HABITAl OF THE COAHUILLAS 27 



leading down to the narrow hole at the bottom where the water 

 sparkles, built in such a way that a woman with an olla on her head 

 can walk to the very water's edge and dip her painted vessel full. The 

 deeper it is down to the water, the larger, of course, is the excavation 

 and the greater the diameter across its upper terrace. The Coahuillas 

 call these wells tema-kd-wo-mal-cm, a pretty figure. Kd-wo-mal is the 

 word for a tinaja or water olla, and temal is the word for the earth or 

 the ground. There is no question but that the Coahuillas learned of 

 themselves to dig these wells, and this practice cannot perhaps be 

 paralleled elsewhere among American Indians. 



The low San Bernadinos to the north of the Cabeson valley are 

 called by the Coahuillas Kd-wish-Po-po-ku-ut, or the "mountains of 

 mesquite and tules," a name which their desolate, sandy appearance 

 belies. The splendid San Jacinto range on the south is called the 

 Kdwish-wa-wat-dcha, or the "lofty mountains." Across the San Ber- 

 nadino hills is the way to the Chemehuevi country, and behind these 

 peaks these Indians annually make their camps when they come to 

 this region to hunt mountain sheep. Up the San Jacinto ridges, dark 

 and gloomy with shadows, run the ancient trails by which the 

 Coahuillas entered the mountains and became hillsmen, as well as men 

 of the desert. These trails or " pit-em," as the Indians call them 

 are almost unmarked paths. They ordinarily climb out of the desert 

 across some great alluvial fan of canon detritus and then follow up 

 some deep gorge until the roughness of its torrent-swept bottom com- 

 pels one to pull his scrambling pony up onto the great black 

 ridges, that look like the giant vertabrae of fossil monsters. Water is 

 terribly scarce in these mountains, and most of these trails converge 

 at a little valley north of a peak of the range, Torres mountain. This 

 valley is known to hunters as " Pifion Flats," from its forest of juniper, 

 and here water can always be found. Long ago there was a small 

 village here, and the site is still known to the Indians by its old 

 name, Kwd le-ki. High up on the northern side of Torres was 

 another called Pd-nach-sa. These villages seem to have been halfway 

 camps between the desert and the mountain rancherias farther on, and 

 probably never more than a few families occupied them at a time. 

 The elevation is five or six thousand feet higher than the desert, and 

 the air bracing and fine. And from these eyries one can gain a wide 

 view of the Coahuillas' home. 



These mountains, arid as they are, and scantily supplied with vegeta- 

 tion as they seem to be, are nevertheless rich in botanical species, and 



