s approach was not one of a food anthropologist of the era, since she explains the aspect of culture as a light point of interest. When studying food was introduced, anthropologists described it as “the study of ‘food habits’” and “the work in the 1940s was almost entirely related to problems of practical application and policy.”67

While integrating food, diet, and agricultural practices into conversation, Underhill did not include them in her report in an attempt to influence policy. She provided the information as a Boasian interest in all aspects of culture. In this way, Underhill was on the brink of the anthropology of food, uninfluenced by the New Deal’s agendas and

“heightened consciousness of social problems.”68

While it was not her focus, Ruth Underhill did comment on Papago farming traditions of the past and practices during her time. She credited Father Kino and the

Spaniards for some of the Papago farming techniques that were still being used when she studied.69 These were practices that the Papago adopted because they found them to be useful. Otherwise, Underhill argued that the Papago were not pressured to make changes to their livelihood. She said “it was to Mexico that the Papago felt allegiance, for their desert country was still forbidding to both miners and ranchers, and they were

67 Montgomery and Bennett, Anthropological Studies of Food and Nutrition, 124. 68 Montgomery and Bennett, Anthropological Studies of Food and Nutrition, 125. 69 Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman,” 1.

20 let to follow their old customs almost unmolested.”70 This was not the case once the

United States gained the territory and acquired interest in the area. Once the United

States government implemented programs, there were direct and indirect effects on

Papago farming and food systems.

Maria Chona, Underhill’s key informant, shared her experiences with Papago foods and Anglo foods. The clearest example of shifting from traditional to new was the introduction of wheat. Underhill explained that Kino brought wheat to the Papagos soon after 1687.71 Despite the early introduction, however, it appeared that Chona still preferred gruel, made from native plants. Chona recalled how her mother prepared gruel made of seeds, “She ground up seeds into flour. Not wheat flour – we had no wheat.”72 It was not clarified if Chona did not have wheat because her family chose not to grow it or if it was not successful. Chona did not sound disappointed that she was not consuming the modern Anglo wheat. On the contrary, she praised her traditional meal, “Oh, good that gruel was! I have never tasted anything like it. 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.“73 Chona’s opinions about the introduction of Anglo foods unveiled the tensions that lie between traditional farming and federal government intervention. It was during her lifetime that she witnessed the implementation of such changes.

Therefore by the 1930s and 1940s, when Underhill’s works were published, there was an anthropological field of “food habits” and the study of cultural foodways and

70 Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman.” 1. 71 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 61. 72 Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman,” 8. 73 Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman,” 8.

21 diets. As Montgomery and Bennett argue “only the concept caught on, whereas the effort to place the work theoretically in academic anthropology…did not.”74 This may be true in Underhill’s case. She reported on Papago foodways and the ways that they changed as a topic of interest, or as a concept. Yet she did not dive into the ways in which food is a foundation of culture and fits within the academic theory of cultural preservation. Foodways were not recognized as an essential aspect of these cultural patterns.

Papago Land

Although she was not struck by food, Underhill, sometimes accused of romanticizing American Indian lifestyles, did find inspiration in Chona’s reverence for land. Underhill said that previous to meeting Chona, “Land, to me, was a possession to be claimed and fought over by farmers, builders, exploiters – yes – and patriots.”75 Then she explains how “from this old Papago woman I was to learn, it is the land that possesses the people.”76 She was inspired by the way that the land could affect all parts of culture and all parts of life. Through her emic approaches, Underhill believed that her

Anglo society could learn a great deal from American Indian societies.77 Underhill challenged the patriarchal rights of the United States with her inclusion of Maria

Chona’s critical thoughts on the federal government. Chona said, “‘but did Vasindone

[Washington] make our land? No! That was Earthmaker. In the Beginning. He make it

74 Montgomery and Bennett, Anthropological Studies of Food and Nutrition, 127. 75 Ruth Underhill, Papago Woman (Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc., 1985), 3. 76 Ruth Underhill, Papago Woman, 3. 77 Lavender and Parezo, “Ruth Murray Underhill,” 357.

22 for us – Papagos, Desert People!’”78 Underhill’s decision to incorporate Chona’s critiques presented opportunities for understanding in a way that was not possible before Boasian emic methodologies.

