Maria Chona (1845-1936) was a native American weaver and participant in anthropological research.
In her early teens Chona was married off to the son of a medicine man, to whom she had a daughter.
Becoming unhappy after her husband took another wife, Chona divorced him and returned to live with her parents.
[1] In the 1930s Chona participated in Ruth Murray Underhill's research on the culture and lifestyle of the Tohono O'odham people.
[2] Author Liz Sonneborn notes that Underhill's research on Native American women is a unique contrast to other research at the time which predominantly focused on men, saying "these stories quietly detail the trials and triumphs of everyday life and the network of personal relationships Indian women traditionally had relied upon for their survival.