Using wisdom of elders, Cocopah re-create home for upcoming celebration

Using trees, dried plants, twine and the occasional screw, an ancient tradition is being built from the ground up on the Cocopah Indian Tribe's western reservation.

Under the direction of tribal elders, a small crew of workers is erecting a traditional Cocopah home. It's a domestic design that hasn't graced the desert landscape of southwestern Arizona for more than a century.

The traditional home will serve as the Cocopah Museum's newest exhibit, which will be showcased during the tribe's annual Cocopah Cultural Celebration on Oct. 18.

"It's exciting to see people awakened to the knowledge of the long history of occupation by us here," said Joe Rodriguez with the Cocopah Museum. "People are always amazed that we survived in this region with the littlest of accommodations and how we've endured so many floods, so many droughts. The Cocopahs survived."

In recent years the museum staff has typically built some form of a traditional building for every other Cocopah Cultural Celebration. The house currently being built just outside the museum will be similar but constructed as a longer-lasting exhibit.

Workers know that their handiwork won't last forever, but the home is certainly being built right, using centuries-old techniques developed by Cocopah ancestors.

"We have a tribal elder right here working with us, making sure we are doing everything according to tradition," Rodriguez explained. "We don't want to go overboard with all our new technologies. It takes away from what we really want to do."

Plus, he added, these building traditions couldn't be more tried and true.

"Our ancestors spent years working on these ways. They knew what works."

The one-room home will feature a simple design with just two special features: a door and a small overhang. Rodriguez said the home would be typical of a smaller family dwelling. Larger traditional homes could be up to three times bigger.

Workers have about a week under their belts and expect to complete the project in two weeks.

They are building the house out of two staple materials. The frame of the building is being made of slender willow trees, while the roof and walls will be thatched with dried arrowweed. Both materials are usually found along the Colorado River, but sharp decreases in arrowweed alarm Cocopah leaders since this plant is traditionally one of the most important to the tribe.

In addition to wisdom from elders, the museum staff turns to historic photographs, the oldest of which date back to around 1900.

"Even then we had outside influences already," Rodriguez said. "You see metal items and horses, things like that."

The Cocopah Indian Tribe's housing history falls into three periods mostly: arrowweed homes, structures mostly made of scrap materials and modern-day HUD (U.S. Housing and Urban Development) homes.

Rodriguez said most of the tribal elders living today grew up in "shanties" made from whatever the builders could find. Rodriguez, who is in his 30s, himself spent part of his childhood in a home that combined lumber and cardboard, and lacked electricity or running water.

Rodriguez pointed to the large and complex buildings owned by the tribe today, ranging from a casino to a hotel and resort.

"It's a testament to all the things we've endured in our lives here as Cocopahs."


----
Darin Fenger can be reached at dfenger@yumasun.com or 539-6860.