110 



THE PIMA INDIANS 



[ETH. ANN. 2(5 



cylinder weighing 20 pounds that requires both hands to wield it. 

 Many of these are obtained from the ruins, but some are shaped by 

 pecking. Tliis is not all done at once, but, a suitable stone having 

 been selected, it is shaped little by little, day by day, as the owner has 

 leisure for the work. This suggests that much of the stonework of 

 primitive peoples which excites our admiration for their patience has 

 been done in this manner, the implement being in use continually and 



the task of pecking it 

 into more convenient or 

 more pleasing shape be- 

 ing taken up fi'om time 

 to time as "knitting 

 work." 



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kkkl 



Ax 



I'll... .TO. .Arrowheads. 



The stone axe.s of the 

 Pimas were ()})tained 

 from the ruins that are 

 far more extensive than 

 the Pinui villages in the Gila and Salt River valleys, ^fost of these 

 axes liave each a single blade, man}' are doul)le-bitted, and some are 

 of the adz form. Others are so large and finely polished as to render 

 plausible the supposition that they were intended for ceremonial use. 

 All are of hard, fine-grained igneous rock called hatovik by the 

 Pimas, some of whom assert that the material comes from near the 

 Gulf of California, where they have seen it when on journeys after 

 salt. Others declare that there is no such s.one on the surface of 

 the earth, and that all the axes we find now were niatle from 

 material that was l)rought from the underworld when Elder Brother 

 letl the nether-world peojile up to conquer those 

 then living above. However, no particular religious 

 significance is attached to the axes, as might be 

 expected, considering their origin. They are sold 

 readily enough, though when a suitable ax is kept 

 for sharpening the metate of the household it is 

 sometimes difficult for a collector to secure it. 

 There is an abundance of suitable stones along the Salt river below 

 where it breaks through the Superstition mountains, and it is jirobalile 

 that all the axes in the valley were obtained from that inunediate 

 locality. The few that were seen hafted were fastened with sinew in 

 the fork of a limb of suitable size. 



FiG- 31. .\rrow-shal't 

 .'itraightener. 



