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Third Thursday Food for Thought Presentation – “’O’odham Place Names: Meanings, Origins and Histories”
July 20, 2023 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
On Thursday, July 20, 2023, join Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s Third Thursday Food for Thought presentation featuring “’O’odham Place Names: Meanings, Origins and Histories” by Harry J. Winters, Jr., Ph.D. This free Zoom online program will be held from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. (ARIZONA/Mountain Standard Time, same as Pacific Daylight Time).
When he was 14 or 15 years old, Harry Winters, Jr., came across John D. Mitchell’s 1953 book Lost Mines and Buried Treasures along the Old Frontier. Mitchell’s tales inspired him to become a geological engineer in the mining industry, partly because of his interest in mathematics, physics, geology and engineering, but also because mining geology (which he calls “modern prospecting”) offered the opportunity to roam the deserts and mountains. He began prospecting and camping in the Arizona desert, and in 1956 he and his friend Ted McIntyre drove into the Tohono O’odham Nation lands (then known as the Papago Indian Reservation). Eventually their 1947 Plymouth got stuck in a narrow wash and an ’O’odham man came over to see what had happened. That fellow, Enos Miguel, didn’t speak English and the boys didn’t speak ’O’odham, but Enos could see what was needed so walked over to his house, brought out a shovel and some boards, and soon Harry and Ted were on their way. Enos was Harry’s first of many O’odham friends made over the next six-plus decades. Combining those friendships with his interest in geology and Native place names, Harry learned the ’O’odham language, spoke with lots of ’O’odham about their knowledge of the landscape, and eventually authored the 1,002-page (not counting the 56 pages in the table of contents and other front matter) tome ’O’odham Place Names: Meanings, Origins and Histories, Arizona and Sonora, Second Edition (2020, SRI Press, Tucson). In this month’s Third Thursday Food for Thought presentation, Dr. Harry Winters, Jr., recounts some of his travels and shares some of his deep knowledge of the ’O’odham landscape lore on both sides of the modern US-Mexico border.
To register for the Zoom webinar go to https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_e0QYkHObRfCvES3XfFiESg. For more information contact Old Pueblo at info@oldpueblo.org or 520-798-1201.
Flyer: 20230720(v1)ThirdThursday_HarryWinters_OodhamPlaceNames
Caption: Chemmod (“Dragons Tooth”) southeast of Gila Bend, where Jenashad escaped to the top and was never seen again; photo by Pete Kresan