RECENT LAVA FLOW ON THE UINKARET.
A ZUÑI WINDOW GLAZED WITH SELENITE.
and children; buckskin, rags, and sand. They wear very little clothing, not needing much in this lovely climate.
Altogether, these Indians are more nearly in their primitive condition than any others on the continent with whom I am acquainted. They have never received anything from the government and are too poor to tempt the trader, and their country is so nearly inaccessible that the white man never visits them. The sunny mountain side is covered with: wild fruits, nuts, and native grains, upon which they subsist. The oose, the fruit of the yucca, or Spanish bayonet, is rich, and not unlike the pawpaw of the valley of the Ohio. They eat it raw and also roast it in the ashes. They gather the fruits of a cactus plant, which are rich and luscious, and eat them as grapes or express the juice from them, making the dry pulp into cakes and saving them for winter and drinking the wine about their camp fires until the midnight is merry with their revelries.
They gather the seeds of many plants, as sunflowers, golden-rod, and grasses. For this purpose they have large conical baskets, which hold two or more bushels. The women carry them on their backs, suspended from their foreheads by broad straps, and with a smaller one in the left hand and a willow-woven fan in the right they walk among the grasses and sweep the seed into the smaller basket, which is emptied now and then into the larger, until it is full of seeds and chaff; then they winnow out the chaff and roast the seeds. They roast these curiously; they put seeds and a quantity of red-hot coals into a willow tray and, by rapidly and dexterously shaking and tossing them, keep the coals aglow and the seeds and tray from burning. So skilled are the crones in this work they roll the seeds to one side of the tray as they are roasted and the coals to the other as if by magic.
Then they grind the seeds into a fine flour and make it into cakes and mush. It is a merry sight, sometimes, to see the women grinding at the