Weekend Getaway

getaway weekend Learn the Chicken Scratch and Enjoy Fry Bread at CASA GRANDE'S O'ODHAM TASH

FORTY-FIVE MILES SOUTHEAST OF PHOENIX, the town of Casa Grande, population 23,000, catches O'odham Tash fever each February. Held around President's Day weekend, the annual four-day O'odham Tash attracts throngs of desert-dwelling Indians who come from villages most non-Indians haven't heard of: Chuichu, Covered Wells, Nolic, Santa Rosa and many other dots on the Arizona map. Most are O'odhams, but some are Apaches, Navajos, Supais, Yaquis, Chemehuevis. They've brought their horses and tack, and they're ready for the all-Indian rodeo that runs throughout the event. But mostly they're here to see their friends, munch a little fry bread and shuffle through a chicken scratch dance.Non-Indians, who also come in droves for this celebration, can meet Indians from throughout the state even some from points far distant from Arizona and have casual conversations about Native American traditions and beliefs. A person can learn a lot by wandering around Casa Grande activities go on at various parks, an armory, the rodeo grounds, everywhere but on this Saturday night, my study focused on chicken scratch.

I went out to the rodeo grounds on Pinal Avenue, where the dance, attended by people of all ages, was held between the bleachers. Behind the band, cowboys practiced steer-roping in the lighted arena, their horses' hooves kicking dust into the night air, but nobody at the dance seemed to mind.

Chicken scratch sounds just like Norteño music, the music style popular along the U.S.Mexico border. In chicken scratch and Norteño music, an accordion, sometimes accompanied by a saxophone, provides the melody and overall flavor, along with the usual drum set, bass and lead guitar. In some ways, the music sounds closer to the irrepressible Cajun-style tunes native to Louisiana.

I tried to get the beat into my head and then entered my own constellation on the dancefloor. I didn't have a cowboy hat or a partner. I was the only non-Indian, in my own galaxy. Nobody cared. One or two people looked at me shyly and quickly averted their eyes.

I decided that if this band played in Milwaukee, everybody would call chicken scratch music polka music. To me, the best thing about the "Indian polka" is that you can do it solo, even when sober.

A friend visiting from Australia met me in Casa Grande to tag along for a while. His first question: "Is O'odham Tash somebody's name? Is this event named for one of the local Indians?" "O'odham is how the desert Indians refer to themselves," I explained. "It just means 'people.' Tohono O'odham literally means 'desert people."

O'odham Tash, which loosely translates as "Indian days" or "people days," began in 1968 as a way of making Casa Grande more user-friendly to the Native Americans. Jack Johnson, a retired building contractor, recalled Indian leaders telling him the O'odham people avoided shopping in Casa Grande because they felt they weren't being treated well by local merchants. Johnson arranged meetings with business leaders and Pima and Tohono O'odham Indians.

"I just told people here in Casa Grande, 'Look, we've got this huge [3 million acres] Tohono O'odham reservation on one side of us and the Gila River Indian Community on the other. We've got to get to know each other and get along,'" he remembered.

So the Indians and non-Indians got together to plan a rodeo, crafts fair, a parade to showcase O'odham pride, a barbecue and a powwow. A portion of the fees collected from various events would fund scholarships for Indian students.

Fees are everywhere at O'odham Tash. Only the parade and music in the public parks are free. It will cost you $2 for the O'odham Tash program, $4 to get into the main arts and crafts fair in the armory, $7 to attend the ceremonial dances, $3 per person or $5 a couple for the chicken scratch dance, $10 for the rodeo, $6 for the barbecue. If you don't want the official program, buy the local newspaper, The Casa Grande Dispatch, for 50 cents. It carries a detailed schedule of activities.

I attended the one-hour O'odham Tash parade on Florence Boulevard on Saturday morning. It had a distinct small-town Arizona feel to it, with its high school marching bands, a small army of Shriners in tasseled hats buzzing in and out in their miniature cars, Indian beauty queens in the backs of pickup trucks, young O'odham dancers from Topawa, Apache crown dancers from San Carlos and Comanches from Oklahoma in full authentic dress.

Next I headed to the barbecue, held in two parks, Peart and O'Neil. I went to O'Neil because I knew I would find not only the barbecued beef that had been simmering in an underground oven all night, but fry bread, too. Anything that tastes as good as fry bread is probably not good for you, but that didn't stop me from waiting in a long line to get my share. It's basically deep-fried bread dough, often topped with honey, brown sugar, or beans and rice. It sits in your stomach like uranium, but is very comforting.

Later in the day, I waddled over to the amphitheater to see the ceremonial dances and met some of the dancers who had performed along the parade route. Norma Wahnee, a Kiowa from Anadarko, Oklahoma, wore a white buckskin dress and a red headband. Her daughters and friends had accompanied her to O'odham Tash to perform the Kiowa War Society Dance. "This dance is always done by a women's group," Wahnee explained. "It's a kind of welcoming-back dance with people happy the men are back safely."

Wahnee, who lived in Phoenix until 1992, said she and her husband had attended O'odham Tash since its inception, and when they moved to Oklahoma she received calls from Casa Grande each year asking her to return.

"I like it because it's like a big outing for us. We get to see a lot of old friends. There's always a lot of good energy that's left here, but you always take some of that energy with you. To me, it's worth driving 24 hours for that."

I headed to an unpaved lot on the other side of Pinal Avenue where several Indian craftsmen had set up booths. There I met Nona B. Billah, a Navajo woman from Flagstaff who was selling Indian jewelry and attractive wedding baskets. I asked her how the plate-size wedding baskets differed from the baskets for which the O'odham are famous. Like all of the vendors, she was happy to talk about her traditions.

"In the weddings baskets," she said, "the design is always woven counterclockwise, with the black bordering both sides of the red band, and there's always an opening so it's not a closed circle. These are still used today in traditional weddings. The bride fills the basket with corn mush and brings it inside to the bridegroom and the other men. She sprinkles corn on top of that and feeds them, always holding the basket with the opening facing east. After the ceremony, she gives the basket to the bridegroom's mother - we are a matrilineal society, you know - and her husband's mother will keep it and use it to bless their children as they come along."

And that commitment to continuity, I felt, was as good a reason as any for coming to O'odham Tash. For that one long weekend, the Indians could enjoy themselves and renew friendships. For the rest of us, it offers a glimpse of the world of our Indian neighbors and a chance to learn more about it. Al