New trails in Mexico; an account of one year's exploration in north-western Sonora, Mexico, and south-western Arizona 1909-1910

Front matter

\<\ W IT' MLS I N i ii^XICO

HOLTZ

BIBLIOPItllOS

Chapter I Page

Westward Bound — Civilization in the West — Tucson Past and Present — Visit to San Xavier Del Bac — The Papago Indian Reservation — Ancient Fortifications — Native Cemeteries— Antiquities — Courtship of the Night Hawks . . I

CHAPTER H

The Papagueria — Its Natural Features — Sierras and Llanos — Small Rainfall — High Temperature — Remarkable Adaptation of Plant Life — Fauna — The Papago, the Great People of the Desert — First Encounter with the Whites — Present Conditions 1 6

Chapter III

An Expedition into Southern Arizona — My Companion — The Range of Baboquivari — Fresnal — Papago Manner of Curing Disease — At the Boundary — An Unusual Religious Commotion — Visit to a Sacred Cave — Indian Oasis . 30

Chapter IV

The Giant Cactus or Sahuaro — The Sahuaro Feast at Noria — Dancing and Singing — The Medicine Lodge — Tobacco — Well Received — Dissertations with the Indians — An Adventure — An Ancient Festival — Native Oratory — Objection to Photography — Artistic Gifts of a Native ... 45

Chapter V

Comobabi — An Attractive Indian Family — Marianita — A Horned Lizard that Spurts Blood through the Eye — An Aboriginal Way of Recording Events — The Papago Calendar— Harvesting Sahuaro — How to Keep Comfortable in Great Heat — A Visit to Chief Alvina 65

XV

XVI

Chapter VI

Horseshoe in the Quijotoa Range — Indians as Miners — Spending a Night under Difficulties — Delightful Natives — A Woman's Game — Santa Rosa Rancheria — The Great Harvest Feast of Santa Rosa

Chapter VII

Visit to a Very Sacred Place — The Children's Sacrifice — A Meeting with an Important Personage — Anekam — Primitive Natives — I Arrive among the Kohatk People — A Wet Night — Return to Santa Rosa

Chapter VIII

Scorpions — A Storm in the Desert — How the Sahuaro Wine Is Made — The Sahuaro Feast at Santa Rosa — A Great Rendezvous — Social Amusements of the Papago — Success at Collecting Specimens — Stuck in the Mud — Wonderful Change in the Landscape — A Valuable Vegetable — Parting with Pablo

Chapter IX

In Magdalena, Mexico — The State of Sonora — The Yaqui Indians — An Attack of Dysentery — Trincheras, the Remarkable Ancient Fortifications — Antiquities of the Papagueria — Altar — Caborca — I Start Westward — Placer Mines — The Choya — Its Terrible Spines — Its Great Utility— Cattle Which Are without Water for Months . .

Chapter XIII

The Old Caborca-Yuma Trail — Quitovaquita, the Place of Small Springs — Old Camping Places — Pinacate and Legends Connected with It — Discovery of Water — Our First Mountain-Sheep — Visit to a Sacred Cave — Ascent of the Peak — Winter Weather — Crater Elegante — Travel at Night 196

Chapter XIV

Changing Camp — Mountain-Sheep — The Useful Greasewood — Palo Fierro, the Friendly Desert Tree — Los Medanos, the Great Sand Dunes — Unusual Tracks — Abandoned Indian Camps — New Sierras — La Tinaja de Los Papagos — Visit to a Crater 21 J

Chapter XV

Westward — Looking Back toward Pinacate — Tinajas Altas — Its Dismal Memories — Sunshine and Moonlight of the Early Morning — El Capitan — Laguna Prieta, a Salt Lake — A Long Wait for Water — How Fresh Water Appears among Bulrushes — Approaching the Colorado River — Colonia Lerdo — The Indians at the Lower Part of the Great River 235

