The University of Arizona Press
Date: Thursday, February 12, 2026
Time: 12-1 p.m., MST
Place: Register for Zoom link
David Martínez, author of My Heart is Bound Up with Them: How Carlos Montezuma Became the Voice of a Generation ivesa free online talk, “Our Elder Brother Dwells There: How I’itoi Ki Moved from Mountain Peak to Basket Design” presented by the Amerind Foundation. The event is free and open to the public. David Martínez (Akimel O’odham/Hia-ced O’odham/Mexican) is a Professor of American Indian Studies and Transborder Studies, at Arizona State University. In this event, Martinez discusses I’itoi, Elder Brother, who taught O’odham how to live well in their desert homelands, where his home, his kih, is located, according to oral tradition, and how the symbol of this home, I’itoi kih, started appearing in O’odham baskets more than a century ago.
About the book:
Carlos Montezuma is well known as an influential Indigenous figure of the turn of the twentieth century. While some believe he was largely interested only in enabling Indians to assimilate into mainstream white society, Montezuma’s image as a staunch assimilationist changes dramatically when viewed through the lens of his Yavapai relatives at Fort McDowell in Arizona.
Through his diligent research and transcription of the letters archived in the Carlos Montezuma Collection at Arizona State University Libraries, David Martínez offers a critical new perspective on Montezuma’s biography and legacy. During an attempt to force the Fort McDowell Yavapai community off of their traditional homelands north of Phoenix, the Yavapai community members and leaders wrote to Montezuma pleading for help. It was these letters and personal correspondence from his Yavapai cousins George and Charles Dickens, as well as Mike Burns that sparked Montezuma’s desperate but principled desire to liberate his Yavapai family and community—and all Indigenous people—from the clutches of an oppressive Indian Bureau.
