The ancestors of the modern Oodham built Sce:dagi Mu:val Vaaki near the headgates of one of the largest and most sophisticated networks of irrigation canals created in the Americas. Sce:dagi Mu:val Vaaki featured a large platform mound (vaaki) that served as a civic and gathering center where administrative and religious activities were performed. It is estimated that the site controlled over 27,000 acres of highly productive farmland supporting a large community.
City of Mesa Officially Renames Mesa Grande Cultural Park
November 4, 2024 at 1:08 pm
The City of Mesa is pleased to announce the official renaming of Mesa Grande Cultural Park to reflect our region's rich cultural heritage and profound connection to the O'odham (AWE-thumb) and Piipaash (Pee-PAHSH) peoples and their ancestors. The name given to the site is Sce:dagi Mu:val Vaaki. In the Oodham language, it means Blue Flys place of dwelling or Blue Flys house. Sce:dagi Mu:val Vaaki, pronounced CHUH-dag MOO-vahl VAH-kee, comes from a series of songs originating at the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, located only about one milefrom the ancestral site.
The renaming ceremony at Sce:dagi Mu:val Vaaki, located at 1000 N Date, Mesa, Arizona honored the ancestral lands of the Native communities who have inhabited this landscape for generations, demonstrating the Citys ongoing commitment to acknowledging and preserving the historical and cultural link that exists between the Oodham, the Piipaash and Mesas cultural heritage.
"The lands that comprise present-day Mesa are culturally affiliated with the O'odham, Piipaash and their ancestors, who have lived on and stewarded this land from time immemorial," said John Giles, Mayor of Mesa. "This renaming pays tribute to their enduring legacy and the sacred significance of these lands to the O'odham and Piipaash way of life."
The City has long partnered with Indigenous communities, including the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) and the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC), to preserve and steward important cultural sites within the region. This renaming is a testament to these collaborative efforts and the deep connections the O'odham and the Piipaash maintain with the landscape.
SRPMIC has awarded the Arizona Museum of Natural History (AZMNH) a $200,000 grant to develop new signage, interpretive labels and an educational curriculum related to Sce:dagi Mu:val Vaaki.
The City of Mesa acknowledges that it gathers on the homeland of Native peoples and their ancestors, whose cultural values are deeply embedded in this landscape.
Sce:dagi Mu:val Vaaki will open to the public for the season on Saturday, Nov. 9. It will be open until mid-April on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, visit azmnh.org.
RELATED CONTENT UPLOADED PREVIOUSLY ON THIS BLOG:
08 October 2018
On Columbus Day Here In Mesa/Honoring The People Who Were Here Before: Re-Discovering Another Historic Treasure
Today it is important to take a look at our heritage that goes back for centuries reminding us that even though generations of The First Peoples (The Salt River-Pima Maricopa "Indians")are relegated to live on reservations directly north of the current man-made boundaries, you can see by the pre-historic map above.
We now live on territories where thousands lived for centuries way before a few hundred settlers came to expand what they thought was their Kingdom of Deseret ruled by a religion - The Church of Jesus Christ of The Latter Day Saints. Other religions from Spain attempted to colonize The New World in the late 15th Century that explains the Spanish place names you see on the map: Let's take a closer look
Note the section markings on an enlargement of the lands south of the Rio Salado or The Salt River
> Note section 22 south of the Salt River: MESA (on the east-west line of what's marked as a sedimentation basin)
> Note the names of areas marked with dots and squares: PUEBLO or CASA or PLAZA
These are areas of existing settlements where the people who lived were before, digging canals and cultivating the land did leave evidence and artifacts of their lives in what the map-marker called "pre-history".
> Please note the area Pueblo de Lehi Why you might ask? Simply because . . . The time is right TODAY with all the engaged public debate over the expanded development plans for the Mesa LDS Temple Area ( a twenty-acre tract at what is now the corner of Main and Hobson Streets just outside the original town site) and the current media narrative of 'preservation vs progress' or 'balancing-the-past-and-the-future' simply leaves out or ignores whose past is here in Mesa now? We need to re-discover and un-bury more of that - The time is right TODAY to restore our lost history.