Underhill developed an interest in studying land when she was hired to complete soil conservation economic surveys as she was working with Chona.79 It is interesting to read how her conception of land changed during the 1930s and then to read her reflections in Red America, which she published in 1953. In Red America she wrote about the Papago saying that,

for almost two hundred years after Father Kino departed, they were left

practically alone. They had time to grow used to wheat, horses, and cattle…The

drought of the thirties was an ordeal, and it was then that the government began

to dig some wells for them and make recommendations about soil conservation.

The quiet Papago objected to being whirled off their feet, but slowly they

accepted the government arrangements.80

In her 1940 bulletin, she praised the advent of digging wells so that “Papago country is no longer so hard to live in as it used to be.”81 Her own employment in the soil conservation surveys and Department of Agriculture and her later critique of the organizations show her development as well. Underhill stated “when they kept their land, government farmers told them what to raise and sold the produce for them” and

78 Underhill, Papago Woman, 3. 79 Lavender and Parezo, “Ruth Murray Underhill,” 358. 80 Ruth Underhill, Red Man’s America: a History of Indians in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 199-200. 81 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 63.

23 they “had not been given a chance to govern themselves.”82 Her ideas about governance conflicted with Collier’s when she critiqued the constitutions that Collier was promoting and she supported the Papago in their decision not to ratify their constitution.

Her outspokenness led to consequences in which “Collier removed Underhill, whom he now viewed as something of an agent provocateur.”83 This is the reason for her brief employment with the soil conservation and her subsequent transition to positions in education reform. Despite their disagreements, Underhill wrote well about Collier years later in her 1953 book, including him in her statement about addressing the needs of

American Indians in which “two men of good will took hold of this problem, President

Roosevelt’s Secretary of Interior, Harold Ickes, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs,

John Collier.”84

With her study of Papago culture, Underhill acquired a reverence for the land that

Papago positioned their livelihood around. She was able to record Chona’s opinions about the centrality of land and the government’s claimed possession of it. In 1953 she published her thoughts about how the government controlled what the Papago were able to farm, even when they owned the land again. This realization was a product of historical insight that she achieved years later. In the actual context of the Indian New

Deal, however, the focus lay on returning the land rather than returning agricultural control.

82 Underhill, Red Man’s America, 332. 83 Lavender and Parezo, “Ruth Murray Underhill,” 358. 84 Underhill, Red Man’s America, 332.

24 Collier, Land, and the Indian New Deal

Land was the central focus of the 1934 Indian Reorganization bill, as property is linked with power in government. The bill clearly stated the purpose to stop land allotment.85 In 1934 Collier reported, “in 1887, the Indians were owners of 136,340,950 acres of the best land. In 1933 they were owners of 47,311,099 acres, of which a full

20,000,000 acres were desert or semi-desert. The surface value of the Indian-owned lands had shrunk 90 percent in these forty-six years.”86 As the Papago had fully subsisted on agriculture and gathering in the desert, it is noteworthy that Collier deemed it not farmable. Yet Collier lamented “the fractionalizing of allotted Indian lands rushes on… millions of their best acres remain unusable to the Indians.”87 This was in part due to the New Deal programs and the encouragement of land use and irrigation for crops in the American economy.

In a 1935 letter to the editor of the Albuquerque Journal, Collier defended a previous statement about Indian poverty. He originally claimed:

the Indian poverty is intense and all but universal; the cumulative stripping and

breaking-down process of more than fifty years is what we are trying to rectify

now…And unless new aid be forthcoming for those Indians who possess no

resources at all and no employment opportunity, there will take place in the

coming winter a physical extermination of Indians.88

85 John Collier, The Indians of the Americas (New York: W.W. Norton, 1947), 265. 86 John Collier, “Indians at Work,” Survey Graphic 23, no. 6 (1934): paragraph 33. 87 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 265. 88John Collier to editor, Albuquerque Journal, 22 October 1935, John Collier Papers, 1922-1968, Yale University Library, MS 146, microfilm edition, 1980 [hereafter cited as JCP].

25 His prediction of the looming crisis was further explained throughout the letter, exposing

Collier’s position on Indians in the Southwest as well. He clarified to the editor that “the

Indians whom I referred to in the above-quoted statement are not in New Mexico and

Arizona,” rather his statement referred to “the Indians whose situation has been ruined through the double process of land allotment and of the destruction of tribal life.”89 It is interesting that Collier separated the Southwest from the other tribal nations in his discussions. The Southwest was less affected by land allotment. The year before, at the Southern Arizona Indian Conference, the record commented on allotment, stating,

“the Arizona tribes have not been very much affected by this act.”90 Acknowledging that the Southwest tribes suffered less from allotment, there is less exploration into how land ownership affected these tribes. Collier discussed therefore that they were better off, although they possessed few resources.

