one horse in value. Two units were employed in measurement of distances. One of these is an ancient measurement which it will be of interest to apply to the Hohokam ruins of the region. It is humakâ kuirspa, "one step"—that is, one step with the same foot, equal to about 5 feet. Land is divided into plots 100 or 200 "steps" in width, according to the size of the family. Long distances were measured in terms of a day's journey on foot; thus it is said to be seven days to Zuñi. The term "step" is also applied to the English mile, but they have had as yet little opportunity to acquire a definite knowledge of the meaning of the latter term.
BARTER
For a long period prior to 1833 the Maricopas lived at Gila Bend and came at harvest time to trade with the Pimas. Soon after that time they settled beside the Pimas, living upon such intimate terms with them that barter between the tribes was of no more consequence than between two Pima villages.[1] With all other tribes they were perpetually at war, except with their Papago kinsfolk to the southward. These people live in a vast territory of cactus-covered plains, here and there interrupted by up-thrust barren peaks that, with striking outlines, form good landmarks and yet offer little to those that hunger and are athirst. The Papagos are a desert tribe, and yet so well had they mastered their all but hopeless environment that the trade which they carried on with the Pimas was by no means one-sided, as may be seen from the following list of products that were formerly brought to the Gila at the time of the June harvest. Of vegetable products there were saguaro seeds, the dried fruit and sirup; tciʼaldi, a small hard cactus fruit; agave fruit in flat roasted cakes; agave sirup; rsat, an unidentified plant that grows at Santa Rosa; prickly pear sirup; wild gourd seeds; a small pepper, called tcĭl’tipĭn; acorns of Quercus oblongifolia; baskets of agave leaf; sleeping mats; kiâhâs and fiber to make them; maguey fiber for picket lines. They brought the dried meat of the mountain sheep, deer meat, deer tallow in small ollas, buckskins, dried beef, tallow, cheese, and cords of human hair. Cattle were formerly traded "sight unseen," but the modern "education" of the Papagos led them to exaggerate the good qualities of their stock and even to deal in "fictitious values," or cattle that the new Pima owner sought in vain to find, until finally the Pimas would consider no proposition to trade stock unless the animals were exhibited. Of mineral products they brought red and yellow ochers for face and body paint, and the buff beloved by Pima weavers. They
- ↑ The author of the Rudo Ensayo, who wrote in 1762, stated that "these very numerous nations [Opas and Maricopas] inhabit both sides for a distance of 36 leagues down the river, and at the far end of their territory there is a very abundant spring of hot water a short distance from the river to the north." This spring is now known as Ojo Caliente; it is at the southern end of the Bighorn mountains, Guitéras translation in Records of the American Catholic Historical Society, V, 129.
