PAPAGVER1A 



359 



THE CHIEF'S HOUSE, FKESNAL (ACCULTURAL STRUCTURE OF ADOBE, WITH VAH'-TOH ON THE RIGHT) 



selves to water or food, while the Indians are correspondingly 

 unceremonious in the visitors' camp, though almost without ex- 

 ception the courtesy of the Indian exceeds that of his visitor. 



Throughout the tribe the man is the hunter, the herder, and 

 the chief laborer in the field ;• the woman is the potter, the water- 

 bearer, and the collector of easily accessible wild food supplies. 

 The children are vivacious and happy, the boys playing with 

 the riata or lasso, with which they make miserable the lives of 

 burros, calves, and dogs, or with the bow and arrow, while the 

 girls play at household operations or troop away after mesquite 

 beans and prickly pears. Many of the men are expert riders 

 and ropers, quickly subduing the most vicious buckers among 

 their bronchos, and almost invariably looping their riatas about 

 the horns, neck, fore foot, or hind foot of stock, at will, at the 

 first throw. 



Living a hard life as they do, the Papago Indians are subject 

 to a variety of accidents. Until within a generation they were 

 almost constantly engaged in defensive warfare against the 

 Apache, and nearly every village still has its battle-scarred vet- 

 erans ; vicious bronchos and crabbed bulls score a victim now 

 and then ; drunken brawls frequently have fatal endings ; often 