Collier used the Southwest as an example of success in assimilation and positive relations. He continued: “it would be easy indeed, and comfortable, to forget about these ruined Indians, and to concentrate one’s thoughts and one’s publicity upon tribes like the Navajos, Pimas, Papagos, Pueblos, and Apaches.”91 This statement implied that the Papago were being promoted as an example of having a successful relationship with the federal government. He did not elaborate on his statement of what

“tribes like” would mean, but the context emphasizes positivity. He said “and the available emergency moneys for Indians could not, under the law, be shifted from the

89 John Collier to editor, October 22, 1935, JCP. 90 Southern Arizona Indian Conference March 15, 1934. 9:27 o’clock A.M, JCP. 91 John Collier to editor, October 22, 1935, JCP.

26 more fortunate areas like the Southwest to these extremely unfortunate areas.”92 If the

Papago were so much better off than other tribes around the country at this time, why do they now have the highest rate of diabetes?

This disconnect may be because there was less emphasis on what was being done with the land than there was on the lawful ownership of the land. Collier said that the Indian New Deal “has been safely begun, but has not yet progressed two percent toward the goal. I am referring to the 100,000 or more landless Indians. Meantime, these Indians cannot get employment. They posses not even subsistence gardens.”93

This was in the same letter previously mentioned, as he was speaking about the tribes that do not include those in New Mexico and Arizona. So then do those in the

Southwest posses these gardens? It seems paradoxical that the government would mourn the lack of food gardens when the government employment programs had drawn others away from their farming to work for irrigation and farm for federal commercial programs. Collier’s anthropological encouragement to preserve culture contradicts programs that were planted to encourage assimilation. The contradiction was shown when Collier quoted President Roosevelt as testimony for the Indian New Deal.

Roosevelt asserted that “in offering the Indian these natural rights of man, we will more nearly discharge the federal responsibility for his welfare than through compulsory guardianship that has destroyed initiative and the liberty to develop his own culture.”94

This statement hides the idea that the tribes could have initiative as long as it coincided with the federal government’s goals.

92 John Collier to editor, October 22, 1935, JCP. 93 John Collier to editor, October 22, 1935, JCP. 94 Collier, “Indians at Work,” paragraph 28.

27 Collier centered the Indian New Deal on the premise of returning land to the tribes that lost it during allotment. He wrote that the Southwest tribes were better off because they had been less affected by allotment, as the Anglos often considered the desert unusable land for agriculture. He presented the Papago as an example of success, as far as relationships between tribes and the federal government. However,

Collier did not address the balance between the legal ownership of land and the actual control and sovereignty to make decisions regarding the land. As Underhill and

Chona’s discussion pointed out earlier, ownership of land does not protect it from government influence or control.

Papago and Water

As the discussion of land unfolded, it became evident in the desert that water was a central issue for agricultural development. Ruth Underhill commented on the wells in her Papago calendar recordings. For the year 1914, the calendar said “the government put money out for some work at the Hollow Place to take care of the water.

There was much employment.”95 While Underhill demonstrated support for these public works, the damming and re-routing of waterways for the white-American agricultural economy initially disturbed the previous patterns of Papago subsistence. Despite any effort to amend the issue, irrigation projects continued to favor nearby Anglo farms.96 In addition to this dilemma, it appeared that when the government was able to ensure water for Papago farms, it was ensuring it for commercial farming rather than food.

95 Underhill, A Papago Calendar Record, 61. 96 Nabhan, Enduring Seeds, 61.

28 Insights into the Papago experience with water are provided by Underhill’s 1936 autobiography of Maria Chona. Underhill explained that she used an interpreter during the interviews in an effort to make the content as accurate as possible.97 Although

Underhill did have a limited knowledge of the Papago language, she made careful note of the use of a translator. When discussing water in her bulletin, Underhill stated that what made the Papago distinct from the Pima was the lack of water on Papago land, she used this lack as the defining characteristic.98 This was verified by Maria Chona’s inclusion of Papago water practices in her autobiography.