XVlll

Chapter XVI Page

Travelling along the Gulf of California — Delightful Climate — Killing a Porpoise — Fishing — Fresh Water on the Beach — Unattractive Drinking Water — Fine Views — A Great Salt Deposit — Extraordinary Occurrence of Springs — Hard Travel — ^The Papago Salt Expeditions — Worship of the Sea 254

CHAPTER XVH

A Peaceful Day — Tragedy in the Wilderness — Our Animals Beginning to Give In — A Promising Soda Deposit — Last Camp on the Beach — Among the Sand Dunes — Sierra Blanca — The Mouth of the Sonoita River — El Charco — Pronghorn Antelopes — Meeting with Indians — Return to Sonoita 274

Chapter XVIII

New Expedition Westward — Growler Well — A Hardy Old Papago— Disagreeable Experience with a Mexican of My Party — A Valuable New Member — Papago Loyalty — Pronghorn Antelope Again — Mountain-Sheep Inside of a Crater — I Leave My Main Camp — My Two Companions — Risks Taken by the Prospector — Deceptive Atmosphere — Our Guiding Star — Reading Tracks — Solitude — Beauty of the Desert 289

Chapter XIX

I Overtake My Men — Again at Tinajas Altas — Progress under Difficulties — Exploring in Los Medanos — Astonishing Display of Flowers — Picturesque Camp on the Dunes — I Lose My Riding Mule — Sierra Del Rosario — Travel at Night— The Wonderful "Root of the Sands" 308

Chapter XX

Return to Tinajas Altas — Evasive Travellers — An "Oldtimer" — The Cabeza Prieta Mountains — Vague Notions of Property— The Pools of Cabeza Prieta — A Rainy Day — I Reach My Main Camp — The Advantage of Travel with Donkeys — My Indian Companions — The Sand People . 320 xix

Chapter XXI Page

An Indian Hermit — Aboriginal Cooking — Again in Sonoita — Ancient Village Sites Around the Altar River — A Remedy for Snake Bites — I Arrive at Ajo, Arizona — Gila Bend Reservation — An Ancient Fortress — The Maricopa Indians— The Ways of Civilization — The Pima Indians — Casa Grande — Its Builders — Return to Civilization . . 333

Chapter XXII

Physical and Mental Characteristics of the Papago — Effects of Contact with White Man — Marital Relations — Woman's High Position — Industries — Divisions of the Tribe — Religion and Myths — Races and Games — Fights with Apaches — Sham Battles — Present Conditions and Prospects of the Papago 344

APPENDICES

I — Short Vocabularies from the Languages of the Papago,

Pima, and Cocopa Indians 368

II — Rancherias, Present and Past, of the Papago, with Inter-

pretations of Their Native Name 377

III — Geological Sketch of the Papagueria 398

ILLUSTRATIONS

At Sunset: Santa Catalina Mountains, near Tucson.

