🌵 Mondays with Morales - Hohokam Ancestors Disturbed: Tucson City Manager's Monumental Mistake🏺

10/21/24: 👤 Tim Thomure: The Man Behind the Archaeological Mayhem 🔍 Unearthing the Scandal: How Tucson Bulldozed Its Own History

Oct 21, 2024

What good is the city of Tucson reading the Land Acknowledgment and then literally desecrating the land that they just dug up and destroyed?

😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾

🏗️🌵 Imagine if someone accidentally dug up your family's oldest, most special garden and threw the dirt in your neighbor's yard! That's kind of what happened in Tucson. The city was building new roads and parks, but they forgot to be careful with very old, special places where people lived a long, long time ago. They dug up areas where the oldest gardens in Arizona were found (over 10,000 years old!) and might have moved old pottery and even buried people without realizing it. The Tohono O'odham people, whose great-great-great (many times great) grandparents lived there, are very sad and upset about this. Now, everyone's trying to figure out how to fix this big mistake and make sure it never happens again. 🌱💔🔍

Give a gift subscription

🗝️ Takeaways

🌱 The Santa Cruz River banks house 10,000-year-old gardens, the oldest in the Southwest
👻 Hohokam remains and artifacts were disturbed during city construction projects
🚜 City Manager Tim Thomure oversaw projects that violated archaeological protection laws
🏜️ Excavated earth, potentially containing artifacts and remains, was dumped on Tohono O'odham land
💔 The Tohono O'odham Nation expressed shock and sadness at the desecration
🔍 An independent investigation and new protective measures are being demanded
🌵 The incident highlights the ongoing struggle between development and cultural preservation

Get 7 day free trial

🏛️💀 Desecrating 10,000 Years of History - Tucson's Archaeological Nightmare 🚧🔍

¡Hola mis queridos lectores! Maextro Morales here, and today we're diving deep into a horror story that would make even the most hardened curandera's blood run cold.

Grab your sage, amigos, because we're about to uncover a desecration that goes beyond just renaming parks – we're talking about bulldozing millennia of our ancestors' history!

🌱 The Sacred Banks of the Santa Cruz: Cradle of Our Civilization

First, let's talk about what's really at stake here. The banks of the Santa Cruz River aren't just some random patch of desert, mi gente. We're talking about the birthplace of agriculture in our region, the sacred ground where our ancestors first planted their dreams and hopes over 10,000 years ago!

Archaeologists have found the oldest known gardens in the entire Southwest right here. Ten thousand years of our people tending to this land, coaxing life from the desert, and building a civilization that flourished long before Columbus even dreamed of sailing the ocean blue. This isn't just dirt—it's the story of who we are, written in layers of earth and artifact.

👻 Hohokam Whispers: The Ghosts Beneath Our Feet

And let's not forget about the Hohokam, our ancestors whose very name means "those who have gone." Their remains, their art, their lives – all of it has been found along these riverbanks. Each pottery shard, each ancient seed, each burial site tells a story of resilience, of life in harmony with the desert, of a people whose blood runs in our veins.

But apparently, to some folks in City Hall, all of this is just an inconvenient speed bump on the road to "progress."

🚜 Thomure's Travesty: Bulldozing History for "Progress"

Enter Tim Thomure, our illustrious City Manager (now) and former head of Tucson Water (when they began this desecration).

Oh, Tim. Sweet, oblivious Tim.

This man, who should be the guardian of our city's resources, decided that 10,000 years of history was less important than widening a road or sprucing up a park named after a colonizer.

In the name of "development" and "growth," Thomure and his merry band of progress-pushers have allowed heavy machinery to rip through these sacred sites. No proper surveys, no archaeological monitors – just the sound of bulldozers drowning out 10,000 years of our ancestors' whispers.

It's like watching someone use the Codex Borgia as a coffee coaster – horrifying, senseless, and showing a level of cultural awareness that would embarrass a potato.

🏜️ The Ultimate Insult: Dumping Our History

But wait, it gets worse! In a twist that would be laughable if it weren't so tragic, the earth from these excavations – potentially filled with artifacts and, yes, human remains – was unceremoniously dumped on Tohono O'odham land.

Imagine the horror of the Tohono O'odham people when they discovered that the dirt being dropped on their land might contain the remains of their own ancestors! It's like someone cleaning out their abuela's house and dumping the contents in a stranger's yard – except in this case, that "stranger" is actually familia.

The Tohono O'odham Nation has expressed shock and deep sadness at this desecration.

The tribe was not told in advance where the 118 loads of material came from or how it was excavated. Tohono O’odham officials only found out after it had been layered in place for the housing project.
“We were totally unaware of the situation until after the fact,” said Austin Nunez, San Xavier District chairman for the Tohono O’odham Nation. “I believe it never should have happened, based on everything that is known.”

🔥 A Call to Action: Reclaiming Our History

So what do we do now, mi gente? We demand more than just apologies and paper promises:

A complete, independent investigation led by indigenous archaeologists and elders.
Immediately halt all construction projects along the Santa Cruz until proper surveys are conducted.
Reparations to the Tohono O'odham Nation and all affected tribes, including the return and proper reburial of any disturbed remains.
A new city charter that enshrines indigenous rights and requires indigenous oversight on all construction projects.
Comprehensive education programs in Tucson schools about the true history of this land and its people.

And yes, we still want that park renamed!

🌵 The Real Cost of "Progress"

This disaster lays bare the true cost of unchecked development. Every shovelful of earth moved without care is an erasure of our history, a silencing of our ancestors' voices. It's time for Tucson to realize that true progress doesn't mean paving over the past, but building a future that honors and preserves it.

As we close this week, I ask you all to reflect: How do we ensure that the next 10,000 years of our history aren't bulldozed for the next 10 miles of road? How do we teach those in power that our culture isn't a museum piece to be admired from afar, but a living, breathing part of this land that deserves protection and respect?

Hasta la próxima semana, this is Maextro Morales, reminding you that our roots run deeper than any foundation they can pour. Stay strong, stay proud, and for the love of all our ancestors, stay loud!

¡El Maextro ha hablado! 🎤💥