Underhill’s interviews with Chona occurred at a crucial point when Papago water practices were changing. Just decades earlier, the landscape had begun to change as

Anglos moved to the Southwest. In fact, due to drought, diversion, and groundwater pumping, the water resources were nearly exhausted.99 So when Underhill commented that “there are no running streams” in her 1936 publication, she may not have been aware of previous waterways. Yet she included in her Papago background descriptions that “Papago had their fields just below the mouth of the stream bed where the water would soak them every time.”100 Chona recalled that water only came from rain and that once the rainy season was over, they had to run to the hills for the water in areas where crops could grow.101 Chona reflected on the crops they grew in the beds that Underhill described, including: corn, prickly pear, and cholla cactus, amongst

97 Ruth Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman,” American Anthropologist 38, no. 3 (1936): 3. 98 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 6. 99 Nabhan, Enduring Seeds, 59. 100 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 8. 101 Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman,” 6.

29 others.102 It took Underhill’s anthropological perspective to recognize these crops that otherwise would not constitute as traditional farming products. Yet Underhill studied food as an avenue to explore other customs and did not continue her investigation of foodways.

Underhill wrote about the migratory patterns of the Papago and the water uses in the past tense, indicating her awareness that changes had occurred. She also wrote about the rain basins that were dug to catch water for uses other than agriculture.103

The way that Underhill recorded Chona’s recollections reflected pride in Chona’s tone, she was proud of her identity with the Desert People. “We knew how to use water. We have a word that means thirst-enduring and that is what we were taught to be,” explained Chona.104 Therefore water use was an essential part of Papago culture, and when Anglos changed it, they changed culture.

Maria Chona’s knowledge of water conservation also became evident in her description of Papago eating practices. When Frank Russell had commented a few decades earlier on the Pima and Papago eating practices in 1908, he descriptively wrote: “the cooking vessels know no cleansing except the scraping that seeks the last particle of food that may cling to them, the rasping tongue of the starving dog, or the hasty slopping of a little cold water into them just before using again.”105 He argued that they were fortunate that “the evil effects of slovenliness are reduced by the arid environment killing germs.”106 This perception was not uncommon in his era of

102 Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman,” 5. 103 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 8. 104 Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman,” 7. 105 Russell, "The Pima Indians," 69. 106 Russell, "The Pima Indians," 69.

30 ethnography. However, by the time that Underhill entered the scene, her Boasian dedication to anthropology was illustrated in her transcription. It was almost thirty years after Russell’s comment about lack of hygiene and yet Chona unknowingly provided a rebuttal. She was describing her meal practices and she said, “when we had finished we did not wash the dishes. How could we, with no water! We scooped food out with our knuckles…I do not like water on my dishes even now. They feel so smooth.”107

With the introduction of new ethnographic methods and the emphasis on Chona’s perspective, came understanding. The decision to not wash dishes was not a decision to be unclean, as assessed by Anglo ideas of cleanliness. It was with an economical effort to conserve water and survive in the desert.

Water use and the changes in waterways continued to be a factor in the agricultural changes throughout the 1930s. In fact, it was around the time of Underhill’s stay that the labor required for the new groundwater pumping (and dams) provided wage work for the Papagos.108 Not only did the new system for water affect the environment, but also it affected the labor economy of the reservation. The irrigation projects usually benefitted Anglo farmers rather than Papago farmers anyway.109

Leaving their land to work on another farm did occur before the white Americans arrived, as Papagos would sometimes work for the Pima. Underhill recorded “‘we are not lazy people,’ they always say. ‘When there is no water in our own land, we go to

107 Underhill, “The Autobiography of a Papago Woman,” 9. 108 Nabhan, Gathering the Desert, 119. 109 Nabhan, Enduring Seeds, 61.

31 work somewhere else’.”110 But when Papago men left for wage work, they were not able to cultivate agriculture at home.

