370 PAPAGUERIA 



or a few families in summer. Then as the migratory birds fly 

 southward, the Papago clans of Arizona drift after them in irregu- 

 lar fashion ; the pueblos are gradually filled, chiefly by families in 

 which there are many women. Other families migrate in similar 

 fashion, save that, instead of locating in the pueblos, they scatter 

 through the mountains to hunt deer and other game. The hunter 

 is usually accompanied by his wife, and perhaps by children, 

 and sometimes several hunters cooperate; their method is to 

 build temporary lodges, usually of the boughs of trees, related in 

 form to the typical domiciles of grass, though frequently the 

 trunks and low-hanging branches of mesquite or oak trees take 

 the place of part of the ordinary framework, and the hunters 

 normally wander but a little way from their lodges, preferring to 

 await the coming of game rather than to seek it afar. Much of 

 the small game is consumed by the hunter and his family, but 

 deer and some smaller animals are taken down the mountain 

 sides to the Mexican towns and sold or bartered. Meantime the 

 Papago women in the pueblos dig clay and make pottery, which 

 they also sell or barter to the Mexicans. Thus many Mexican 

 villages aie supplied with venison and ollas at small cost, while 

 the temporarily immigrant Papago obtain money and goods, 

 albeit in small quantities, and develop a simple commerce. At 

 the same time they acquire something of the Mexican culture, 

 habits of life, fashion of dress, language, and religion. The 

 pueblo house is usually of adobe, and in no way different from 

 that of the, neighboring Mexican family. The metate is usually 

 obtained by barter, and is frequently a shop-made article like 

 that of the more pretentious Mexicans ; the skirts and rebosas 

 of the women are in no way distinguishable from those of the 

 senoras and senoritas, and the women and some of the men attend 

 the church fiestas and avail themselves of the opportunities for 

 confession and baptism and even formal marriage, while the men 

 outherod their Mexican mates in mescal drinking. It is largely 

 through this winter association of the Papago with the Mexicans 

 during many generations that the desert tribe has been accul- 

 turized and in part Mexicanized ; and it is partly by reason of 

 this prior association and alien acculturation that it is so difficult 

 for the Papago to affiliate with the American pioneers and in- 

 stitutions. 



So the life of the Papago is a round of migrations and wander- 

 ings, largely in search of the means of subsistence, of which the 

 first and the second and the third are water, water, water — water 