{Colored plate) Frontispiece

In a Tucson garden 4

Where peace reigns supreme. San Xavier 4

Mission church of San Xavier del Bac 12

A kiln at San Xavier 12

Threshing wheat. San Xavier 12

Sierra de la Basura, Sonora. Seen from the south-west ... 18

An exceptional mountain range of the Papagueria 18

A characteristic mountain range of the Papagueria .... 18

Mocking-bird {Mimus) 22

Elf-owl (Micropallas) 22

Cotton-tail rabbit 22

Young gray fox, at burrow 22

Rattlesnake 22

Peak of Baboquivari, seen from north-west 32

Peak of Baboquivari 42

Ocotillo {Fouquieria splendens) 42

Entrance to the Sacred Cave, at foot of peak of Baboquivari 42

Barrel cactus 42

Sahuaro, or giant cactus {Cereus giganteus) 48

Single-column sahuaro 48

Sahuaro, dry, showing its wooden structure 48

Papago ethnology 56

Picture drawn by an untutored Papago 62

Using the ancient hoe 62

Mother with child in cradle. Aktjin 62

xxi xxii ILLUSTRATIONS

Palo verde, near a Papago cemetery 72

The medicine-lodge at Santa Rosa 72

Showing how to swing the bull-roarer 88

Woman's game of double-ball 88

Papago woman, with her children, from Bisani, near Caborca 88

The clown at the great feast of Santa Rosa 92

My camp at Santa Rosa 92

Papago ethnology 96

Shrine of the children's sacrifice, seen from the west .... 104

Shrine of the children's sacrifice, near Santa Rosa 104

East of the shrine of the children's sacrifice 104

Papago ethnology no

Desert willow in bloom, June 120

Papago woman carrying water 120

The dam at Santa Rosa. Made by the Papagoes 120

Pablo, my interpreter. A full-blooded Papago 132

The old way of hauling freight in Mexico, now disappearing . 136

Bringing bat guano to Corral railroad station in the Yaqui

country 136

Yaqui chiefs who in 1909 made peace with the Mexican Government 136

Ancient fortifications near Trincheras, District of Altar, Sonora 140

The same side of the mountains, viewed at five miles distance

from the north 140

Antiquities of the Papagueria 142

Antiquities of the Papagueria 144

The church in old Caborca 146

Altar, seen from the west 146

A ranch, west of Altar, showing the indispensable water barrels 146

Cow eating choya 152

Cow showing vestiges of her favorite feeding grounds . . . . 152

ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii

Choya {Opuntia mamillata), relished as food by the cattle . . 152

Feeding on mezquite leaves 162

Papago women bringing in wood, La Nariz 162

Pictographs near La Nariz 168

Pictographs near Caborca 168

The nose of the rock which gave La Nariz its name . . . . 168

Ancient pottery vessels of the Papagueria. Excavated by Papago Indians near Fresnal, Arizona. (Colored plate) , . 170