Papago and Wage Labor

In her anthropological interviews with Maria Chona, Underhill learned about the

Papago water traditions, such as migratory patterns and irrigation. The introduction of wells and Anglo waterways in the 1930s began to change these traditions and the farming of desert crops. Farming corn or prickly pear, conserving water, and showing strength against thirst were all attributes that shaped Papago culture. Partly due to leaving for the government work or to pick cotton, there was a dramatic decrease in

Southwest farming in the 1930s. According to historian Gary Paul Nabhan, “Pima families were farming less land for themselves in the thirties than they were at the time of the Civil War” and thus sought wages.111 One can infer this was a similar situation for the Papago, as they were the closest neighbors and faced similar circumstances. This was not unique to the Papago and Maria Chona’s situation. Across the country there was about a 10% decrease in Indian agriculture employment between 1910 and

1930.112 However, the cotton industry, specifically, had a dramatic influence on Papago livelihood.

Underhill commented on the cotton industry before it was commercialized and subsidized by the federal government. She said that the Papago had worked with cotton for years before, although “only a few old men had fields of it and these were

110 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 39. 111 Nabhan, Enduring Seeds, 60. 112 Nabhan, Enduring Seeds, 62.

32 very small, but cotton was valuable and people who did not raise it came to trade for it with corn and beans and deer meat.”113 Once Anglos realized the value of cotton farming in the Southwest, there was increasing assimilation of Papago into the Anglo economy. Employment increased in 1918, “when World War I cut off the United States from supplies of Egyptian long-stable cotton, and a boll weevil infestation simultaneously hit the South.”114 Rather than returning to traditional farming, this cotton crisis opened the door to wage labor.

In the 1930s especially, Papago participation in the wage labor economy became pronounced due to the government programming. The New Deal was introducing commercial farming incentives for Papagos and Anglos alike. In her 1940 bulletin,

Underhill noted, “their business is mostly farming and raising cattle” but she continues explaining how “lately” they have worked for the government.115 Her lack of mentioning of the cotton farming is interesting, perhaps a result of the date of this publication. By this time, the Papago were participating in all kinds of industries. This is because the cotton farming caused effects deeper than earning cash.

First and foremost, cotton farming caused changes in terms of traditional Papago lifestyle. With the opportunity to make money around them, they no longer needed to follow the seasons and migrate according to subsistence patterns.116 Not only were the fields surrounding the reservations, but also the waterways were changing since water was being drawn for Anglo farming practices. The shift in water further affected labor in the 1930s as “irrigated crop production based on big dams and groundwater pumping

113 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 19. 114 Samuel L. Stanley, American Indian Economic Development, 534. 115 Underhill, The Papago Indians of Arizona and Their Relatives the Pima, 63. 116 Stanley, American Indian Economic Development, 534.

33 pulled them off reservation to work for wages.”117 The time and resources traditionally spent farming Papago foods was now spent farming for cash. This began a slope away from agricultural independence and toward economic dependence.

Already aware of this rising issue in 1935, Theodore Hall, the superintendent at the Papago Sells Reservation, promoted a tribal council organization. He hoped it would provide an opportunity to “redevelop a self-sufficient economy since during the depression years more than 60 percent of the Papagos’ income had come to be based on wages.”118 One can see the effects of the Depression on the wage labor economy as a whole by examining the Handbook of Labor Statistics for 1936 that was distributed by the United States Department of Labor. Fortunately for Arizona laborers, the wages were higher than the national average during these years. According to the statistics, the United States “average wage rates for picking 100 pounds of seed cotton in the different cotton-growing States” in 1924 was $1.25 and in Arizona it was $1.60. Yet both figures faced a dramatic decrease by 1934 with the United States average at $0.60 and the Arizona average at $0.90.119

Once the Papagos were introduced to wage labor, the benefits and the profits of the economic system decreased. In 1942, in the middle of a wartime economy, scholar

Edward Franklin Castetter spoke of the affects as a positive force. Castetter argued:

It is certain that the average amount of land cultivated per person among the

Pima and Papago is now considerably higher than formerly. Advent of the whites

117 Nabhan, Gathering the Desert, 119. 118 Graham D. Taylor, The New Deal and American Indian Tribalism: The Administration of the Indian Reorganization Act, 1934-45 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), 77. 119 United States, Handbook of Labor Statistics, 1936 Edition, no. 616 (Washington: U.S. Govt. Print. Off), 935.

34 and introduction of the motive for growing a surplus for profit greatly stimulated

development of additional acreages; aboriginal farming was purely for

subsistence.120

If he meant “higher” to signify the effects of the Indian New Deal this may be true as a statistic of acreage or profit. However, the use of this cultivated land changed so dramatically that the situation is less certain than Castetter presents it. Yet even in

1942 Castetter cautioned against what has happened and the danger of dwelling upon it. He said that “work for wages, with its concomitant extensive trade at stores by cash and barter, has so greatly distorted the original economic picture that it is now very difficult to reconstruct the ancient situation regarding land utilization…”121 However, this

“ancient situation” previously provided the livelihood and nutrition for an entire population.

