Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/158

] fine specimen of double weaving. It is of tightly twisted cotton thread in dark blue, red, yellow, and white. The fringe threads are braided together so that two colors are united in each strand.

The other belt, no, 178910, is also double, and woven in dark blue, light blue, buff, red, and white.

The abandonment of the art of weaving these simple fabrics with their tasteful patterns is unfortunate. Their loss is relieved by no compensatory improvement in other directions. 



In their natural state the Pimas built dwellings of four different types besides a storehouse. First in importance is the round, flat-roofed ki, which resembles an overturned wash basin in shape. Notwithstanding the fact that some have declared that the Piman ki suggests the pueblo style of architecture and should therefore be admitted as evidence of relationship between the Hohokam and Pimas, the author must confess that he has been unable to detect the remotest resemblance to the pueblo type. On the contrary, analogies may be found with the dwellings of tribes much farther distant from Pimería. The ki is built by the men, who gather in parties of ten or fifteen for the purpose—a custom which affords another instance of a different division of labor from that in vogue among the Pueblos, as with them the house building is the work of women. Though the Pimas have had an example of pueblo structure at their very doors ever since they have inhabited the Gila valley, in the noble Casa Grande, the walls of which yet rise 30 feet above the plain, and have seen the adobe buildings of the Spaniards and Mexicans for three hundred and fifty years, nevertheless they have continued to construct houses of the simplest type that are but little better than temporary shelters. The first Piman adobe house was built by the head chief, Antonio Azul, twenty-two years ago, and since that time the people have made very commendable progress. Some villages—such, for example, as Blackwater—now contain few dwellings that are not of adobe. However, there are others, such as Skâ’kâĭk, that retain the old-time ki. As an inducement toward progress, the Indian Department or its authorized agent has stipulated that a man must cut off his long hair and build an adobe house before he may receive a wagon from the Government. The 