'O'odham Astronomy

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• 'O'odham Astronomy
• Harry J. Winters Jr. (bio)

'O'odham Daamkaachim Maachig

In 'O'odham Ñi'ok, the 'O'odham language, maachig is knowledge of something. The heavens above us are called daamkaachim. Daam means above and kaachim means lying spread out. So we will call astronomy daamkaachim maachig. As we shall see, our discussion at times will carry us a little beyond pure physical science.

This essay is based on what I have been taught since 1956 by 'O'odham elders from many villages in the Tohono 'O'odham Nation. The old-timers, kekelibaḍ, had extensive knowledge of the heavens and objects in them. They truly led an outdoor life. Farmers slept under the night sky in their fields to protect their crops from coyotes and other varmints. One bite out of a melon by a coyote for the moisture in it ruined it. Some farmers were still sleeping in their fields around 1950, for example at Koahadk in the Sif Oidak District of the Tohono 'O'odham Nation. After the 'O'odham acquired livestock, cowboys often camped under the stars near their herds. You might not see real cowboys for days at a time because they stayed out near the herds.

Many of the 'O'odham mentioned in this essay are deceased. The respectful way to refer to a deceased person by name in speech is by adding the suffix -baḍ to his or her name. For example, Steven becomes Stevenbaḍ. I have not written the names of deceased friends this way in this essay, but I acknowledge here that I respect them all and thank them for teaching me. [End Page 208]

1. The Sky

The sky, day or night, is daamkaachim. It is what lies spread out above us. Since Christianity came to 'O'odham country in the seventeenth century, this term also has been used for the Christian heaven in the spiritual sense. For example, see the seventeenth-century entry, Cielo, in Pennington (1979, 21). The association of a spiritual heaven with something beyond the sky was not a concept of the 'O'odham prior to the coming of Christianity. To the huhugam, ancients, the afterlife was lived somewhere to the east, si'aligwui, of the present home of the 'O'odham. Someone who had been very sick but had recovered might say, "Si'aligbaasho 'i n noḍagid" ("I turned myself back right in front of the east"). This is the 'O'odham equivalent of I was at death's door. Note that huhugam is an 'O'odham word meaning people who are gone, which might include your great-grandfather. It is not the same as Hohokam, an English word used by archaeologists to refer to ancients of a specific culture.

Two elders of the Hickiwan District told me another word for sky. They were Caesario Lewis of Vavhia Chiñ and Santos Ortega in S-Toa Bidk village. Both men were extremely knowledgeable of the old 'O'odham himdag, way of life. That other word is daam'iajim. Both men said it was an "old word for sky" and attributed it to the 'Akimeli 'O'odham, Pimas. 'Iajim is related to the verb 'iajid, meaning to lie all over, to cover all over, or to swarm all over. For example, after a rain we may hear, "T o ñ 'iajid heg chukmug" ("The gnats will be all over me"). Daam'iajim can be thought of as that which covers us all over; that which lies all over us; that which surrounds us. I have never seen a written form of this word. Grossmann (1877, 54) has Tam-katsh, our daamkaach(im), for sky and heaven.

The cardinal points are juupin or viiñim, both meaning north, si'alig meaning east, vakoliv meaning south, and huḍuñig meaning west. Both juupin and viiñim were used all through the twentieth century, but today I rarely hear viiñim.

2. The Sun

Description and Solar Phenomena

The Sun is called tash. Sun is capitalized because it is the name of a particular star. Tash is also the word for a day. Since at least as early as the 1870s tash...