“There was little game in the Mohave Valley, and of necessity little meat was used by this tribe. At some seasons of the year, winter and spring, they procure fish from a small lake in the vicinity. This was a beautiful little body of water at freshet seasons, but in the dry seasons became a loathsome mudhole. In their producing season, the Mohaves scarcely raised a four months’ supply, yet they might have raised for the whole year as well. Often I thought, as I saw garden vegetables and grain plucked ere they were grown, to be devoured by these lazy ‘live to-day’ savages, I should delight to see the hand of the skillful agriculturist upon that beautiful valley, with the Mohaves standing by to witness its capabilities for producing.
“We spent most of this summer in hard work. We were, for a long time, roused at the break of day, baskets were swung upon our shoulders, and we were obliged to go from six to eight miles for the ‘Musquite,’ a seed or berry growing upon a bush about the size of our Manzanita. In the first part of the season, this tree bloomed a beautiful flower, and after a few weeks a large seed-bud could be gathered from it, and this furnished what is truly to be called their staple article of subsistence. We spent from twilight to twilight again, for a long time, in gathering this. And often we found it impossible, from its scarcity that year, to fill our basket in a day, as we were required; and for failing to do this we seldom escaped a chastisement. This seed, when gathered, was hung up in their huts to be thoroughly dried, and to be used when their vegetables and grain should be exhausted. I could endure myself, the task daily assigned me, but to see the demands and exactions made upon little Mary Ann, day after day, by these unfeeling wretches, as many of them were, when her constitution was already broken down, and she daily suffering the most excruciating pains from the effects of barbarity she had already received; this was a more severe trial than all I had to perform of physical labor. And I often felt as though it would be a sad relief to see her sink into the grave, beyond the touch and oppression of the ills and cruel treatment she was subjected to. But there were times when she would enliven after rest, which from her utter inability they were obliged to grant.
“We were accused by our captors several times during this season, of designing and having plotted already to make our escape. Some of them would frequently question and annoy us much to discover, if possible, our feelings and our intentions in reference to our captivity. Though we persisted in denying any purpose to attempt our escape, many of them seemed to disbelieve us, and would warn us against any such undertaking, by assuring us they would follow us, if it were necessary, quite to the white settlements, and would torment us in the most painful manner, if we were ever to be recaptured.
“One day, while we were sitting in the hut of the chief, having just returned from a root-digging excursion, there came two of their physicians attended by the chief and several others, to the door of the hut. The chief’s wife then bade us go out upon the yard, and told us that the physicians were going to put marks on our faces. It was with much difficulty that we could understand, however, at first, what was their design. We soon, however, by the motions accompanying the commands of the wife of the chief, came to understand that they were going to tattoo our faces.
“We had seen them do this to some of their female children, and we had often conversed with each other about expressing the hope that we should be spared from receiving their marks upon us. I ventured to plead with them for a few moments that they would not put those ugly marks upon our faces. But it was in vain. To all our expostulations they only replied in substance that they knew why we objected to it; that we expected to return to the whites, and we would be ashamed of it then; but that it was their resolution we should never return, and that as we belonged to them we should wear their ‘Ki-e-chook.’ They said further, that if we should get away, and they should find us among other tribes, or if some other tribes should steal us, they would by this means know us.
“They then pricked the skin in small regular rows on our chins with a very sharp stick, until they bled freely. They then dipped these same sticks in the juice of a certain weed that grew on the banks of the river, and then in the powder of a blue stone that was to be found in low water, in some places along the bed of the stream, (the stone they first burned until it would pulverize easy, and in burning it turned nearly black,) and pricked this fine powder into these lacerated parts of the face.
“The process was somewhat painful, though it pained us more for two or three days after than at the time of its being done. They told us this could never be taken from the face, and that they had given us a different mark from the one worn by their own females, as we saw, but the same with which they marked all their own captives, and that they could claim us in whatever tribe they might find us.
“The autumn was by far the easiest portion of the year for us. To multiply words would not give any clearer idea to the reader of our condition. It was one continual routine of drudgery. Toward spring their grains were exhausted. There was but little rain, not enough to raise the Colorado near the top of its banks. The Mohaves became very uneasy about their wheat in the ground. It came up much later than usual, and looked sickly and grew tardily after it was out of the ground. It gave a poor, wretched promise at the best for the next year. Ere it was fairly up there were not provisions or articles of any kind to eat in the village any one night to keep its population two days. We found that the people numbered really over fifteen hundred. We were now driven forth every morning by the first break of day, cold and sometimes damp, with rough, bleak winds, to glean the old, dry musquite seed that chanced to have escaped the fatiguing search of the summer and autumn months. From this on to the time of gathering the scanty harvest of that year, we were barely able to keep soul and body together. And the return for all our vigorous labor was a little dry seed in small quantities. And all this was put forth under the most sickening apprehensions of a worse privation awaiting us the next year. This harvest was next to nothing. No rain had fallen during the spring to do much good.