104 



THE PIMA INDIANS 



[ETH. ANN. 26 



Fig. 19, o. Cradle frame. 



hood made of willow bark in the checker style of weaving, the sur- 

 face being ornamented in geometric patterns colored black and red. 

 Over the hood a loose piece of cloth may be thrown to protect the 

 occupant from flies. The babies when strapped closely in the cradles 

 are frequently carried on the heads of their mothers, who may at the 



same time have no insignifi- 

 cant burdens in their hands. 

 Wlaen the children are al)out 

 a year old they are carried 

 astride the hip, unless upon 

 a journey, when they are 

 shifted around to the back, 

 still astride," and there sup- 

 ported by a shawl or large cloth bound around the waist.'' The 

 writer has seen women with children of 2 or 3 years on their backs, 

 each carrying a sack of wheat on her head and lighter bimdles in 

 her hands. "^ 



Pai7H brush. The lines of pigment with which the face was for- 

 merly ornamented were applied by means of slender bits of arrow- 

 wood two or tliree inches long. The Kwahadk's were accustomed to 

 gather the tufted ends of the 

 arrow - bush branches and 

 carry them southward into 

 Papagueria to be used as 

 paint brushes. 



Calendar sticks. The Pi- 

 mas keep a record of pass- 

 ing events by means of 

 sticks carved with arbitrary 

 mnemonic symbols. There 

 are five such records in the 

 tribe to-day — or were a year 

 ago. The oldest of these 

 sticks bears the history of i'K.i'i.b. cradie. 



seventy years. There were other sticks before these, but the vicis- 

 situdes of war, fire, and the peculiar burial customs of the people 

 made away with them.** There are three sticks in the collection, 

 which have been designated Gila Crossing, Blackwater, and Casa 

 Blanca calendars,* from the names of the villages whence they 

 came. The Casa Blanca stick (fig. 20, a) is of willow, peeled, 



o Doctor Palmer says that as soon as a child is old enough to stand alone the mother carries it on an 

 immense cincture of bark worn on her bacic. The author saw no such cinctures in use and beheves 

 that their use has been abandoned. 



fc Mason, Cradles, in Report National Museum, 1887, 184. 



cThe frame of the cradle figured is 67 cm. long by 20 cm. wide. The hood is 38 cm. high. 



dSee p. 35. They are mentioned here merely for the purpose of describing the sticks as pro<iucts 

 of the woodworker's skill. 



«The Casa Blanca calendar is not recorded in " The Narrative," p. 38. 



