The Pima Indians/Technology/Agriculture

by Frank Russell

TECHNOLOGY

Agriculture

METHODS

Irrigation

The Gila river carries an unusually large amount of suspended matter when in flood. As shown by the tests made during the surveys for the dam which is intended to supply Pimería with water, it carries on an average 10.5 per cent of mud, with a maximum of 20 per cent.^[1] The entire bottom land upon which the fields are located has been built of this material. It is so light that wagons cut readily into it during the dry seasons and work it into fluffy dust several inches in depth. The Pimas do not practise rotation of crops, the soil being so rich from silt which is periodically deposited by the river at flood stage that the idea of exhausting it has never occurred to them.

Irrigation was practised for unknown centuries by the Hohokam, and the course of their great canals can yet be traced for miles,^[2] not only along the river bottoms, but also across the mesas where the large water-worn pebbles bound together with caliche^[3] or deposited lime must have required infinite labor for their construction. At the first appearance of the Pimas it may be presumed that they used the canals already constructed by their predecessors, hence they would be dull indeed if they could not maintain irrigation systems sufficient for their needs. The testimony of the early writers is to the effect that they possessed canals larger than they required and that the water flowed away from the fields in volume scarcely diminished from that at the head gates. The Gila has a uniform fall of 8 feet to the mile at this place, while the canals need not have more than 2.

As the water of the Gila and Salt rivers is strongly impregnated with alkali it tends under certain conditions to deposit salts in such quantities that the land is rendered unfit for use. The alkali rises to the surface in an efflorescence that resembles snow in appearance. From early descriptions of the country we learn that alkaline deposits were known while the tribe was yet under purely aboriginal conditions.^[4]

The Pimas knew, however, how to deal with this difficulty—they flooded the tract repeatedly and in this way washed the alkali out of it. They declare that they never abandoned a piece of ground because of it.

No very reliable estimate of the total amount of lend cultivated by this people has been made.^[5] Each family cultivates from 1 to 5 acres. With an abundance of water and the new needs of the tribe it is probable that the size of the individual holdings will rapidly increase. The farms are rectangular, arranged with reference to the supplying canal, and are always fenced with some care (pl. XI, a). Before the Pimas obtained barbed wire from the Government the fences were of willow wattling or the tops of mesquite trees and various kinds of brush. When a tract was newly brought under irrigation a committee of six men was chosen to make allotments to those who had assisted in digging the ditches. They chose the best land for themselves, which seems to have been taken as a matter of course, in a measure compensating for their trouble. The plots were from 100 to 200 "steps" (see p. 93) in width, according to the number in the family to whom they were allotted. The brush was not difficult to remove even with the primitive implements at their command; the mesquite trees were not cut down, but their lower branches were trimmed so that they did not shade the ground to any considerable extent.

The canals were dug with the digging stick and shovel (fig. 10, a, b), the former being also used to prepare the easily pulverized ground and to plant the seed. In addition to the digging stick and shovel the primitive agriculturists also used a wooden implement which served the purpose of a hoe, though it resembled a weaver's batten in appearance (fig. 10, c). In comparatively recent times the wooden plow (fig. 11) was added to the list of implements. From the Mexicans they also obtained a hybrid implement (fig. 10, d) that combined the functions of spade and hoe. At the present time the tribe is supplied with modern agricultural implements by the Government. The crops, however, are stored in much the same way that was followed in prehistoric times, in circular bins of willow, arrow bush, and wheat straw, the last having been used since the introduction of wheat.

One of the Pima villages (pl. XI, b) situated southwest of the Maricopa wells was too far from the river to obtain water from it and depended, as do their kinsfolk and neighbors, the Kwahadkʼs, already referred to, on flood irrigation. To secure the benefit of this, they cleared fields on mesa slopes, over which water from the surrounding hills might be conducted whenever there were summer rains. Around the lower sides of the diminutive fields low dikes were raised to catch and retain the water. On the slopes of the Santan hills north of the present Pima village of Santan there are several hundred acres of stony mesa that have been cleared and cultivated (pl. IV a, b). The rocks have been gathered in rows that inclose rectangular areas of but a few square yards in extent. There are about six clumps of creosote bush inclosed in it.^[6] This locality adjoins a large ancient canal and an extensive ruin of a stone pueblo. Learning that the chief had declared that these fields had been cultivated within the memory of living men, the writer sent for him, but learned on questioning that neither he nor any other Pima knew aught about them. All the
Fig. 6. Burden bearer. fields, canals, and cleared roads over the lava hills that appear in plate XI, c were the work of the Hohokam.

