agriculture

The many faces of the Pima tribe. In the center is Ira Hayes, the decorated Marine who was among the famed flag raisers on Iwo Jima during World War II.

Phoenix has the largest population of urban American Indians in the United States. It's also the only major metro area that is flanked by reservations: the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community east of Scottsdale, the Gila River Indian Community to the south and southwest, and farther to the east, the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. With casinos and water rights, the tribes enjoy the greatest economic power in their modern history. This is a story that's only beginning. But of course it's a very old one, too.

The city's name comes from its location atop the ruins of the Hohokam civilization. Like the mythical Phoenix bird, it rose from its ashes (and it is by far the coolest city name in America, which makes it a shame that the suburban mandarins resist using it to describe the metro, as is commonplace in every other major city in America). When the first Anglo settlers came to the Salt River Valley after the Civil War, they cleaned out some of the Hohokam canals and resumed the region's oldest human activity: agriculture. The Hohokam were the most advanced hydrological civilization north of Mesoamerica. The sophisticated dam and canal structure built for today's Phoenix is simply an extension of the Hohokam's work.

Growing up in Phoenix, I was constantly aware of the Hohokam's ghosts — but I was an odd child, enchanted by the place and its history. For most in the 1960s, American Indians were not a common sight there. The reservations were relatively far away then. The stereotype of the drunken Indian was on tragic display in the Deuce. Prejudice was common, even as we romanticized the tribes, particularly the Apache and Navajo. It had not even been a century since the Apache wars had ended. Phoenicians mostly came in contact with the tribes passing by the Phoenix Indian School, an institution now reviled by scholars for destroying native culture but one which may deserve a fresh revision someday. Today's phenomenon of an urban Indian population was very limited. We had a Navajo boy, John Rogers, in my class at Kenilworth School: he had been adopted by a Anglo family. Not to be blind to the challenges he faced, but in the crucible of cruel children he seemed to garner a special respect. After all, in playing cowboys and Indians, we all wanted to be the latter. And growing up in the center city, I drank in the magic of the Heard Museum.