Casa Grande's O'odham Tash

From Ceremonials to Rodeo Events, Casa Grande's O'odham Tash Is a 'Pure Indian' Experience

Folks who live next door to each other usually get to know one another real well. So it was with the residents of Casa Grande and their Native American neighbors: the Pimas of the Gila River reservation to the north; a mix of Pimas and Tohono O'odham from the Maricopa Ak Chin reservation to the northwest; and the Tohono O'odham of the Papago reservation to the south.

Twenty-seven years ago, some business folk in Casa Grande decided it would be nice to have a get-together: invite the Pimas and the Papagos (as they were then called) to town for a celebration. Nothing fancy. Just a small town's way of saying it appreciated its neighbors and thanking them for their business. Have a rodeo. Serve up a barbecue. That sort of thing. Call it O'odham Tash (O'odham means people; Tash means

WHEN YOU GO

people.) O'odham Tash will take place Thursday through Sunday, February 17-20, at locations throughout Casa Grande. There is an admission charge for some events.

Casa Grande is about halfway between Phoenix and Tucson on Interstate 10, just north of its juncture with Interstate 8. There are good motel and RV facilities available.

Nearby attractions include Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Thought (602) 723-3172, thought to be an ancient astronomical observatory built by the Hohokam, a people that disappeared around A.D. 1450. Gila Heritage Park, (602) 315-3411, on the Gila River Indian Reservation (take 1-10 Exit 174, Casa Blanca off-ramp) and the adjoining Gila River Arts and Crafts Center offer a re-creation of Hohokam dwellings, artifacts, and crafts.

For more event information and to confirm dates, contact O'odham Tash, P.O. Box 11165, Casa Grande, AZ 85230-1165; (602) 836-4723. For general visitors information, write or telephone the Casa Grande Chamber of Commerce, 575 N. Marshall, Casa Grande, AZ 85222; (602) 836-2125.

Days). The official if somewhat loose modern translation: “Indian Days.” Well the neighborly little get-together has grown. It happens the third weekend of February, and, if the weather is good, the affair attracts 130,000 to 150,000 people, many of them winter visitors, a few of them foreigners. French and Swedish tour buses have been known to show up for O'odham Tash. A German dealer came in 1992 to buy jewelry, pottery, and paintings at the arts and crafts show. “Europeans love — absolutely love — anything to do with the Southwest,” says Marie Kieft, co-owner of a local RV park and longtime O'odham Tash volunteer.

Components of O'odham Tash include a rodeo, not one but two parades, an all-Native American powwow, ceremonial dances, an arts and crafts show, and, yes, that good ol' faithful barbecue. The event enlists the services of up to 1,200 volunteers. Former Executive Director MyLinda Kin-Ki-Hee (a Creek Indian name) called O'odham Tash “a non-Native American event given as a gift of communication between the whites and Native Americans.” Ed Hooper, who farms on the Gila River reservation and was one of the founders of O'odham Tash, says the idea really derived from something that “a bunch of us” staged on the reservation. They called it mul cha ta, which is Pima, meaning (again roughly translated) “gathering of the people for festivities.” The idea was to raise money to build a pool for Pima children, who were swimming in the irrigation ditches. Recalls Hooper: “Ed Thomas, a Pima from Sacaton, was at the gate. He was going to sell tickets to them [the fairgoers], but they came so fast he just opened the gate and let 'em go on in. He said, 'I now know how Custer felt in reverse.” O'odham Tash's rodeo has 900 entrants and is one of the biggest Native American rodeos in the U.S.

The arts and crafts show is a major draw, too. Last year's, held in a downtown building that used to house a J.C. Penney Store and a tent annex for extra space, had 95 exhibitors from many tribes across the country and Canada. And no more than one-eighth of those applying to be included qualified. In other words, only those with the best and most authentic arts and crafts get in. Indeed, O'odham Tash offers “a moneyback guarantee of honest representation.” And what kinds of arts and crafts will you find there? (The question is, rather, what won't you find?) Jewelry, paintings, sculpture, weavings, graphics, leather items, beadwork, pottery, baskets, and stuffed dolls are all in evidence.

Arlene Miles Kast, an Apache from the San Carlos reservation, makes the dolls and was at O'odham Tash with them last year. She said they were selling well. “Y'know,” she remarked, “there aren't very many Apache artists. They don't like to leave the reservation. They'd rather stay home. But I decided to take to the road. You have to educate people.” Sponsors of O'odham Tash pride themselves on staging a celebration that is “pure Indian.” And certainly no single event within O'odham Tash is more pure Indian than the ceremonials. Here you're likely to see a Zuni pottery dance, an Apache crown dance, a Navajo ribbon dance, a “slow war”

O'odham Tash

dance put on by a group called the Kiowa-Comanche Dancers.

Paradoxically, the emcee at the ceremonials is a white man: Brett Eisele. He got the job because he's a good announcer but, mostly, because he has studied Native American ceremonials and explains them lovingly. “These,” he says, “are prayers for birth and death, appeal and thanksgiving; prayers connected with the planting and harvesting of crops, the hunt, the journey, the grinding of corn, the storm, the sun, and the rain. Of all the survivals of primitive rituals, the native Indian dances are the rarest and most interesting to be found anywhere in the world.” The ceremonials — and everything else happening this February at O'odham Tash -bespeak a deep desire on the part of both Indians and whites not only to remain neighborly but to preserve an ancient culture.

Ed Hooper says it well: “It's all about keeping the Native American tradition alive.”