The Pima and Papagos peoples, who lived in the
former Hohokam territory, retained their ORAL LIT-
ERATURE and communicated the stories for cen-
turies, using them as educational tools that taught
traditional values and customs. For the Pima and
Papago, these tales were their history, not fiction.
Because of their remoteness from Spanish and
Mexican power, the Pima and Papago did not fall
under European rule and were not introduced to
Christianity until 1694. The native man-god de-
scribed in the Hohokam chronicles, who was mur-
dered and then departed from the world, bears some
parallels to but is not patterned after the Christian
Jesus.The tale of creation describes how God created
the world so he might live on it. Called the Earth-
Doctor, he makes the world out of shavings of his
own skin, and then creates the sun, moon, stars, and
the first humans. Together, the sun, moon, earth, and
sky then make Siuuhu the Drinker and the Coyote.
Other stories tell of the origin of wine and of ir-
rigation. In them, wind, clouds, rains, and seeds are
gathered from the corners of the universe and used
to plant and water the fields. The ritual involving
saguaros, or cactus wine, is used to invite rain. A later
story tells of the death and resurrection of Siuuhu.
Thanks to careful collaborations between schol-
ars and native speakers in the last century, the
O’othham tales have been preserved and are an
important source of information about the ele-
ments of Native American mythologies prior to
their discovery by Europeans.
An English Version of the O’othham
Hoho’ok A’agitha
O’otham Hoho’ok A’agitha: Legends and Lore of the Pa-
pago and Pima Indians. Translated by Dean and
Lucille Saxton. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 1973.
Works about the O’otham Hoho’ok A’agitha
Bahr, Donald, et. al, eds. The Short Swift Time of Gods
on Earth: The Hohokam Chronicles. Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1994.
Underhill, Ruth M. Papago Indian Religion. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1946.
Zepeda, Ofelia, ed. When it Rains: Papago and Pima
Poetry. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982.
oral literature/tradition
The literature of every culture from every corner of
the world shares one thing in common: It origi-
nates in the spoken word. Long before and after a
culture develops written systems of communica-
tion, the oral exchange of stories forms an essential
part of a people’s emotional and spiritual life. In
daily life, stories serve as a means of connection
and a way of establishing a shared humanity. Every
society uses stories to retain and transmit its
shared history, accumulated wisdom, cultural val-
ues, and beliefs.
Oral literature, as scholars define it, can include
any fictive utterance, from folklore and mythology
to jokes and nursery rhymes. Scholarly discussions
of oral tradition often focus on oral poetry in the
form of historical narratives or wisdom tales. As a
culture evolves, it commemorates its history and
ancestors in narratives that are passed on in the
form of a heroic story or
EPIC. The Sumerian GIL-
GAMESH
, the long poems of
HOMER, and composi-
tions like the Finnish
KALEVALA or the Persian
SHAHNAMEH all originated as oral poems relating
events that a culture considered part of its history.
The Mande EPIC OF SON-JARA or the Incan MYTH OF
MANCO CAPAC
, though they belong to different con-
tinents, both retell foundation myths of how a civ-
ilization came to be. In many cultures, the earliest
written literature preserves stories that had already
been told for centuries. In fact most of the sacred
literature of the world, including the Hebrew
BIBLE,
is thought to have its roots in oral tradition.
Narratives of mythology develop as humans at-
tempt to explain their own existence and under-
stand the world around them. Creation stories like
the Native American
CREATION MYTHS or the Hawai-
ian Kumulipo describe how a culture accounts for
the order of the world and its creatures. From the
beginning, these and other stories communicated
through oral exchange offered a way to instruct lis-
teners and celebrate shared beliefs. Cultures develop
oral literature/tradition 223