Artifacts
The manufactures of the Pimas were few in number and simple in character. It is interesting to compare the number of implements and weapons that are of wood with those made of stone, as this is a people classed as belonging to the Stone Age. It will be noticed that the articles of stone are of little consequence in point of number as compared with those of wood, but the stone objects are of the utmost importance from a cultural standpoint. The metate admits of no wooden substitute, and without it the full food value of maize could not have been utilized nor could wheat raising have been so readily taken up as an agricultural pursuit. Without the stone ax and knife there could have been little done in wood working; architecture would have been modified; agriculture, dependent upon irrigation, would have been all but impossible. In short, these three simple implements, made by striking one stone against another, have sufficed to transform the Pimas from the slaves of a harsh environment, compelled to rend their prey with tooth and nail, into an agricultural people who adapt the environment to their needs and make some provision, however slight, for the future.
WOOD
Weapons
Bow. First in importance among weapons must be placed the bow and the arrow. Pima bows are simple, undecorated, and not very carefully made. Those which exhibit weakness through splitting or otherwise are bound with fresh sinew in bands which shrink around the arms at the point where reenforcement is needed. Warriors made their bows of mulberry wood[1] obtained in the Superstition and Pinal mountains. A bow that has been long used, especially in successful warfare, becomes a highly prized possession with which its owner is loath to part. The writer was so fortunate as to secure such a specimen (pl. XIII, a) which has the graceful compound curve of the conventional bow; it is of mulberry wood and has a neatly twisted, two-strand sinew string.[2] Hunting bows[3] (pl. XIII, b) are frequently made of osage orange wood, a material that is now obtainable from the whites along the Salt river. When mulberry wood was not available willow was used, and most of the hunting bows which men as well as boys continue to make for hunting hares and similar small game are of that wood. The primary type of arrow release prevails, the bow being held as in plate VII, b.
- ↑ "The mulberry plays an important part in the domestic economy of the Apaches; the branches are made into bows, and the small twigs are used in the fabrication of baskets." John G. Bourke, Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, III, 210.
- ↑ Length 1.350 m., width at grip 26 mm., thickness 18 mm.
- ↑ Length 1.365 m., width at grip 26 mm., thickness 22 mm.
