pima cotton

A very strong, high-grade cotton of medium staple developed from selected Egyptian cottons in the southwest United States.

[After Pima County in southern Arizona, location of the experimental farm on which it was developed in the early 1900s.]

Some of the finest cotton in the world bears the name of the Pima Indians of Arizona. But it is a twentieth-century development rather than an ancient tribal tradition. Early in this century the U.S. Department of Agriculture was developing new varieties of Extra-Long-Staple cotton at its experimental farm at Sacaton, south of Tempe in the Gila River Indian Reservation. Pima Indians cultivated the experimental crops of what was then called American-Egyptian cotton. Wanting a new name, the USDA designated the ELS cotton Pima in honor of the Pima workers. The first Pima cotton released by USDA was the "Yuma" variety in 1908.

Pima cotton traces its genetic ancestry to the famed cotton cultivated on the Sea Islands of South Carolina as early as the 1790s. This was interbred with varieties from Egypt to develop the Pima. Improvements in Pima cotton have continued since its introduction. "The real breakthrough came in 1951 when a seed was developed and introduced that produced an ELS cotton with superior fiber properties, luster and silkiness ... as well as an unusually high yield," says the Supima Association, a trade group. "Subsequent variety releases in the 1970s, 80s and 90s included Pima S-5, S-6 and S-7, all of which boasted higher yields and better spinning characteristics."

The Pima Indians of southern Arizona speak a language that has been known as Papago-Pima, although they now prefer to call it O'Odham and to refer to themselves as the Tohono O'Odham Nation. Of their total population of about 20,000, more than half are said to be fluent in the language. It belongs to the Sonoran branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Aside from this use of the name Pima, no other words of O'Odham have been imported into English.