The traditional desires for Papago land use were washed away with the introduction into the Anglo economy. One of the main parts of the Indian

Reorganization Act, according to Collier was “a system of agricultural and industrial credit was to be established, and the needed funds authorized.”122 Already there was the shift toward agricultural credit and assimilation in the Anglo market. Collier argued

“capital goods are necessary to freedom, and responsibility must be applied to capital goods: a tribe that handles its revolving credit fund irresponsibly must know that shrunken credit will be its lot tomorrow.”123 An interesting comment, asserted after the

120 Edward Franklin Castetter and Willis Harvey Bell, Pima and Papago Agriculture (Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press, 1942), 132. 121 Castetter and Bell, Pima and Papago Agriculture, 77. 122 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 265. 123 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 262.

35 Great Depression and decline of faith in the American economy. The Indian Service was attempting to assimilate American Indians into the economy in the era when it was trying to rebuild itself after crumbling. However, the American Indian need for employment and the government’s need for labor aligned and directed American

Indians off of Collier’s path for land autonomy.

While the integration into the wage economy drew farmers away from traditional crops, it is important to note the supposed ability of the Papago to choose to participate.

While Collier was hoping to return land autonomy, there was less emphasis that tribes must also achieve autonomy over decisions about use of the land. The Land Planning

Committee of the National Resources Board declared “labor opportunities for the Indian of the future must follow relatively simple lines, such as subsistence farming, stock raising, logging, and fishing.”124 This perception of returning land contradicted the sovereignty that land ownership was supposed to inspire. Thus there needed to be a balance that was not explored between encouraging opportunity for assimilation and encouraging cultural preservation of agriculture. In an effort to assimilate and employ

American Indians, the Papago were shifted away from traditional livelihoods. The contexts of economic demands from the New Deal, Great Depression, and World War I overshadowed Collier’s originally stated goals of cultural preservation.

Collier’s Reflections on Indian New Deal and How it Affected Papago

In his 1947 book titled The Indians of the Americas, John Collier reflected on the successes and failures of his involvement in the 1930s in an effort to explain his

124 United States, Indian Land Problems and Policies (Washington: Govt. Print. Off, 1935), 4.

36 policies. Opening with his romantic views of American Indian cultures and pasts, Collier made a call for action to “recapture this power” so that “the earth’s natural resources and web of life would not be irrevocably wasted within the twentieth century, which is the prospect now.”125 He introduced his principles to achieve this goal and emphasized

“that research and then more research is essential to the program” in defense of his employment of anthropologists in the federal service.126 More than a decade after hiring anthropologists like Ruth Underhill, Collier was still promoting his Boasian field techniques. Although in 1935, “Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes had not yet accepted the concept of a government anthropologist,” Collier seemed to omit this early stage.127 In his 1947 recollection, he said that he developed his principles “always with the firm support of Harold L. Ickes.”128 Collier supported his methods and launched into a discussion of his principles. He noted that it was due to “such integrative research” that the Soil Conservation Service was created in 1933, later providing land rehabilitation and employment in the Southwest.129 It was through the programs like the

Soil Conservation Service that conditions of land were receiving attention. The third principle that Collier stated in his book was that “the land, held, used and cherished in the way the particular Indian group desires, is fundamental in any lifesaving program.”130 It appears that this was less fundamental in practice than it was in Collier’s policies.

125 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 16. 126 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 263. 127 Kelly, Anthropology and Anthropologists in the Indian New Deal, 9. 128 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 261. 129 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 264. 130 Collier, The Indians of the Americas. 262.

37 The implementation of government programs in American Indian communities provided Collier with the opportunity to prove his anthropologists’ importance.

According to Collier, “concerted and multiple efforts to apply anthropological methods to the solution of problems of a practical nature did not begin until about the time of the

New Deal.”131 The Papago were directly involved with the Civilian Conservation Corps-

Indian Division (CCC-ID) “and large numbers of Papago people were set to work in groups, for the improvement of wells, cattle-watering places, trails, roads, and fences.”132 While providing labor, Ruth Underhill’s communication with the Papago about water and wells showed that projects were not always received without consequence. The “water spreading” was an aspect of soil conservation.133 The wells specifically did not serve Papago families as was intended. Yet the opportunity for employment on the reservation during the Great Depression grew and in fact “many

Papago who had made fairly satisfactory adjustments to off-reservation life apparently returned during the 1930’s, simply because more work and more money were available on the reservation than off it.”134 The Papago thus had the freedom of choice, as

Anglos did, to decide to partake in the federal government wage programs. However, the circumstances of the economy and federal relationships weighed heavily on these decisions.