It's the right time right now when the grounds around the Mesa Temple are getting cleared and other buildings in the area getting demolished to ask for a commitment to look more deeply into what could be more of Mesa's lost history. It's the right time to ask for a team of archeologists when the grounds are dug-deep for a three-story underground parking garage - what lays buried in the earth might be more authentic in keeping to preserve and protect Mesa's history.
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In the 1920's there was a drive to preserve and protect the historic site When this effort started is unknown but the first public event was a parade down Main Street organized by the chamber of commerce in 1927. This was the year that Pueblo Grande, the other great mound of the Hohokam, opened to the public.
What else happened here in Mesa in 1927?
On October 23,1927 the LDS Temple was dedicated, although it had been planned on some twenty acres just east of the original town site. The construction of the LDS Temple achieved the realization of many generations of LDS pioneers. The earliest recorded donation for the Temple dated back to 1897, when a Graham County widow donated $5.00 to the construction fund when it was thought a temple would be erected in the town of Pima.
Mesa LDS official began actively promoting the idea in 1912. By the end of World War One over $200,000 had been collected for construction. Church officials visited Mesa after the war and on September 24, 1919 selected a twenty-acre tract at what is now the corner of Main and Hobson Streets just outside the original townsite.
Preliminary planning took place from 1919 to 1921.
Mesa Grande Cultural Park on Brown Road
Mesa Grande by air from the northwest.
Many such efforts followed and community support for a public facility has remained very strong through the years. In the early 1950s Frank and Grace Midvale organized the Mesa Grande Archaeological Society to promote the opening of the mound. This organization was transformed in 1955 into the Mesa Archaeological and Historical Society.
The new group held its first organizational event at Mesa Grande where over 200 members joined... A major force in the community, the Mesa Archaeological and Historical Society attracted prominent speakers including governors and legislators, . . . Today, this is the Mesa Historical Society which operates the Mesa Historical Museum. Those with archaeological interests began what is now the Southwest Archaeology Team, which is affiliated with the Arizona Museum of Natural History and continues to work on the Mesa Grande platform mound. . .
What it takes is a line-up of different people with different interests, some of them are women in this section:
Pioneers of Preservation
> Acquanetta Ross
The people of her faith should honor this woman: her faith will remain permanent in the country as long as it embraces women as true as she."
Acquanetta was one of the most colorful people in the history of Mesa Grande. Acquanetta was a well-known movie actress, billed in Hollywood as the "Venezuelan Volcano". She is perhaps best known for playing the title role in Tarzan and the Leopard Woman with Johnny Weissmuller, but she appeared in many other films.
Acquanetta married Jack Ross, a three time gubernatorial candidate and owner of a car dealership. Acquanetta appeared in television ads for the dealership and became a beloved local celebrity.
Acquanetta's mother was Native American and Acquanetta grew up in the Arapaho community in Montana. She had strong feelings for Mesa Grande and worked for many years to preserve the mound and to open it to the public.
In the 1970s, she worked tirelessly with the Mesa Historical and Archaeological Society and the City of Mesa to open the mound to the public.
Having failed to get adequate support for the project, she played the key role in the 1980s in getting Mesa Grande into public ownership.
More fascinating details in this story >> http://arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory.org
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Acquanetta married Jack Ross, a three time gubernatorial candidate and owner of a car dealership. Acquanetta appeared in television ads for the dealership and became a beloved local celebrity.
Acquanetta's mother was Native American and Acquanetta grew up in the Arapaho community in Montana. She had strong feelings for Mesa Grande and worked for many years to preserve the mound and to open it to the public.
In the 1970s, she worked tirelessly with the Mesa Historical and Archaeological Society and the City of Mesa to open the mound to the public.
Having failed to get adequate support for the project, she played the key role in the 1980s in getting Mesa Grande into public ownership.
More fascinating details in this story >> http://arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory.org
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To preserve the mound, Madora Barker sold it to archaeologist Frank Midvale in 1927.
> Frank J. Midvale
Frank Midvale's intense interest in archaeology began at a very young age and carried through his entire life. Funding his work through teaching and other jobs, Midvale roamed the Arizona desert recording Hohokam sites and mapping the prehistoric canal systems.
His notes on file at ASU preserve valuable information on sites now long destroyed by modern construction.
