Where the Red-Winged Blackbirds Sing

Where the Red-Winged Blackbirds Sing examines the ways in which the Akimel Oodham (River People) and their ancestors, the Huhugam, adapted to economic, political, and environmental constraints imposed by federal Indian policy, the Indian Bureau, and an encroaching settler population in Arizonas Gila River Valley. Fundamental to Oodham resilience was their connection to their sense of peoplehood and their himdag (lifeway), which culminated in the restoration of their water rights and a revitalization of their Indigenous culture. Author Jennifer Bess examines the Akimel Oodhams worldview, which links their origins with a responsibility to farm the Gila River Valley and to honor their history of adaptation and obligations as world-buildersco-creators of an evermore life-sustaining environment and participants in flexible networks of economic exchange. Bess considers this worldview in context of the HuhugamAkimel Oodham agricultural economy over more than a thousand years. Drawing directly on Akimel Oodham traditional ecological knowledge, innovations, and interpretive strategies in archives and interviews, Bess shows how the Akimel Oodham engaged in agricultural economy for the sake of their lifeways, collective identity, enduring future, and actualization of the values modeled in their sacred stories. Where the Red-Winged Blackbirds Sing highlights the values of adaptation, innovation, and co-creation fundamental to Akimel Oodham lifeways and chronicles the contributions the Akimel Oodham have made to American history and to the history of agriculture. The book will be of interest to scholars of Indigenous, American Southwestern, and agricultural history.