camps at the time of the writer's visit, so that they were certainly not selected specimens, whereas the Pima baskets, and particularly the upright forms, which the writer did not collect himself, were better than the average Pima product. The Yavapai baskets command just double the price in the open market that is paid for Pima baskets of equal size. The principle of rhythm is well understood by the Pima basket makers, as the illustrations show. Both the simple elements, such as the so-called coyote tracks, or plain triangles, and the more complex, such as the flower pattern, or the scroll fret, are frequently repeated. But the principle of symmetry is not so well developed and it is rare that a basket exhibits it. The specimen in figure 62 shows that its maker possessed this faculty.
It is rare that the descent of pottery making from basketry is reversed, but among the Pimas this is true to some extent; that is, the basketry designs are in part copied from the pottery of the Hohokam. In part they were adopted from the Maricopas. The pottery designs likewise are copied, so that the credit due to the Pima decorators is reduced to a minimum. Their wares are mostly unornamented, as we have seen, and the decorations that are used are applied with indifferent taste. Though they have abundant examples of fictile ware scattered over their fields, much of which is embellished by indented coils, they seem never to have conceived the idea of utilizing this simple though effective form of ornamentation. The pottery illustrated in this memoir is rather better than the average Pima ware. The Kwahadkʼ pottery, while superior to the Piman, is yet lacking in symmetry. It is pleasing by reason of the rich brown color and the polish that almost equals a glaze, but the ornamentation is crude and vastly inferior to that of the ancient Hohokam.
We can not explain the inferiority of Piman ornamentation by saying that the Pimas had degenerated because they were harried by the Apaches and Yumas until they had no energy or inclination left for indulging their esthetic tastes, for this is not true. They whipped the Yumas until the latter were ready to accept peace upon any terms, as appears from the calendar records, which are well authenticated by white testimony. They kept the Apaches in wholesome fear of their clubs and arrows and made frequent raids into the enemy's territory. They never hesitated to attack the Apaches in equal numbers and fight hand to hand. In short, they were not the degenerates that some have considered them, an error that the records of Pima scouts accompanying the United States army in Apache campaigns would do much to dispel.[1] Their backwardness
- ↑ Early accounts of the Pimas uniformly testify to their ability to fight their enemies. They "have ever been numerous and brave." wrote Garcés a century and a quarter ago (Schoolcraft, III, 299), and in 1859 Mowry declared, "The Pimas and Apaches wage hereditary and fierce war, in which the Pimas are generally the victors." Arizona and Sonora, third edition, p. 30.
