Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/209

204 of so strenuous a life was beginning to manifest itself in an interesting manner at the time of the intervention of the Americans. The Spaniards and Mexicans had shown their utter incapacity to cope with the Apaches, and their presence in Sonora was rather an aid to the enemy than otherwise. The Pimas were compelled to fight their own battles. In doing so they learned the advantage of concentrating their fields. They perfected a system of attack, appointed runners for bringing in assistance, and organized a fairly satisfactory method of defense. They never used smoke signals except to announce the victory of an incoming war party. They kept themselves constantly in fit condition by their campaigns, and even engaged in sham battles for the practice. These have been held within the last decade at the lower villages on the reservation. Their daily duties were ordered with reference to the possibility of attack. Their arts were modified by the perpetual menace. Their myths were developed and their religion tinged by the same stress. In short, the Pimas were building up a war cult that in time might have led them from the lethargic state in which the natural environment tended to fix them.

There was no law among the Pimas observed with greater strictness than that which required purification and expiation for the deed that was at the same time the most lauded—the killing of an enemy. For sixteen days the warrior fasted in seclusion and observed meanwhile a number of tabus. This long period of retirement immediately after a battle greatly diminished the value of the Pimas as scouts and allies for the United States troops operating against the Apaches. The bravery of the Pimas was praised by all army officers having any experience with them, but Captain Bourke and others have complained of their unreliability, due solely to their rigid observance of this religious law.

Attended by an old man, the warrior who had to expiate the crime of blood guilt retired to the groves along the river bottom at some distance from the villages or wandered about the adjoining hills. During the period of sixteen days he was not allowed to touch his head with his fingers or his hair would turn white. If he touched his face it would become wrinkled. He kept a stick to scratch his head with, and at the end of every four days this stick was buried at the root and