Papago woman, La Nariz 174

The principal spring at Quitovac 174

Agua Dulce, a reappearance of Sonoita River 180

The channel at the beginning of Sonoita River 180

Salt loads, recently discharged. Papago pack-saddles in the

centre 184

Papago woman "dry washing" gold near Quitovac .... 184

Approaching storm. View from Pinacate top, looking south, at

sunset, January 3 200

Pinacate from the east. Commencement of the lava flow. To

the right, my camp 200

Belt of great sand-hills south of Pinacate 200

Guadalupe at the sacred cave of Pinacate 208

The lonely palo fierro 222

Greasewood bushes 222

Hauling palo fierro branches for camp fire at dusk 222

Mountain sheep, female 228

Tracks of beetles (Eleodes) on sand dune 228

Crater elegante 232

The watercourse at Tinaja de Los Papagos 232

Paso de Juana 236

Tinajas Altas 240

Clemente: Papago 240 xxW ILLUSTRATIONS

Filling our barrels and canteens at Tinaja del Tule .... 240

Laguna Prieta, from the east 244

In the sand dunes before arriving at Laguna Prieta .... 244

Indians burning reeds and grass on the Colorado River . . . 248

Approaching Laguna Prieta 248

A stranded porpoise 256

Row of curlews on the beach 256

The delta of the Colorado River showing clumps of bulrushes

(Tulare s) 256

Clayey sand clilFs of the gulf 256

A pozo at Salina Grande, seen from the east 262

The same pozo, seen from the west 262

Salina Grande in its northern part, showing many of the pozos

or tulares 262

A pozo at the edge of Salina Grande 264

A pozo at Salina Grande 264

Beautiful effects of wind and sand, north-west of Pozo del

Caballo 272

The Pinacate salt deposit 272

Leaving La Soda 286

Sierra Blanca, southern part, seen from the south 286

Waiting for his chance. At Los Pozitos 286

GEnothera trichocalyx, near Sierra del Rosario 312

(Enothera trichocalyx, near Sierra del Rosario. A fine growth 312

(Enothera trichocalyx, south of Sierra Blanca 312

Clodomiro digging for "roots of the sands" {Camotes) . . . 318

The "roots of the sands'^ {Ammohroma sonorce) 318

My companions, "Doctor" Pancho (to the left) and Pedro . 318

Sierra del Rosario, northern part 324

ILLUSTRATIONS xxv

Cabeza Prieta Range. An interior, looking westward. A dry

arroyo at the bottom 324

Papago: Guadalupe, my companion from Quitovac .... 344

Papago: Miguel, medicine-man from La Nariz 344

Girl. Parents: Chinaman and Yaqui 344

Boy. Parents: Spaniard and Papago 344

Pima granary. Made from twisted arrow bush 350

Hut for the isolation of women 350

Papago: Rainbow," from La Nariz 350

Designs of Papago baskets 354

Casa Grande, Arizona, before the protecting shed was erected

Printed with map showing Papago Rancherias

MAPS

Map showing Papago Rancherias, Present and Past

Map of South-western Arizona and North-western Sonora, comprising the region formerly called Papagueria

In pocket at end of volume

Chapter I

WESTWARD BOUND— CIVILIZATION IN THE WEST— TUCSON PAST AND PRESENT— VISIT TO SAN XAVIER DEL BAG- THE PAPAGO INDIAN RESERVATION— ANCIENT FORTIFICATIONS— NATIVE CEMETERIES — ANTIQUITIES — COURTSHIP OF THE NIGHT- HAWKS

In May, 1909, I found myself on a train westward bound for the never-never country. Many a time have I crossed the North American continent and, coming from the East, have noticed the change of natural conditions that takes place west of Chicago. One begins to feel the freedom of the West, the air is very bracing, and the great plains inspire to deeds of energy. The few people in the Pullman car look intent, as if they had some purpose in life. Tourists seldom travel on these trains, but very often consumptives are seen on their way to the land of hope, the arid regions of the South-west around El Paso, Tucson, and other places.

''Pardon me for calling you mister. Judge," said one of my fellow-passengers during our conversation. He was not a good judge himself, I am afraid. Another one to show his good-will gave me the title of colonel, as also did the negro porters.

"Why do you want to discover any more animals? We have enough already," said to me a wise, elderly man from California, connecting in some way my proposed expedition with the discovery of animals.

We pulled out from El Paso and, in a newspaper I had just bought, I read these rather startling lines:

COWBOYS AND SHEEPMEN FIGHT Fierce Battle at Atchee, Colo.

SHEEPMEN are TIED UP AND COWBOYS THEN SLAUGHTER 3,000 HEAD

OF SHEEP

Grand Junction, Colo., May 20. — As a result of a battle between the sheepmen and cowboys on a contested ranch near Atchee, Colo., yesterday, 3,000 head of sheep were killed and two sheepmen injured, but not seriously. According to the reports received here the cowboys dashed in upon the herders and tied them to trees and then rode among the sheep, killing them. The slaughter required almost a day. In order to prevent the news from leaking out, it is said, the cowboys first cut the telephone wires and then made their escape into the hills. Several hours later the sheep-herders were discovered and liberated.

A mining man from the West, another of my fellow-passengers, cultivated and intelligent, gave me light on these high-handed proceedings by explaining the feuds between cattlemen and sheepmen as due to the fact that cattle will not graze on ground where sheep have fed. According to my informant, the sheepmen are Mexicans. The cattleowners often hire renegades to do their bloody work. In a battle the previous year, seven men had been killed. The aggressors are masked and escape.

This incident reminded me of a request for the forbearance of the audience put up on a signboard in a far

FRONTIER LIFE

Western town, ''Don't shoot us, we are doing our best," and the advertisement of the barber in a mining camp, *' Ears washed without extra charge." Such are the actuaHties of frontier hfe, but we should not be led to wrong conclusions about that great Western land in the process of making and its virile, hearty population. The other side to the picture is a much more important one, and it often remains obscure to those who do not know the actual conditions.

