Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/155

150 cotton, which was picked and spread on the roofs of their arbors to dry in the pod. When dried and separated from the pods it was stored in large ollas, where, if covered, it would keep for an indefinite period in that dry climate. Usually, however, it was stored until winter, when there was time for the women to spin it into threads and for the men to weave it into squares of cloth which served as robes for protecting the body by day and as blankets by night, girdles for the waist, and similar but smaller bands for the head. In later times it is said that bolts of cloth of considerable length were woven to be bartered with adjoining tribes, but this would seem not to have been in accordance with primitive custom.

Accounts of the Pimas that were written in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries contain references to the use of wool as well as native cotton, but very little information is obtainable concerning the use of wool, and there was not a single sheep on the reservation at the time of the writer's visit.

No dyes were used except a dark buff ocher bartered from the Papagos, into which the cotton was dipped. No mordant was used and the resulting color was neither brilliant nor permanent. However, it was applied only to the selvage thread. Bayeta was unraveled to obtain scarlet thread for belts after the inauguration of trade relations with the Mexicans.

Sewing was unknown, and holes were patched by weaving in a new piece.

Implements and methods. The loom was simpler than that used by the surrounding tribes and was spread horizontally instead of being set upright. Four stakes were first driven firmly in the ground out-