Following his early experiences with archaeology in the 1920s, Midvale directed excavations of a platform mound at the site of La Ciudad covered today by Saint Luke's Hospital, for Dwight Heard, a wealthy Phoenix business man and founder of the Heard Museum
Following his early experiences with archaeology in the 1920s, Midvale directed excavations of a platform mound at the site of La Ciudad covered today by Saint Luke's Hospital, for Dwight Heard, a wealthy Phoenix business man and founder of the Heard Museum
In 1927 Midvale purchased Mesa Grande from Ann Madora Barker to preserve the site. With his wife Grace, he founded a group that ultimately became the Mesa Historical and Archaeological Society, which originally was dedicated to the preservation of Mesa Grande. Unable to open Mesa Grande to the public, Midvale transferred the mound to Jack and Acquanetta Ross in 1962.
Midvale hoped that they had the influence to accomplish his dream of opening an archaeological park. The preservation of Mesa Grande and his irreplaceable notes on Hohokam sites stand as Frank Midvale's lasting legacies.
24 October 2019
Grubby Philanthropy & The Real Nitty-Gritty @ Mesa Grande Cultural Park. . . It Could Have Been One of The Best Public Spaces In Central Mesa
Yes it sure does look like a mound of dirt from this view by air now - it just happens that once upon a time, a long, long time ago, it was A TEMPLE MOUND for millennia of The People who cultivated the lands and established settlements (called Pueblos) here in Central Mesa and Central Arizona centuries before their territories were taken over by incursions in the 15th-19th Centuries The City of Mesa is better known as the first site of the 2nd Temple outside of Salt Lake City, Utah for The Church of Jesus Christ of The Latter-Day Saints in 1927.
Quite fortunately, we do have maps of The Salt River Valley that clearly mark the locations and sites of earlier pueblos, plazas, canals, casas and casitas, las acequias(swamps), and reservoirs and even more temples - one of which is in an area called 'Pueblo Moroni' .
You can also see MESA marked on the map and can figure out the locations for Tempe, Scottsdale and Phoenix*
Unfortunately, a respect for more than a one-dimensional view of history and other cultures was slow to arrive here, overtaken by rampant real estate development and unrestrained growth at any price.
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* Note that the City of Phoenix has a more-inclusive view and respect for history than the City of Mesa, setting aside 1,500 acres for The Pueblo Grande Museum, doing much more not only to preserve 'the ruins' ...
LAST SUNDAY OCTOBER 20, 2019
INAUGURAL CELEBRATION
Portal to the Past
The first in a series of site-specific artworks, it's the largest monumental artwork ever for Mesa artist Zarco Guerrero opening the gates - a Portal to The Past - onto a pathway on a bridge spanning over the canal close to the 44th & Washington Streets.
For more information:
Here's the Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony >
"The Hohokam constructed one of the largest, most sophisticated irrigation networks ever created, with hundreds of miles of waterways winding out from the Salt and Gila Rivers. These canals are imprinted in the Threshold Stone at the base of the Portal, which all pedestrian visitors will cross over as they enter. . . "
Last Sunday: The Canal Loop Trail
Shown below on one side of the canal
Project Passage, Pueblo Grande Museum
City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture
Public Art Program 2016
Phoenix, AZ United States
Artwork Budget: $2,000,000
Overview
The final artwork, entitled Passage, was the overall design, integrated within a desert site and providing access to the existing architecture that comprises the Museum facilities.
The artist collaborated with a team which included landscape architects, structural engineers, city officials, public art officials, tribal leaders, archaeologists, fabricators, and the state historic preservation office.
- Any element below grade required archaeology to be performed.
- The design was reviewed by tribal leaders and the State Historic Preservation Office.
photo: Brad Goldberg
photo: Brad Goldberg 
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This Saturday is the Seasonal Re-Opening for "A Hidden Gem " in Central Mesa - most people don't realize this cultural park even exists, even though its long history goes back centuries before the mid-1850's when Mormon Pioneers from Utah were sent on a mission in oxen-carts to colonize Arizona for The Church. There were two waves, the first in an area now named "Lehi" after a Prophet in The Book of Mormon. 300 Latter-Day Saints arrived in indigenous lands and territories inhabited by more than 5,000 "Indians", staked out homesteads, claiming water-rights along The Salt River. "The Hohokam, the ancestors of the Akimel O'odham (Pima), constructed the Mesa Grande temple mound and established many settlements in the Gila and Salt River valleys of southern Arizona. Mesa Grande is one of the last places to show how the Hohokam created an irrigation network that pioneers began to reuse in the late 1800s. Mesa’s first inhabitants realized the partially filled canals for what they were and began excavating them to start the Valley’s modern agricultural industry.
