The American Race / A Linguistic Classification and Ethnographic Description of the Native Tribes of North and South America

by Daniel G. Brinton

Very much superior to these are the Comanches. A generation or two ago they numbered about fifteen thousand, and were one of the most formidable nations of the west. Now they have diminished to that many hundreds, and live peaceably on reservations. They are tall (1.70) and well formed, the skull mesocephalic, the eyes horizontal, the nose thin, the color light. Agriculture is not a favorite occupation, but they are more reasonable and willing to accept a civilized life than their neighbors, the Apaches or the Kioways. They had little government, and though polygamists, the women among them exercised considerable influence. Like the Utes, they are sun-worshippers, applying to that orb the term “father sun,” taab-apa, and performing various dances and other rites in his honor. The serpent would seem also to come in for a share of their reverence, their tribal sign in the gesture speech of the plain being that for a snake,[141] and indeed they are often called Snake Indians. Not less interesting is it to find throughout all these tribes, Ute and Comanche, the deification of the coyote, which occupies so prominent a niche in the pantheon of the Aztecan tribes and those who have borrowed from them. According to the Ute myths, the wolf and the coyote were the first two brothers from whom the race had its origin, and to the latter were attributed all the good things in the world.

As we approach the southern border of the group, the stage of culture becomes higher. The natives of the Pueblo of Moqui, whose curious serpent-worship has been so well described by Captain Bourke,[142] are of this stock, and illustrate its capacity for developing a respectable civilization. The Kizh and Netela, who were attached to the mission of San Capistrano, were also Shoshonees.

b. The Sonoran Branch.

In the valley of the Gila river the Shoshonian and Sonoran branches of the Uto-Aztecan stock were in contact from time immemorial. The Sonoran branch begins on the north with the Pimas, who occupied the middle valley of the Gila, and the land south of it quite to the Rio Yaqui. I continue for it the name of Sonoran given by Buschmann, although it extended far beyond the bounds of that province.

The Pima tribe merits our special attention, because of the remarkable ruins and relics of a dense former population, sedentary and agricultural, in the region inhabited by it when the river basin was first explored. These are the large structures known as the Great Houses or Casas Grandes, and the remains of the numerous towns, extensive irrigating trenches, and ruined enclosures, brought to light by the Hemenway exploring expedition in the Salt river valley. Their walls were built of adobes or sun-dried bricks of large size, the clay probably placed in baskets upon the wall and allowed to dry there. The extent of these remains is surprising, and in the Salt river valley alone, in an area of half a million acres, it is estimated that two hundred thousand people may have found support. Making every allowance, there is no doubt that at some remote epoch the arable land in the valleys of the Gila and its affluents was under close cultivation.

Who these busy planters were has supplied material for much speculation. As usual, the simplest explanation has been the last to be welcomed. In fact, there is no occasion for us to look elsewhere than to the ancestors of these Pimas, who lived in the valley when the whites first traveled it. There is nothing in the ruins and relics which demands a higher culture than the Pimas possessed. There is no sign of a knowledge of metals beyond hammered copper; the structures are such as the Pueblo Indians of the same stock live in now; and the Pimas have a historic tradition which claims these ruins and these old fields as the work of their ancestors, from which they were driven by the repeated attacks of the Apaches and other savage tribes of the north.[143] Some of them, a sub-tribe called the Sobaypuris (Sabaguis), and doubtless many others, took refuge in the deep cañons and constructed along their precipitous sides those “cliff houses,” which have been often described. About a hundred years ago the Apaches drove them out of these last resorts and forced them to flee to the main body of the Pimas in the south.[144] In conclusion, we may safely attribute most of the ruins in the Gila Basin, as well as most of the cliff houses in the various cañons, to these tribes of the Uto-Aztecan stock. When the early missionaries reached the Pimas they found them in precisely the condition of culture of which we see the remains in the Salt River valley. Their houses were built of large adobes, sometimes roofed with tiles; they were agricultural and industrious; their fields were irrigated by like extensive canals or trenches, and their weapons, utensils and clothing were just such as the Hemenway expedition showed were those of the early accolents of the Gila and the Salado.[145]

Most of the other tribes of this group were, from the first knowledge we have of them, inclined to sedentary and agricultural lives. The Opatas, on the head-waters of the Rio Yaqui, and the Tarahumaras, in the valleys of the Sierra Madre, are quiet, laborious peoples, who accepted without difficulty the teachings of the early missionaries. They cultivate the ground and build houses of adobes or of wood plastered.

The Tehuecos, Zuaques, Mayos and Yaquis are sub-tribes of the Cahitas, and speak a dialect the most akin of any to the Nahuatl. They are tall, vigorous men, active and laborious, trading in salt and woolen stuffs, cheerful, and much given to music. South of the Tarahumaras and immediately adjoining them, in the State of Chihuahua, are the Tepehuanas on the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre, from 25° to 27° latitude north. They are a people of unusual intelligence, of excellent memory, and when first met were living in solid houses of logs or of stone and clay, or as genuine troglodytes in artificial caves, and cultivating abundant crops of maize and cotton, which latter they wove and dyed with much skill.[146] The chroniclers speak of them as the most valiant of all the tribes of New Spain, but laborious and devoted to their fields.[147]

The tribe of the Sonoran group which reached the point furthest to the south was the Coras, who dwelt in the Sierra of Nayarit, in the State of Jalisco. From their location they are sometimes called Nayerits. They were a warlike but agricultural people, about the same level as the Tepehuanas.