Their faces seemed to me to be of almost Caucasian regularity and rather of an English or Dutch cast, that is rather heavily moulded. The forehead is vertical and inclined to be square; and the chin, broad, heavy and full, comes out well to its line. The nose is straight, or a little irregular, or rounded, at the end, but not often very aquiline, never flat or wide-nostriled. The mouth is large but well shaped, with short, white, remarkably even teeth, seldom showing any canine projection. The whole face is a little heavy and square, but the cheek bones are not especially prominent. The eyes are level, frank and direct in glance, with long lashes and strong black brows. In the babies a slight uptilt to the eye is sometimes seen, like a Japanese, which indeed the babies suggest. The head of almost all adults is well-balanced and finely poised on a good neck.
Another type possesses more of what we call the Indian feature. The forehead retreats somewhat, so does the chin, while the upper lip is larger, longer, more convex and the nose, above is more aquiline, with wider nostrils. Consequently this face in profile is more convex thruout. The cheek-bones are much more prominent, too, and the head not generally so well-balanced and proportional.
While I have seen no striking beauty I believe the average good looks is greater than among white men, taken as they come.
The women as a rule, however, do not carry themselves gracefully, are apt to be too broad, fat and dumpy in figure, with too large waists, and often loose, ungracefully-moving hips. This deformity of the hips, for it almost amounts to that, I observe among Italian peasant women, too, and some negresses, and, I take it, is caused by carrying too heavy loads on the head at too early an age. There seems to be a settling down of the body into the pelvis, with a loose alternate motion of the hips. There are exceptions, of course, and I have seen those of stately figure and fine carriage. Sometimes the loose-hip motion appears in a man.
A slight tattooing appears on almost all Pima faces not of the last generation. In the women this consists of two blue lines running down from each corner of the mouth, under the chin, crossing, at the start, the lower lip, and a single blue line running back from the outer angle of each eye to the hair.
In the men it is usually a single zigzag blue line across the forehead.
The pigment used is charcoal.
The men are generally erect and of good figure, with good chests and rather heavy shoulders, the legs often a little bowed. Strange to say I never saw one who walked “pigeon-toed.” All turned the toes out like white men. The hands are often small and almost always well-shaped; and the feet of good shape, too, not over large, with a well-arched instep.
Emory and his comrades found the Pimas wearing a kind of breech-cloth and a cotton serape only for garments; the women wearing only a serape tied around the waist and falling to the knee, being otherwise nude. Today the average male Pima dresses like a white workman, in hat, shirt, trousers and perhaps shoes, and his wife or daughter wears a single print gown, rather loose at the waist and ruffled at the bottom, which reaches only to the ankles. Both sexes are commonly barefooted, but the old sandals, once universal, are still often seen. These gah-kai-gey-aht-kum-soosk, or string-shoes, as the word means, were made in several different ways, and often projected somewhat around the foot as a protection against the frequent and formidable thorns of the country.
Sometimes a wilder or older Indian will be seen, even now, with only a breech-cloth on, and some apology for a garment on his shoulders.