Since New Deal agencies partnered with the Indian Service to have programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian Division on the reservations, there was an effort to include American Indians in land management. Yet Collier’s claim that

131 Kelly, "Why Applied Anthropology Developed When It Did,”122. 132 Stanley, American Indian Economic Development, 537. 133 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 271. 134 Stanley, American Indian Economic Development, 537.

38 “every particular program should serve the primary aims of freeing or regenerating he

Indian societies, and infusing them with the spirit of democracy, implementing them with democratic tools, and concentrating their attention upon their basic practical exigencies” was not fully executed.135 In his 1935 letter to the Albuquerque Journal, Collier stated that where American Indians did not own their land, they lacked the opportunity for ownership to realize economic independence. He wrote, “there we could enroll them in

Emergency Conservation Work and in PWA. But only a tithe of these most extreme cases of poverty could be met through these temporary migrations.”136 Collier recognized that wage labor was not a quick fix for assimilation, as it did not free the

American Indian to assert land ownership.

Collier was more optimistic about the programs in the Southwest, however, where land allotment had occurred to a lesser degree. In his 1934 publication, Indians at Work, he said “14,000 Indians in all parts of the Indian country should be admitted to emergency conservation camps, to work on reforestation, on water development and erosion control. We were glad, but we were frightened. For the permission extended beyond the…Papagos…framed for their sobriety and their industry.”137 Favorable toward the American Indians of the Southwest, where Collier conducted anthropological fieldwork, he celebrated these people for his perception of them. Despite their experience with work however, there were still issues with the programs in these areas.

For instance, on the Navajo reservation, there was a demand to the United States

135 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 267. 136 John Collier to editor, October 22, 1935. 137 Collier, Indians at Work, paragraph 24.

39 Employment Service that “skilled labor is needed in addition to the Indian labor used.”138

The purpose of these programs still seemed to be immediate employment without future initiatives, despite Collier’s efforts. Unfortunately, “since the primary function of CCC was to provide jobs, there was little integrated planning and by 1935 the need for something better was evident.”139 Providing wages for the present was of greater concern than preserving practices for the future.

With all the discussion about returning to American Indian land ownership, there was no discussion of returning to American Indian agriculture practices. Most of

Collier’s discussion and letters that deal with farming actually dealt with the Navajo soil conservation, stock reduction, and overgrazing issues that he devoted great focus toward. He did dedicate attention to general improvement in beef and cattle production and the decrease in overgrazing in the Southwest.140 Yet he did not romanticize the

American Indian culture so far as to advocate a return toward American Indian agricultural and gathering practices. Collier maintained his anthropological outlook, saying that “this task of the guardian government, to make free the peoples who are its dependencies, demands…deep knowledge of what those peoples are, and of the material environment within which they have their being.”141 He called for an understanding of the material environment, but what is more fundamental to an environment than the food that grows there?

138 Glascock to Mr. W. Frank Persons, United States Employment Service, 27 November 1933, JCP. 139 Kelly, Anthropology and Anthropologists in the Indian New Deal, 14. 140 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 267. 141 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 281.

40 In his discussions of the federal government’s guardianship, Collier said that

“local communities view them as a responsibility of the United States, and, naturally, the local communities prefer to help their white people first.”142 This was certainly true in the case of water, in which waterways were altered to favor the Anglo populations that were arriving to farm. While trying to backtrack on the path of paternalism, Collier argued that

“mandatory sheep and goat reduction, mandatory range control, federal dominance…are already possible in law and might be justified from the standpoint of national necessity.”143 Collier’s saying that these “might be justified” shows his resistance to support any sort of “control” or “dominance” over the tribes.

In 1947, Collier wrote The Indians of the Americas in which he reflected on and defended the situation and the changes he made in his career. He was critical at some points and defensive at others. Talking about the Indian Service, he said that the organization “has not often dared to pause and to think through and feel through the problem of how the service and the issues can be merged with each of the local communities, one by one.”144 This was certainly the case of the Papago, as water, wage labor, and farming each posed unique issues to the community.

