Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/123

118 and it is probable that Gileño women did little more than enough skin dressing to keep the art alive among them. At present there are very few who know anything about it, and this is the method which they say "long ago make it."

A skin was soaked in water for two or three days to soften it; then it was laid on an inclined log and the hair scraped off with a deer's rib. Two tanning media were used—brains and saguaro seeds. The former were kept dried into a cake with dry grass until they were needed, when they were softened in water. The seeds were available at any time, as they were always kept in store as an article of food.

The roots of the plant known as rto, Krameria parvifolia, were used to dye leather red.

Leather bags were used to carry flint and steel, and a specimen of these comparatively modern articles is shown in figure 42. It is ornamented with tin bangles and glass beads.

Tobacco was not recognized by the Pimas as a narcotic that would stunt the growth in youth or injuriously affect the heart as age advanced, nor yet as a solace for leisure moments. It was to them a plant of divine origin that in its death (burning) released a spirit (odor and smoke) that was wafted by the breeze to the home of the magic beings that shape man's destiny. Throughout Pimería one may find sacred places where large numbers of cane cigarettes have been deposited by worshipers. It is uncertain how far this form of