New Scholarship on the Tohono O’odham Legal Systems

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Kyle Fields has posted “Tohono O’odham Legal Systems” on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

This short essay surveys the Tohono O’odham’s legal system through three periods. First, it discusses the traditional O’odham legal system, which relied on himdag (culture or way of life). Second, it reviews how the Spanish, using an inquisitorial system based on Christian religious law, altered the O’odham’s legal system. Third, it analyzes how the secular American adversarial system changed the O’odham’s legal system.