However, not all local communities relied solely on the federal government to help the tribes. Collier received a letter from William J. Fisher, the Secretary of the

Minorities Sub-Committee of the Tucson Committee for Inter-Racial Understanding.

The group had about 50 members at this time; it was weeks old when the letter was

142John Collier to editor, 22 October 1935, JCP. 143 Collier, Indians at Work, paragraph 13. 144 Collier, The Indians of the Americas, 279.

41 sent in September of 1943.145 Fisher wrote, “as a sincere but young group, we write to you to offer our full services in any respect in which we may aid you in your efforts to obtain the right to vote for Indians in Arizona and New Mexico.”146 While this note was written almost a decade after the Indian Reorganization Act, it shows there was progress in local support and awareness of the tribes’ situations. Yet there seems to be a disconnect between Collier’s encouragement for local support and his personal investment in it. In a response to another letter, written in December of that same year,

Collier told the Tucson Committee for Inter-Racial Understanding, “I have your letter of

December 15. It would seem to me that an obvious and important thing for your committee to concern itself with is the denial of the ballot to the Indians of Arizona.”147

Collier was identifying an issue that the group itself had already identified. His projects may have been larger than one man can accomplish by himself with all the reforms that

Collier had set out.

Collier was aware of how the Depression affected the wage economy and the search for employment. In the context of the Indian New Deal, there was a greater focus on earning money than on preserving the traditional mode of subsistence. There was little to no attention toward preserving diet at a time when government farm programs were being introduced to provide labor for poor Anglo Americans. As is evident in Papago diet and health, the priorities of the time affected the conditions of the future. Throughout the years, Collier continued claiming resistance toward guardianship and support of local communities. Nonetheless, with all the devotion to cultural

145 William J. Fisher, Secretary to John Collier, 27 September 1943, JCP. 146 William J. Fisher, Secretary to John Collier, 27 September 1943, JCP. 147 John Collier to Mrs. McCrossen, 29 December 1943, JCP.

42 preservation, Collier was simultaneously promoting opportunities for assimilation into

American agricultural practices.

Conclusion

Tohono O’odham history continues to serve as an example for discussions of federal intervention, health decline, traditional foods, and other niches that require historical perspective. As the diabetes epidemic caused a shock of awareness, the

Tohono O’odham community called for thorough investigations into the past to identify cause and effect linkages. Of course, situations like this have far greater complexity than can be explained by pinpointing a specific event in the past. From the introduction of Spanish missionaries to World War II, there are contexts to explore and understand for future implications on Tohono O’odham diet. The Great Depression, New Deal, and

World War I are a few examples noted in this discussion. The mystery has drawn the attention of so many disciplines that the perspective gathered is greatly influenced by the discipline from which one stems.

The combination of historical perspectives from anthropology, food, and Indian policy provides the opportunity to reflect on the benefits of multiple and intertwining views. A history of the developments in anthropology is necessary to understand the approach of John Collier and Ruth Underhill. The emphasis that was placed on cultural preservation guided all of Collier’s programs when he served as Commissioner of Indian

Affairs. Likewise, Underhill’s Boasian emic approach is what allowed her to acquire rapport with Maria Chona and learn about the traditional food and waterways that had sustained the Papago.

43 Outside of anthropology, the New Deal context was emphasized over tribal welfare. E.D. Tetreau did not even mention American Indians in his evaluation of New

Deal farming program living standards. Underhill recognized that government programs were dictating how the land was to be used and farmed rather than allowing for traditional subsistence. With the priority of employment and increasing wage labor opportunities, the importance of food was marginalized in the anthropologists’ mission of cultural preservation.

In his later reflections, Collier acknowledged the difficulties in assigning legislation that in actuality affects each community differently. As was the case with the

Tohono O’odham, achieving land autonomy in the Indian New Deal was not enough.

Receiving ownership did not eradicate federal pressures for use or federal favor toward neighboring Anglo farming. The changes in waterways and pressure for employment had already reduced traditional agriculture and desert gathering. Each component of life, from migration to religious ceremonies, was centered on food. Yet when preserving the autonomy to practice cultural traditions, such as ceremonies, the center for culture was not recognized. Thus it was through an effort of cultural preservation that the foodways, the essential foundation of Tohono O’odham culture, were not preserved.

44

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