Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community is polling its members about a possible name change

The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community is giving its more than 11,000 members at least seven new name options to choose from. Depending on their input, they could shorten or lengthen its already long moniker.

The Valley-based tribe has posted audio recordings with explanations — both for and against — each proposed option on a new website. But no action is supposed to be taken by the council until next year. The new names under consideration are meant to help preserve O’odham and Piipaash languages.

One option is to leave the name as is.

Other alternatives seek to replace the phrase “community” with “nation” to reflect the tribe’s sovereignty. While another variation — “Onk Akimel O’odham c Xalychidom Piipaash Jeveḍ” — adds the O’odham word for land: jeved.

One of its sister Four Southern Tribes, the Tohono O’odham Nation, was once called the Papagos, a derogatory Spanish word linked to tepary beans.

The tribe officially changed its name in 1986.

More recently, lawmakers in Window Rock mulled over letting Navajo voters possibly replace the tribe’s name as part of a November referendum. But that bill failed.

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The term 'Papago' is all over the Valley. The Tohono O’odham wish it would disappear

Lauren Gilger

Language changes all the time, but the Tohono O’odham have long rejected a term that’s ubiquitous here in the Valley: Papago. That name, the story goes, was given to the Tohono O’odham by Spanish settlers.→ Hear more stories from The Show

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