Division of Labor

The work of clearing the fields, planting, and irrigating devolved upon the men. The women harvested the crops, carrying the products in their kiâhâs. The men thrashed the wheat—with horses after those animals were introduced. Prior to that time, and even now when the crop is small, the women beat out the grain with straight sticks. As it was thrashed, the women winnowed it in baskets and piled it on a cotton cloth, the corners of which were tied together, forming a sort of sack that was thrown upon a horse and taken by the men

to the storehouse or brought in sacks on their heads by the women (fig. 6). Pumpkins and all crops except wheat were carried by the women in their kiâhâs. Considering the fact that the Pimas were constantly harassed by the Apaches, so that the men could not safely lay aside their bows during any waking moment, this distribution of labor was not discreditable to them.

PRODUCTS

Possessed of the foremost American cereal, maize, at least one variety of legume, and the cotton plant, as well as species of Cucurbitaceæ and other plants, the agriculture of the Pimas was well beyond the initial stages before the arrival of the whites.^[7]

Cereals

The Pimas distinguished half a dozen varieties of maize, to which they have now added the large corn brought by the Americans. The first crop is planted in April and the second in July, the first being gathered in June and July and the second in October. When gathering corn the women lay aside the best ears for seed; they are stuck in pairs on sticks and carried in the hand. Wheat is now the principal crop, and when a wet season insures sufficient water several million pounds are raised. It is sowed in December and reaped with hand sickles in June. Of the several varieties "Sonora" and "Australian" are favorites. One called skaofkutco was raised before Kâʼmâl tkâk's father was born. Wheat is ground for the Pimas at the Government mill at Sacaton (pl. I), but a great deal of it is yet parched and ground on the metates to be made into pinole.

There have been at least half a dozen trading stores on the Gila River reservation for a number of years whose principal trade has been in wheat. The traders have naturally encouraged the growing of this cereal as much as possible and assisted in the introduction of suitable varieties. They have also profited in a legitimate way from the contracts awarded by the Government in times of famine for the support of the natives.

Oats are seldom raised in that region. They are called "white tassels" by the Pimas. Barley is the universal grain feed of Arizona, and there is a ready market for the small quantity the Pimas raise.

Vegetables

Watermelons, muskmelons, pumpkins, and squashes are extensively cultivated. The watermelons are preserved until after the 1st of January by burying them in the sands of the river bed. The
Fig. 7. Gourd canteen. pumpkins, squashes, and muskmelons are cut in strips and dried, the best-keeping varieties being left in the storehouses until midwinter (pl. XXXV, f). According to tradition the first pumpkins, called rsasʼkatûk, were obtained from the Yumas and Maricopas.^[8]

There are three species of wild gourds
Fig. 8. Gourd rattle. that are quite common along the Gila, namely: Cucurbita fœtidissima H.B.K., C. digitata Gray, and Apodanthera undulata Gray. Cultivated gourds have been known to the Pimas for a long period—how long it is impossible to say. The Papagos have a tradition that this plant was introduced by Navitco, a deity who is honored by ceremonies at intervals of eight years—or, if crops are bountiful, at the end of every four years—at Santa Rosa. The gourd is used as a canteen (fig. 7), and if it becomes cracked a rabbit skin is stretched over it which shrinks in drying and renders the vessel water-tight again. Dippers and canteens are occasionally made of gourds, but the chief use of gourds seems to be in the form of rattles (fig. 8) which contain a little gravel and are mounted on a handle. Gourds are never used as forms over which to mold pottery.

At least five varieties of beans are now cultivated. The first known, the tatcoa pavfi, "white bean," is said to have been brought in some forgotten time from the valley of the great "Red river," the Colorado. Considerable quantities are raised and the thrashing is done by horses driven in a circle on the same hard floor that is prepared for the wheat thrashing.

Not with the withering drought alone has the Gileño planter to contend, but also with the myriads of crows that are extravagantly fond of a corn diet, and with the numerous squirrels and gophers that thrive apace where protected in a measure from the coyotes, which are themselves a menace to the fields. From the birds and predatory animals the fields are guarded during the day by the boys, who amuse themselves meanwhile by a dozen games that develop skill in running, and shooting with the bows and arrows which scarcely leave their hands during their waking hours. Scarecrows, "men artificial," are used, but a fluttering rag was never as effective as a feathered shaft hurtling from a well-drawn bow. Night marauders were in olden times kept at a distance by the rings of the terrible cholla cactus, Opuntia bigelovii Engelm., that were laid up around the individual plants. Plate XII illustrates this cactus as it grows on the hills about Sacaton. It is recognized as the most effectually armed of the many cacti and is the symbol in Pima lore of impenetrability.

