Welcome to the Pee Posh migration page. The goal of this project is to provide mapping from oral stories that have been passed on to the modern era.
Pee Posh, are a group of Indigenous peoples originally from south of Parker, AZ and north of Blythe, CA, on the Colorado River. The Pee Posh were originally a part of a larger society of tribal affiliations labeled as Patayans, these tribal nations spoke the original Yuman language and had lands from Baja California stretching north of Parker, west to the Southern California coast, and east on the Gila River near the Mohawk Mountains.
The Patayan society split up due to resources. The Pee Posh, Halchidoma groups moved north and grouped together in an area later known as Halchidoma’s Land (From: from south of Parker, AZ and north of Blythe, CA, approx. 40 mile stretch).
The Pee Posh migrated story is an oral tradition that has been recited for generations. This project combines written oral accounts from oral stories and maps to create a modern rendition of the Pee Posh migration. The oral tradition was helped along with “calendar sticks,” a method of marking significant spaces in time. Another method of record keeping was taking strands of mesquite or willow bark and tie knots it. After the Pee Posh domesticated cotton, they used it to continue this tradition. Calendar sticks, mesquite or willow bark, and cotton were individually made, thus the memories of the person who made the record. The keeper of the record held on to their records until death, but the record would eventually be burned as a part of the keeper’s cremation. By creating digital maps, a new recording method is being utilized, which serves to preserve the Pee Posh migration.
The primary source for the maps and migration story come from a written article called An Account of Maricopa Origins, 1976 . The account was recited by Mr. Nick Sunn and was recorded by Mr. Henry O. Harwell in June of 1972, which was later published in the International Journal of American Linguistics Native American Text Series: Yuman Texts, Volume 1, Number 3, edited by Margaret Langdon (1976). Mr. Sunn told the migration story in the Pee Posh dialect and then translated into English. The text provides the Pee Posh language written with an Western alphabet with literal translation, and followed by an English translation.
The text provided in the accompanying pages are based on the the oral accounts from:
Mr. Nick Sunn: Langdon, Margaret. “An Account of Maricopa Origins.” International Journal of American Linguistics Native American Text Series: Yuman Texts, Volume 1, Number 3, 1976, pp. 26-30.
Mr. Ike Gates: Cameron, Leroy, et al. “Estrella Dawn: The Origin of the Maricopa.” Journal of the Southwest, Volume 36, Number 1, Spring, 1994, pp. 54-75.
Last Star & Mrs. Ida Redbird: Spier, Leslie. Yuman Tribes of the Gila River. Dover, 1978.
The maps are a combination of:
Google Earth: Source: “Southwest United States & Northwest Mexico.”
33˚50’24”N 114˚ 27’24”W. Google Earth. March 30, 2018.
Wikimedia Commons contributors, ‘File:Gilarivermap.png’, Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, 21 January 2018.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Gilarivermap.png&mobileaction=toggle_view_destop
Wikipedia contributors. “List of rivers of California.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 24 Apr. 2018. Web. 30 May. 2018.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_of_California
Wikipedia contributors. “List of longest rivers of Mexico.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 11 Dec. 2017. Web. 8 May. 2018.
Wikipedia contributors. “Pima people.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 21 Apr. 2018. Web. 8 May. 2018.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CiteThisPage&page=Pima_people&id=837500878
Pee Posh Migration 