They built rectangular pit houses from earth, rather than stone, and lived in small villages. They were a peaceful people who cooperated to build large canal networks. Some of their canals were over ten miles long and used gravity to control water flow and to flush out the silt! The Hohokam were the only cultural group in prehistoric North America to rely on massive canal systems, irrigating up to 110,000 acres of corn, beans and squash. Archaeologists from the Arizona Museum of Natural History excavated one prehistoric canal that measured 15 feet deep and 45 feet wide. These irrigation systems represented monumental efforts of labor and engineering.
> In the late 1800s farmers rebuilt and opened the brilliantly engineered Hohokam irrigation systems – some remain in use today.
> Between the 7th and 14th centuries they built and maintained these extensive irrigation networks along the lower Salt and middle Gila rivers that rivaled the complexity of those used in the ancient Near East, Egypt, and China. These were constructed using relatively simple excavation tools, without the benefit of advanced engineering technologies.
Source for much of this information > 2012 K8 Librarian on WordPress
The story of the modern Mesa Grande Ruins is tied to volunteers that work to preserve the story of the past.Readers of this blog can access earlier posts about the Mesa Grande Cultural Park, Frank Midvale and Anna Madera Baker and at least one more unusual person named ""Acquanetta".
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The City of Mesa purchased the Mesa Grande ruins in the 1980s to preserve Mesa's premier cultural treasure and to open it to the public as an educational and recreational facility. Open from mid-October to mid-May.21 July 2021
The Hohokam: Triumph in The Desert (Part 2 with Content Added from Earlier Posts on this Blog)
Nice to see a video uploaded to this blog yesterday - a refreshing well-researched look back at the history of First Peoples here -
20 July 2021
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RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG:
Quite fortunately, we do have maps of The Salt River Valley that clearly mark the locations and sites of earlier pueblos, plazas, canals, casas and casitas, las acequias(swamps), and reservoirs and even more temples - one of which is in an area called 'Pueblo Moroni' .
You can also see MESA marked on the map and can figure out the locations for Tempe, Scottsdale and Phoenix*
Unfortunately, a respect for more than a one-dimensional view of history and other cultures was slow to arrive here, overtaken by rampant real estate development and unrestrained growth at any price.
_________________________________________________________________________
* Note that the City of Phoenix has a more-inclusive view and respect for history than the City of Mesa, setting aside 1,500 acres for The Pueblo Grande Museum, doing much more not only to preserve 'the ruins' ...
LAST SUNDAY OCTOBER 20, 2019
INAUGURAL CELEBRATION
Portal to the Past
The first in a series of site-specific artworks, it's the largest monumental artwork ever for Mesa artist Zarco Guerrero opening the gates - a Portal to The Past - onto a pathway on a bridge spanning over the canal close to the 44th & Washington Streets.
For more information:
Here's the Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony >
"The Hohokam constructed one of the largest, most sophisticated irrigation networks ever created, with hundreds of miles of waterways winding out from the Salt and Gila Rivers. These canals are imprinted in the Threshold Stone at the base of the Portal, which all pedestrian visitors will cross over as they enter. . . "
Last Sunday: The Canal Loop Trail
Shown below on one side of the canal
Project Passage, Pueblo Grande Museum
City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture
Public Art Program 2016
Phoenix, AZ United States
Artwork Budget: $2,000,000
Overview
The final artwork, entitled Passage, was the overall design, integrated within a desert site and providing access to the existing architecture that comprises the Museum facilities.
The artist collaborated with a team which included landscape architects, structural engineers, city officials, public art officials, tribal leaders, archaeologists, fabricators, and the state historic preservation office.
- Any element below grade required archaeology to be performed.
