The name Arizona came from a Uto-Aztecan Indian word in the Tohono-O’odham language which means “little spring”. However, the O’odham were not the only native tribe in Arizona. Native American tribes in Arizona inhabited Arizona for more than thousands of years. Arizona is one of the states in the U.S. with the largest percentage of Native Americans. It has also the second highest total Native American population amongst the states. Most of the Navajo Nation and the whole Tohono O’odham Nation are both located in Arizona. The Navajo Nation is U.S.’ biggest Native American reservation while the Tohono O’odham Nation is the second largest reservation. More than a quarter of the state’s areas are reservation lands.
The original Native American tribes in Arizona are the following:
The Akimel O’odham or Pima Indians
The Apache Indians
The Cocopah tribe
The Halchidhoma tribe
The Hualapai , Havasupai, and Yavapai tribes
The Hopi Indians
The Jano and Jocome tribes
The Maricopa tribe
The Mohave tribe
The Navajo tribe
The Southern Paiute tribe
The Tohono O’odham or Papago tribe
The Yaqui tribe
The Yuma tribe
The Zuni tribe
Arizona comprises a vast variety of exciting Native American cultures. It is home to the 21 federally recognized nations, communities, and tribes. Most tribes descended from the Native American tribes in Arizona. Others existed a few centuries before the Spanish explorers travelled into the state. Today, Arizona’s total population is estimated to be 5%-6% coming from American Indian ancestry.
- Ak-Chin Indian Community or Pima and Papago
- Cocopah Indian Tribe
- Colorado River Indian Tribes or Navajo, Chemehuevi, Hopi, and Mohave
- Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation or the Yavapai and Apache
- Fort Mojave Indian Tribe
- Fort Yuma-Quechan Tribe
- Gila River Indian Community or the Pima and Maricopa
- Havasupai Tribe
- Hopi Tribe
- Hualapai Tribe
- Kaibab Paiute Tribe
- Navajo Nation
- Pascua Yaqui Tribe
- Salt River Pima-Maricopa Community
- San Carlos Apache Tribe
- San Juan Southern-Paiute Tribe
- Tohono O’odham Nation
- Tonto Apache Tribe
- White Mountain Apache Tribe
- Yavapai Apache Nation
- Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe
Prehistoric Cultures in Arizona
- Ancestral Pueblo (Four Cornersarea). It is also called as Anasazi, a primitive Native American culture that existed from around ad 100 to 1600, focusing on the part where the borders of the current states Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah
- Hohokam, Hobokam, Huhukam orHuhugam. It was a Native American culture focused on the present state of Arizona. It is one of the major cultures in Southwestern archaeology. It was considered as part of the Oasis America custom; the Hohokam also established trading centers like the Snaketown and was also considered as builders of the earliest canal system throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area.
- Mogollon. It is an archaeological culture of native people from Arizona and Southern New Mexico, Chihuahua and Northern Sonora, and Western Texas, a territory known as Oasis America. This is one of the major primitive cultural divisions. The culture thrived when the Spanish arrived particularly during the archaic period.
- Patayan. This is the term used by archaeologists to define primitive and historical Native American cultures which took parts of present-day Arizona to Lake Cahuilla in California, as well as in Baja California. This included areas beside the Gila River and Colorado River as well as areas in the Lower Colorado River and the nearby valleys, and to the area of the Grand Canyon.
- Sinagua. It was a pre-Columbian culture which occupied a huge area in the central part of Arizona approximately between 500 CE and 1425 CE.