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1. Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers, no. 33, p. 36.
2. "The mode of canal construction employed by these pueblo builders [Hohokam] was another indication of their patience and industry. Their canals are models for the modern farmer to imitate; yet they could have been dug in no conceivable manner save by the laborious process of hand excavation with stone or wooden implements, the earth being borne away by means of blankets, baskets, or rude litters. Notwithstanding this, the outlines of at least a hundred and fifty miles of ancient main irrigating ditches may be readily traced, some of which meander southward from the Salt river a distance of fourteen miles," F.W. Hodge, "Prehistoric irrigation in Arizona," American Anthropologist, VI, 324.
3. For an account of this formation see P. Blake, "The caliche of southern Arizona: an example of deposition by vadose circulation," in The Genesis of Ore Deposits, 710.
4. We continued [from Casa Grande] toward the west, over sterile plains. On all the grounds about these buildings there is not a single pasture; but appear as if they had been strewn with salt." Mange's Diary, in Schoolcraft, III, 303.
5. Garcés, writing in 1775, stated that "Todos estos pueblos hacen grandes siembras de trigo, algunas de maiz, algodon, calabazas y otras semillas, para cuyo riego tienen formadas buenas acequias, cercades las milpas con cerco comun, y divididas las de distintos dueños, con cercos particulares." Doc. His. Mex., 2d ser., I, 235.
6. At various places in the Southwest the writer has seen extensive areas over which the loose bowlders that were originally thickly scattered on the surface had been gathered in rounded heaps or in rows that divided the ground into rectangles that average about 5 meters to the side. The largest of these "fields" personally inspected is north of the town of Pima, nearly 200 miles east of the Pima reservation. On a lava-strewn mesa that is too high to be irrigated and too far from the hills to be flooded there are a half dozen of these tracts. The largest is a little more than half a mile in length by nearly a quarter in width. There are no signs of human occupation on the surface other than the disposition of the stones. Five miles east of Solomonsville there is a similar field and on the Prieto plateau 40 miles northeast of the last is another among the pines. These fields are distinctly different from the terraces that one sees on the north slope of Mount Graham and elsewhere.
7. "In the year 1858, the first year of the Overland Mail Line, the surplus crop of wheat was 100,000 pounds, which was purchased by the company; also a large quantity of beans called taperis, and a vast quantity of pumpkins, squashes, and melons. In 1859 Mr St John was sent among them as a special agent with a supply of seeds and some agricultural implements. That year they sold 250,000 pounds of wheat and a large supply of melons, pumpkins, and beans. In 1860 they sold 400,000 pounds of wheat—all the Mail Company would purchase. They had more, and furnished the Government and private teamsters all that was necessary for transportation from Fort Yuma to Tucson. Beyond this they had no market, except for about 40,000 pounds of wheat which Mr White purchased for the supply of Fort Breckenridge. In 1861 they sold to Mr White 300,000 pounds of wheat, 50,000 pounds of corn, 20,000 pounds of beans, and a large amount of dried and fresh pumpkins, which was all intended for the support of the California Column. The greater part of this crop was destroyed or given back to the Indians by the Texans under the guerrilla, Hunter, who arrived at the Pimo villages that year, robbed Mr White of his property, and took him prisoner in their flight to the Rio Grande. The Pimos sold, during the same year, 600 chickens and a large amount of other stuff, showing a gradual increase of production under the encouragement of an increased demand. In 1862 they sold to the Government over a million pounds of wheat, included in which was a portion of the previous year's crop, returned to them by the Texans. They furnished pinole, chickens, green peas, green corn, pumpkins, and melons for the entire California Column, subsisting nearly a thousand men for many months." (J.R. Browne, Adventures in the Apache Country, 110.) Browne's statements about the Pimas, though not grossly inaccurate, are not generally reliable, but as he was intimately acquainted with A.M. White, with whom he traveled from California, it is probable that the above estimates are as nearly correct as circumstances permitted.
8. When Garcés was among the Yumas in 1775 they were raising "countless" calabashes and melons—"calabazas y melones, perhaps better translated squashes and cantaloupes, or pumpkins and muskmelons. The Piman and Yuman tribes cultivated a full assortment of cucurbitaceous plants, not always easy to identify by their old Spanish names. The sandia was the watermelon invariably; the melon, usually a muskmelon, or cantaloupe; the calabaza, a calabash, gourd, pumpkin, or squash of some sort, including one large rough kind like our crook-neck squash. * * * Major Heintzelman says of the Yumans, p. 36 of his Report already cited [H. R. Ex. Doc. 76, 34th Cong., 3d sess., 1857]: 'They cultivate watermelons, muskmelons, pumpkins, corn, and beans. The watermelons are small and indifferent, muskmelons large, and the pumpkins good. These latter they cut and dry for winter use [they were brought to Pimería before the Maricopas came to Gila Bend].'" Note In Coues' On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer, New York, 1900, I, 170.