Learning and growing

Looking east, heading west

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We left New Mexico and continued our westward progression. The temps began to get warmer as we descended over 2,000’ to the desert of SW Arizona and we began to shed some layers.

Our first stop was the Amerind Museum, a museum, gallery and research facility located in Dragoon, AZ. was etablished in 1937 by William Shirley Fulton to explore and expand knowledge of Native Peoples. A bit off the beaten path, this sprawling Spanish Colonial is nestled within a 1,600 acre campus surrounded by the huge boulders that make up Texas Canyon and sits within the Dragoon Mountains.

This area was the ancestral homeland of the Chiricahua Apache.

Amerind Museum

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The museum is small and well curated. Exhibits included many forms of indigenous art work - handmade dolls, pottery, cradle boards and other personal accessories and clothing. No photography is allowed in the museum. There was also an extensive collection of A:Shiwi (Zuni) and Dine (Navajo) silver and turquoise jewelry. For me, however, the most enlightening of all the exhibits were the small maps that showed where the many Native American tribes lived. I was SO unaware of the number of distinct tribes!!!

How could I have been so naive? Or ill-informed? Or blind? Should I chalk it up to American exceptionalism and our educational focus on European centric history? 

The maps depicted tribes west of the Mississippi - encompassing Alaska and western Canada in the North to Northern Mexico in the South.  What hit me was seeing these small circles, sometimes overlapping, each representing a unique tribe that covered an entire state! Often several tribes would share a small geographical area and might have completely different languages. And share the space peacefully….. what a concept! 

I soooooo wanted pictures of these maps and I wanted to know more about these tribes. 

This NPR story, The Map of Native American Tribes You Have Never Seen Before, was a good starting place. First aired in 2014 and updated in 2021, it seems like I’m not the only one who felt left out of this history. Aaron Carapella, a mixed blood Cherokee, is a self taught mapmaker who researched and designed a map showing the locations of Native American tribes prior to first contact with Europeans. It sure is worth taking a look at!!

Tribal Nations Map by Aaron Carapella

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As of January 28, 2002 there were 574 nationally recognized tribes in the U.S. It is estimated that in the Pre- Colombian era there were over 1,000 Native American civilizations. 

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Dragoon Mountains 

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The following day we drove further through the Dragoon Mountains, part of the Coronado National Forest, located in Cochise County. This small mountain range, around 25 miles long, is very steep and quite rugged. The mountains were the stronghold of Cochise, the leader of the Chokonen band of Chiricahua Apache. Born in 1805 when the area was under Spanish occupation, Cochise became a war leader during the Apache Wars fighting both the Spanish and American settlers from 1861 until a peace treaty was negotiated in 1872. He is buried in the hills.

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We made a brief stop in Tombstone. 

If National Parks were privatized….. they would look like Tombstone. 😢 Visitors are encouraged to attend the hourly gunfight at the O.K. Corral, visit The Bird Cage Theatre and listen to the spirits of the former brothel, wander and shop along the quaint old west streets, and visit The Crystal Palace to marvel at the independently spinning roulette wheel. 

We did not do any of that. We did visit the Tombstone Courthouse, a state historic park. Built in 1882, this 2 story Victorian building once housed the offices for the town’s sheriff, treasurer, recorder, courtroom and jail for Cochise County. It now houses exhibits that showcase Tombstone’s history and is filled with unique memorabilia. It was quite interesting and offered a different take on history than the one that was being presented in the rest of the town.

Tombstone Courthouse

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Tombstone was founded in 1877 by Ed Schieffelin, a prospector. People warned him of the dangerous Apache tribes in the area and that all he would find there was his tombstone. He found silver. Suddenly a town and a boon was born. 

The silver mines were the largest in Arizona producing $40-$85 million in bullion a year. In less than 7 years the town grew to a population of 14,000. However, within 12 years the mines had dug so deep that they hit the water table flooding most of the mines. By 1910 the population had dwindled to 646 residents.

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We continued on to Tuscon. Our last visit to Tuscon was in 2018 - wow 6 years - and we were looking forward to our return stay at Picacho Peak State Park @ 20 miles west of the city. As we hit the eastern outskirts of Tuscon we immediately noticed the difference from the last time we drove this direction. Urban expansion!!

Nothing but building going on for as far as we could see.

In 2023 a water emergency was declared for this area.

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Picacho Peak State Park

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We have a few plans for outings in and around Tuscon - but mostly we hope our week is simply filled with nothing but relaxing and looking.