- The design was reviewed by tribal leaders and the State Historic Preservation Office.
photo: Brad Goldberg
photo: Brad Goldberg
_________________________________________________________________________
This Saturday is the Seasonal Re-Opening for "A Hidden Gem " in Central Mesa - most people don't realize this cultural park even exists, even though its long history goes back centuries before the mid-1850's when Mormon Pioneers from Utah were sent on a mission in oxen-carts to colonize Arizona for The Church. There were two waves, the first in an area now named "Lehi" after a Prophet in The Book of Mormon.300 Latter-Day Saints arrived in indigenous lands and territories inhabited by more than 5,000 "Indians", staked out homesteads, claiming water-rights along The Salt River.
"The Hohokam, the ancestors of the Akimel O'odham (Pima), constructed the Mesa Grande temple mound and established many settlements in the Gila and Salt River valleys of southern Arizona. Mesa Grande is one of the last places to show how the Hohokam created an irrigation network that pioneers began to reuse in the late 1800s. Mesa’s first inhabitants realized the partially filled canals for what they were and began excavating them to start the Valley’s modern agricultural industry.
They built rectangular pit houses from earth, rather than stone, and lived in small villages. They were a peaceful people who cooperated to build large canal networks. Some of their canals were over ten miles long and used gravity to control water flow and to flush out the silt! The Hohokam were the only cultural group in prehistoric North America to rely on massive canal systems, irrigating up to 110,000 acres of corn, beans and squash. Archaeologists from the Arizona Museum of Natural History excavated one prehistoric canal that measured 15 feet deep and 45 feet wide. These irrigation systems represented monumental efforts of labor and engineering.
> In the late 1800s farmers rebuilt and opened the brilliantly engineered Hohokam irrigation systems – some remain in use today.
> Between the 7th and 14th centuries they built and maintained these extensive irrigation networks along the lower Salt and middle Gila rivers that rivaled the complexity of those used in the ancient Near East, Egypt, and China. These were constructed using relatively simple excavation tools, without the benefit of advanced engineering technologies.These highly successful agricultural techniques produced a surplus of food. Villages and populations grew. Over the next 1500 years the Hohokam expanded their settlements into the Tucson Basin, then to the Phoenix area, and as far north as present-day Flagstaff - and south into what is now Mexico.
Note how the 4-Corner States divided up the land
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1 
Just like a recent image shown on this blog from a press release about a "Trees For The Dead" - "Shade-and-Shelter" campaign at the Mesa City Cemetery, this site in Nogales at Kino Springs certainly looks serene.
Other than that, adjacent to the city cemetery here in Mesa is the Mesa Country Club where some people play golf. Both are on high ground close to ancient Hohokam canals in the Salt River Valley. Kino Springs, in the Santa Cruz River Valley, has an long documented history of early settlements.
Here in Mesa - and in Tempe and Phoenix and Scottsdale - there's documentation as well for what Frank Midvale called "The Pre-Historic Irrigation of the Salt River Valley" of earlier indigenous cultures that were established for centuries before anyone recorded their versions of that history when evidence of those who were here before was "discovered" and their settlements patterns were mapped.
< Here's a closer look from a Digital Geo Map 2003 uploaded by Richard A. Neely.
Major Hohokam Irrigation Systems in the Lower Salt River Valley
The link is below if you're interested in more details.
But let's note at this point, that it was the usual practice to bury the dead on higher ground above the irrigation canals close to settlements and housing patterns.
Finding artifacts or human remains is often the result of chance - or new construction.
Research Gate
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2 
Hohokam Human Remains Found in Arizona
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
NOGALES, ARIZONA—Nogales International reports that human remains belonging to a Hohokam individual were discovered by maintenance crews at a golf resort near the Arizona-Mexico border.
Bioarchaeologist James T. Watson of the University of Arizona and the Arizona State Museum determined that the human remains belonged to a member of the Hohokam, a Native American group that lived in the area from about A.D. 640 to 1450. The archaeological site now occupied by the golf course was a vast Hohokam settlement, Watson explained, though it's unclear whether the human remains came from a single burial or a larger cemetery. "It's at a nice bend at the Santa Cruz River, so you can see how it would have been a nice area for a Hohokam village," he said. The remains have been transported to Tucson so that they may be returned to the appropriate descendant community, likely the Tohono O'odham Nation that is now resident in the region
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