Arizona, which concerns us here, has good laws and enforces them. Its public-school system is equal to the best of the commonwealths in the eastern part of North America. This State, which includes not only great mines, cattle, sheep, and angora goat ranches, ostrich farms, etc., but a steadily growing agriculture, was considered a useless waste of desert less than fifty years ago.

As for Tucson, where I made my first head-quarters, one is surprised at the business-like, orderly aspect of everything. In Spanish times the presidio, or fort, of Tucson, established in 1776 on its removal from Tubac, resisted many a siege from hostile natives, numbering at times over a thousand. A traveller in 1863 describes it as ''the head-quarters of vice, dissipation, and crime. There was neither government, law, nor military protection. The garrison at Tucson confined itself to its legitimate business of getting drunk or doing nothing." To-day on the same site one finds a cosmopolitan, well-laid-out, and clean city of twenty-four thousand inhabitants. In 1880 the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived here, bringing it in more direct touch with the rest of the world. The people met on the streets or in the stores are invariably civil and they are much more so than under the same conditions in New York, besides being more wide-awake. The citizens are public-spirited, prosperous, and progressive, and, best of all, they respect and favor learning, as evidenced by the welcome extended to the Desert Botanical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, for the study of desert plants, which was given land in the vicinity. Tucson is the seat of the University of Arizona which, from the modest beginning in the year 1 89 1 of a single building among the greasewood of the mesa, has advanced to an institution of much importance. It has a school of mines and an agricultural experiment station.

The university buildings are charmingly situated in a park of forty acres, where clusters of the native palo verde attracted my attention, displaying in an exuberant manner their yellow spring blossoms, which appear before the leaves. Plants peculiar to the desert region have been planted in the garden, among them a maguey {agave americana), the renowned mescal of Mexico, a member of the amaryllis family to which the common garden narcissus belongs. Members of this family the so-called century plants, have large and beautiful spikes of creamy white flowers which are the supreme effort of their lives and after the production of which they die, though able to propagate themselves by shoots. The one in question was seventeen years old when it produced stalk and flowers. The stalk, more than twenty feet high, grew, according to Prof. J. J. Thornber, in

In a Tucson garden

Where peace reigns supreme. San Xavier

TUCSON six weeks, the maximum growth in one day having been eleven inches. For comparison, it may be mentioned that the Virginia creeper, one of the most rapid-growing plants, has been known to make four inches a day, but it needs deep and rich soil and much water.

Tucson is situated on the Santa Cruz River, a small stream, but important because of its permanency. A fertile valley with alluvial soil surrounds its course, which offered the most direct route for the early Spanish explorers. It disappears in the sand before reaching the Gila River. Tucson is 2,430 feet above sea-level. The name is a corruption of the Papago Tjukson, meaning ''at the foot of {son) the black hill (tjuk),'' The word tjuk"^ designates the color black, which also by inference means black hill. Originally Tjukson was a Papago rancheria on the river, at the foot of a small hill near that on which the Desert Laboratory is now situated. The climate is hot in summer, the records of 1909 showing that there were only three days in the year when the sun did not shine; still it is a very healthy region, and consumptives prolong life and are even cured by living here. On January 27, 1888, Tucson, according to reports, had four or five inches of snow on the ground.

About nine miles south of Tucson, on the fertile plains along the Santa Cruz River, is the old church of the Mission of San Xavier del Bac. There has been much speculation in regard to the meaning of the word Bac. It is the Spanish rendering of Vak, the Papago name of the locality, and means: "where the river reap-

* There should be a sHght s sound before /.

pears in the sand, a 'sink'/' This fine Jesuit edifice does not, according to Mr. Ad. F. BandeHer, date further back than the middle of the eighteenth century, though an attempt at building a church at San Xavier appears to have been made in 1699. It was once a rich mission; the architecture is the usual type of Spanish renaissance, but better preserved than is the case with other missions of the South-west.

