made religious pilgrimages to the salt lakes below the Mexican boundary to obtain the sacred salt. They lived on pinole during the journey and walked with their eyes fixed upon the trail, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
As they approached the shore of the lagoon in which the Great Spirit resided they ran at topmost speed and circled four times around the salt deposits before those who understood the proper ritual began to collect the salt. Even on the homeward journey there was magic power in the salt, and if a horse died the whole load was thrown away. As the salt gatherers approached the home village they were given a noisy welcome but were compelled to remain outside for four days, and for a long time thereafter they must abstain from certain acts that need not be detailed here. For four days those who remained at home sang for those who journeyed, and then all might eat the salt and were free to bring it to the Pimas.[1] The latter sometimes made journeys to the lake for salt, being two days on the way to Quijotoa and two days on the trail beyond.
In exchange for the objects of barter brought to them the Pimas gave wheat, which was also given the Papagos for aid in harvesting it; corn; beans; mesquite beans; mesquite meal, roasted in mud-lined pits; cotton blankets and cotton fiber, with the seed; dried squash, pumpkin, and melon; rings of willow splints and of devil's claw for baskets; besides articles of lesser consequence.
In recent years there has been some trade carried on in colored earths and salt with the once hostile Yumas and Mohaves.
From the seventeenth century the Pimas sent well-armed bands through the Apache cordon to trade at the Spanish and Mexican settlements of Sonora. The latter also sent trading parties from Tucson and other towns to barter with the Gileños. Lastly, American traders appeared about 1850, and for many years there have been half a dozen stores on the reservation. These are under bond to limit their profit to a maximum of 25 per cent, though it is supposed that this rule was never enforced until the present year. Some Pimas sometimes try to turn the tables on the traders by offering damp wheat that of course overweighs. More frequently they put a quantity of sand in the middle of the wheat sacks, which are furnished by the trader and not ordinarily emptied when the wheat is brought in. Rarely, the best wheat is put on top and an inferior quality lies concealed beneath.
- ↑ "These Papagos regularly visit a salt lake which lies near the coast and just across the line of Sonora, from which they pack large quantities of salt, and find a ready market at Tubac and Tucson. Mr. Lathrop, superintendent of the Sonora Mining Company, told me that he had bought some twenty thousand pounds annually from them." (Jobn Walker in S. Ex. Doc. 2, 720, 36th Cong., lst sess., 1860.) It would seem from this rather extensive traffic that the Papagos did not allow their religious scruples to interfere seriously with trade.
