Akimeḍ

The Akimel O’odham, or River People, live along the Gila and Salt rivers in the Sonoran Desert. Their villages stood among fields where families grew maize, beans, squash and cotton, supplementing the harvest with foods gathered from the surrounding desert. Small groups of houses formed communities connected by the river and by paths to their neighbours.

In 1694 the Jesuit Eusebio Kino and his companions visited the Gila villages. Floodwater farming sustained their inhabitants, and during the eighteenth century river-fed irrigation and crops such as wheat became increasingly important. The Pee Posh, or Maricopa, moved upriver from the lower Colorado and Gila and joined the Akimel O’odham communities. Together they maintained farms along the river beyond the main Spanish settlements to the south.