The church is at present surrounded by a reservation of the Papago Indians. The ethnologist will find these Indians more worthy of a visit than he would anticipate, because, owing to the half nomadic habits of the tribe, natives of the interior districts are constantly to be found there. From the tower of the old church I had a fine view of the extensive wheat-fields which the Indians at that time — the beginning of June — were harvesting, and which presented a marked contrast to the barren appearance of some settlements of poverty-stricken Mexican and Yaqui families that live on low hills beyond the river, just outside of the reservation. Horses were gorging themselves in the green fields of barley. Some of the Indians have mowing machines that cost fifty dollars each. I was told that the United States Government supplied agricultural implements. The ambition of these natives still reaches out for a hay-press, which would cost in Tucson nearly four hundred dollars, and a bog-rake." ''That's all we ask for," the Papago policeman said to me. He had a buggy with two horses, which he lent me. They were lazy and did not take any of the unexpected liberties usual with horses raised by Indians. Sewing

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE machines and many of the white man's kitchen utensils are seen in the houses; nevertheless, the people seem very Indian. When spoken to in Enghsh they would not answer me, but they would in Spanish, the women always smiling when addressed in that tongue.

Some years had passed since I had been among Indians and I again enjoyed their gentle and sympathetic manner. When I reached there, one woman was toasting green garbanzos; she was stirring the large peas in the shallow earthen-wear dish in which corn cakes are baked, and she hospitably offered me a few, presenting them in a beautiful tray with interwoven symbolic figures. Another woman offered me wheat grains which she was toasting on a potsherd. They were simple dishes, these, but how good they tasted because they were well cooked! None of the many civilized man's machine-made productions of a similar kind bear comparison with the plain cuisine of the nimble housewife of the red man. Although dogs here were somewhat numerous, they did not molest. Indian dogs are seldom fierce, but these did not even bark when we approached the houses; they would look at us unconcernedly and lay their heads down again.

The dwellings here, rectangular in shape, are usually adobe huts or light sheds made of sunflower stalks placed upright, three or four sahuaro ribs, which are tied horizontally, binding these together. The walls are usually plastered both inside and out with mud mixed with straw; the uprights are forked poles of mezquite and the same kind of pole always stands in the middle of the house to support the roof. The rafters, too, are of mezquite, the roof consisting besides of a layer of coarse grass called sacaton and another of wheat straw, on top of which is placed mud. The roof is slightly raised in the middle in order that the rain may more easily run off; the floor is earthen. Huts made of upright ocotillo sticks, but otherwise similar, are also seen. A window is rarely found in the houses. Generally there is attached to the house a shed called in Spanish jacaly a light roof resting on four or six forked upright poles, which furnishes a grateful shade. Here the cooking is done, and here the family is usually found sitting. The dwellings in the rest of the Papagueria are of a similar type, real adobe houses being seldom met with. The dome-shaped grass huts of the natives are also not uncommon in the interior districts of southern Arizona.

Pottery making is the greatest industry among these Indians, and wherever I went in the mornings I could hear the soft hammering of the wooden paddle against the clay that had been moulded into shape. A round smooth stone is held by the other hand against the inner wall of the vessel. All the pottery makers are women, and their faces betray much quiet intelligence. The pottery ware of the Papago, though of fairly good quality, cannot be compared with that of the Pueblo Indians, especially in regard to designs. It is useful, though, and finds a ready sale in Tucson.

The Indians who live here number about seven hundred, and they seem contented and happy. One circumstance which contributes to their happiness and

THE BLACK HILLS gives great cause for satisfaction to those interested in the welfare of the red man, is the prohibition against selHng brandy to the Indians. Through the constant vigilance of specially detailed men the law is enforced, at least on the reservation. I was informed that forty-five convictions for the sale of liquor to the Indians had been secured in the Federal Court at Tucson which had just then closed its session. The penalty is usually two years in the penitentiary, together with a fine, and still there are always people willing and anxious to sell to the Indians an abominable, poisonous liquor called ''port-wine" at twenty-five cents a quart bottle.

