divisions of the same linguistic stock they add the word âʼkimûlt, "river." "River people" is indeed an apt designation, as evidenced by their dependence on the Gila.
Gatschet has thus defined the Pima linguistic stock in an article entitled "The Indian languages of the Pacific," which was published in the Magazine of American History:[1]
Pima. Dialects of this stock are spoken on the middle course of the Gila river, and south of it on the elevated plains of southern Arizona and northern Sonora (Pimería alta, Pimería baja). The Pima does not extend into California unless the extinct, historical Cajuenches, mentioned in Mexican annals, spoke one of the Pima (or Pijmo, Pimo) dialects. Pima, on Pima reserve, Gila river, a sonorous, root-duplicating idiom; Névome, a dialect probably spoken in Sonora, of which we possess a reliable Spanish grammar, published in Shea's Linguistics;[2] Papago, on Papago reserve, in southwestern Arizona.
Villages
During the early part of the nineteenth century there were eight Pima villages on the Gila according to statements made by Kâʼmâl tkâk and other old men of the tribe. The numerous accounts by travelers and explorers contain mention of from five to ten pueblos or villages. The names are usually those bestowed by the Spanish missionaries or unrecognizable renderings of the native terms. The villages were principally upon the south bank of the river, along which they extended for a distance of about 30 miles.[3] Some have been abandoned; in other cases the name has been retained, but the site has been moved. The first villages named by Kino were Equituni, Uturituc, and Sutaquison. The last two were situated near the present agency of Sacaton (pl. I). The first may have been the village of Pimas and Kwahadkʽs, which was situated west of Picacho on the border of the sink of the Santa Cruz river (fig. 1), which was abandoned about a century ago and was known as Akûtcĭny, Creek
- ↑ Vol. I, 156.
- ↑ The most valuable publication relating to the Pima language is the "Grammar of the Pima or Névome, a language of Sonora, from a manuscript of the XVIII Century." This was edited by Buckingham Smith, and 160 copies were issued in 1862. It in in Spanish-Névome, the latter differing slightly from the true Pima. The grammar has 97 octavo pages with 32 additional Pages devoted te a "Doctrina Cristiana y Confesionario en Lengua Névome, ó sea la Pima."
- ↑ The Rudo Ensayo states that "between these Casas Grandes, the Pimas, called Gileños, inhabit both banks of the river Gila, occupying ranches on beautiful bottom land for 10 leagues farther down, which, as well as some islands, are fruitful and suitable for wheat, Indian corn, etc." Records of the American Catholic Historical Society, v, 128.
"The most important of these ranches are, on this side, Tusonimó, and on the other, Sudacson or the Incarnation, where the principal of their chiefs, called Tavanimó, lived, and farther down, Santa Theresa, where there is a very copious spring." (Ibid., 129.) This "spring" was probably above the present Gila Crossing where the river, after running for many miles underground in the dry season, rises with a strong flow of water that supplies extensive irrigating ditches.
Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner, writing in 1855, enumerate the following Pima villages: San Juan Capistrano, Sutaquison, Atison, Tubuscabor, and San Seferino de Napgub (see Pacific Railroad Reports, III, pt. 3, 123).
In 1858 Lieut. A.B. Chapman, First Dragoons, U.S. Army, completed a census of the Pimas and Maricopas. The names of the villages, leaders, and the population of both tribes are here reprinted
