Chona, Maria (1845–1936)

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Chona, Maria (1845–1936)

Papago medicine woman and basket-maker. Name variations: Cha-veela. Born 1845 in Mesquite Root village, Papago Reservation, Arizona; died 1936; dau. of Jose Marie (chief of Tautaukwani Papago).

Served as medicine woman and basket maker among the Papago of the Southern Arizona Tohono O'Odham tribe; with the aid of anthropologist Ruth Murray Underhill, was the 1st Southwestern Indian woman to publish her life story, The Autobiography of a Papago Woman (1936).