I went still fifteen miles further northward, but found that most of the Indians there had gone to the Pinos Altos mines to look for work. That “March comes in like a lion” I realised even here in the sierra, when, on this excursion, on which I had not taken my tent along, I was overtaken by a snow-storm. We had gone to bed with the stars for a canopy, clear and beautiful; we woke up under blankets of snow, which turned to rain, drenching us to the skin and making us shiver with cold.
Pine Cone Serving as a Comb.
I saw several small, shallow caves, and learned that many of them were utilised by the Pimas during the wet season. I also passed a rock-shelter, which served as a permanent home. The housewife was busy making straw hats. She was very shy, as her husband was away; but I elicited the information that she gets two reales (25 cents) for each hat. The making of straw hats and mats is quite an industry among the Pimas. In the houses they have a cellar-like dug-out outside of the dwelling and covered with a conical roof of dry grass. These cellars, in many cases, serve not only as the work-rooms, but also as store-rooms for their stock in trade.
In one or two instances I found Pima families living in open inclosures, a kind of corral, made from cut-down brushwood. I noticed two small caves that had been transformed into storehouses, by planting poles along the edge and plastering these over with mud, to make a solid wall, behind which corn was stored.
Southern Pima Arrow Release.
In Yepachic I estimated there were about twenty Pima families. I had some difficulty in inducing them to pose before the camera; the presidente himself was afraid of the instrument, thinking it was a diabolo (devil).
There are probably not more than sixty Pima families within the State of Chihuahua, unless there are more than I think near Dolores. Some twenty-odd families of these live in caves during the wet season, and a few of them are permanent cave-dwellers. I understand that the Pimas in Sonora utilise caves in the same way.