Near San Xavier are five hills, running more or less in the general direction of east and west, of volcanic formation, and dark in color. They are each and all called by the Papago tjuk (black). A further characterization is given as to which mountain is meant, by ''the black hill where the cemetery is," "the black hill on the other side of the river," and so on. I ascended one of these hills, situated three miles west of the mission church, which, like a great many others of the South-west, is surmounted by fortifications of ancient people. These consist mainly of two rows of stone walls which at short intervals run for about two hundred yards irregularly along the northern side of the summit. The trail from below cuts through them. The walls, four feet high and ten or fifteen feet wide at the base, consist of loose stones thrown together without any attempt at system.

On the top small enclosures, or corrals, of upright, medium-sized stones were noted; here the ancients lived lO perhaps during sieges, each family in its enclosure. I found later that those Papagoes who lived recently in the sand dune country of Sonora had similar, though cruder, arrangements at their camps. In the winter, when much grass is growing on the top of the mountain, the Indians keep their horses there on pasture. The rest of the vegetation of the hill consists mainly of a bush with almost white leaves, encelia farinosa, appropriately named the white brittle bush by Dr. William T. Hornaday. The leaves have the characteristics indicated by the name and, with their stems, have a very strong aromatic odor. The branches exude a yellow gum which the Papago children use as chewing gum, for they indulged in this unattractive habit long before certain classes of Americans included it among the pleasures of life. The men also applied it as a varnish over the painted part of an arrow, warming it first. The rounded and symmetrical shape of this bush is in evidence everywhere in the desert region. The Mexicans call it herba del vaso, because the gum is supposed to cure pain in the vaso (the left side below the ribs). It is warmed and smeared on, and is considered more efficacious than a porous plaster.

These bushes grow in desert fashion with such regularity of intervals that they appear as if planted, and they covered in a pleasing way the dark sides of the mountain, especially toward the south, where also appeared, here and there, the lofty columns of the giant cactus or sahuaro (cereus giganteus). That wonderful creation of the desert, however, does not often inhabit mountains, for the reason that most of their soil has been washed

BURIAL CUSTOMS

II away, but on lesser, mostly volcanic hills like this one, it is seen, though on the south side alone. Dr. D. T. MacDougal informs me that farther south and east in the Sonora Desert, down toward Hermosillo, before reaching the plant's extreme limit of habitat, it prefers to grow on the north side.

The hill notable for its cemetery is much smaller and quite low, and rises back of the Indian houses. The Papagoes wrap their dead in a new suit of cotton cloth, and place the corpse on the ground, building up a small artless stone chamber four feet high over it. In other parts of the Papago country the natives make a hole in the ground of sufficient depth to hold the dead in a sitting position, erecting over it the usual protection. The roof of the chamber consists of mezquite or palo verde poles, taken from the deceased man's own house which, so to speak, follows him to the grave. On top some stones are heaped. Many such chambers are in time joined together and form singular looking structures, ugly and irregular in shape, being at the widest part from twenty to thirty feet across. After the lapse of some time the roof may fall in, allowing a peep down at the desiccated human remains, near which may have been placed objects such as arrow stretchers, plumes, ornaments, and trinkets. I often later saw pottery vessels that had contained food or drink standing near the newly erected chambers. Where there are trees near by, bundles of clothing for the use of the departed in the next life may be seen among the branches. Four thin, upright sticks of ocotillo, which had been placed in a small quadrangle, protruded about one and a half feet from the middle of the roof of some of the chambers near San Xavier.

Such agglomerations of mortuary chambers were located on all sides of the small hill, except toward the east, some low down, some high up. I counted thirty-one. Most of the Indians that die in the neighborhood are no doubt still adding to the number and size of these composite burials of the Black Hill Cemetery, though a few make use of the Cemetery of the Baptized, as the Catholic cemetery is called. On the llano, at the foot of the fortification hill described above, is another large heap of mortuary chambers, which the Indians call the Level Ground Cemetery. The dead are never mentioned. The sons, and not the daughters, inherit from the deceased.