The Tohono 'O'odham Tradition of the 'A'al Hiaha'iñ, the Children's Burial Place

Abstract

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• The Tohono 'O'odham Tradition of the 'A'al Hiaha'iñ, the Children's Burial Place
• Harry J. Winters Jr. (bio)

This Tohono 'O'odham tradition tells of an actual event that happened centuries ago. A man from the area of old 'Aji village in today's Gu Achi District of the Tohono 'O'odham Nation was on a trip in the Altar Valley of Sonora. He was the Basket Keeper, Vasha Ñuukuddam, for his village. The Basket Keeper was responsible for the care of a type of basket, vasha, in which important, and sometimes dangerous, ceremonial objects were kept. He was traveling during a period of extraordinarily heavy rains in southern Arizona and northern Sonora. While he was in the Altar Valley, a flash flood hit a village there and killed everyone except two children who were out playing in the hills. This man rescued the orphans and brought them with him to his village. Not long after he got back, suddenly water started seeping out of the ground in the little gap, or shapijk, between the two buttes through which the road from Santa Rosa to Hikwoñ passes today. Santa Rosa Wash, a major drainage channel, runs east through this shapijk. At first the amount of water coming out was very small but it kept increasing and increasing until it was gushing out. This badly frightened the people because in 'O'odham traditions the flood that had destroyed the world had started from the same kind of small beginning. The people decided to appoint four mamakai to discover what was causing this. These mamakai had knowledge of the supernatural that was much greater than that of ordinary men and women. This allowed them to understand events that other men and women could not.

In 1950, J. Alden Mason published a monograph, The Language of the Papago of Arizona. Pages 71–76 of his monograph are devoted to the 'A'al Hiaha'iñ tradition which he calls the Sacrifice of the Children. Page 76 is a copy of the text of the tradition as originally written and translated by Juan Dolores, and which was the basis for Mason's study. [End Page 260] Mason commented that the text was probably written by Dolores about 1915. I first learned of this tradition from Mason's monograph. Fr. Bonaventure Oblasser, O.F.M., who devoted most of his life to the Tohono 'O'odham and was fluent in their language, told me about the tradition in the late 1950s. Since the 1950s I have heard it from Tohono 'O'odham and visited the shrine in the company of 'O'odham. For this essay I have used the wording of the Dolores version, but I have written it in an orthography intended to make it easier for a person who has learned to read English in American schools to pronounce the words correctly. For notes on the orthography I use, see Winters (2020, xlv–xlviii).

With this background, we will now pick up the story in 'O'odham Ñi'ok, 'O'odham language, followed by the translation and comments. To begin with I should say, Heg 'ant hab o 'aa matp hab chu'ig gaḍhu 'i 'amjeḍ. I'm going to tell a story out of the distant past.

The Tradition as Recounted by Juan Dolores

'Ab ash vo'o g vasha heg'ab do'ag mo hemu hab cheegig 'A'al Hiaha'iñ.

Kush 'ab ahavash da'iwush g shuudag k heg 'i ge'edahim k 'i ge'edahim k s-ta-'eebidam 'e juu.

Kush wenog 'am ahava 'e hemapai g hemajkam k 'am ha chuuchia g mamakai mat hegam o s-mai mas haschu'aagch hab 'e wua ha'ichu.

Sham ñei g hemajkam gi'ik s-chuhugam'ab k 'am 'i kuugi g ñe'i.

Sh hab kaij g mamakai, "M o ki mo'i ha'ichu pi 'ap wua g Vasha Ñuukuddam k 'o ki heghekaj hab 'e wua. Kutp hab masma s-'ape matt 'ab o 'iagchul g t Si'ihe k 'ab o maa g Vasha Ñuukuddam 'a'aliga. Kutp 'ab o t sho'igid k o va t...