I picked up the book, "Yuman Tribes of the Gila River", to find more information about the agriculture practices of the tribes around the Yuma area as the Quechan were called Yuman at one time. I found out that the book is really about the Maricopa tribe above Gila Bend (I have heard Jill talking about how the word Yuman should not be used because it is misleading, can be used out of context.)
Although the book is not about the area I am currently studying, I figured it might provide some useful information. The Quechan and Maricopa do have a relation ship of sorts.
What I did find out is this book is one of the problems, it seems to go out of the way to make the natives seem dumb. I will say that it is books like this that make people think the Natives of North America were a backward people that could barely survive.
This book was first written in 1933, I am looking at a 1978 edition (sad that this has been reprinted). The author was Leslie Spier, below is from Wikipedia:
Leslie Spier (December 13, 1893 – December 3, 1961) was an American anthropologist best known for his ethnographic studies of American Indians. He spent a great deal of his professional life as a teacher; he retired in 1955 and died in 1961.[1] Spier created a path for the study of cultural change, taking the time to conduct in-depth studies of group contact. His studies focused on changes throughout various cultures over time; he saw great importance in empirical research and made his reports as detailed as possible. Spier’s early years were spent studying the many diverse areas of anthropology ranging from archaeology to physical anthropology. His main interests were studying human relations and analyzing cultural processes among Native American groups. As a teacher, Spier was greatly admired by his students because he was extremely successful in passing along his methodological techniques for gathering exact data. Spier is remembered best for his explanatory studies and widespread fieldwork of cultural groups.[2] Spier continued his research using his personal methodology right to his death in 1961.[3]
The fact that he was a teacher spreading his ideas to who knows how many is disturbing and he evidently did it in such a way that people thought he was gathering exact data!! By Spier's own admission in the preface of the book, he tells that his main source of information is not as reliable as another person at his disposal. Kutox, a Halchidhoma man who was born around 1847 near Maricopa Wells. Kutox is given credit for relaying eleven narratives of the Halchidhoma to Speir. It is said that this is the only record of Halchidhoma culture history.
I opened the book to chapter two as the chapter is titled "Basis of Subsistence" with a sub chapter titled "Cultivation". On page 48 Speir tells us that the Maricopa seem to have depended mostly on gathering mesquite beans, hunting jack rabbits and fishing, with women doing the bean gathering. Kutox told Speir that :people starved in those days unless men and women kept at it all day long. A child of two or more might not be able to stand because it lacked food." Spier goes on to say "on the other hand, Bartlett (1852) makes it appear that Pima and Maricopa cultivation was so great as to allow long periods of inactivity." (Speir pg48) Speir then mentions how mesquite were so plentiful in the area that places along the river were nearly impenetrable. We also know that the tribes along that part of the Gila River had been cultivating wheat to the point of being able to sell wheat to the United States Government. Remember that Speir was doing his research in 1930 or so, he would have know this. Why would he plant the seed, pun, that these people could barely survive? Was Speir and Kutox referring to the 1890's when a canal was cut near Florence Arizona diverting water away from tribal lands? If that was the case, why did Speir not make this clear, the man who said that he gathers exact data. How many of Speirs readers know who Bartlett was?
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Russell_Bartlett"
Speir leaves the reader with a not so favorable impression of the tribes without an explanation. This was the first problem I ran across in the book.
A note from "https://padrekino.com/index.php/khs_home/kino-life/kino-wheat"
Wheat also turned the Gila Pimas into the first agricultural entrepreneurs in Arizona. During the war between Mexico and the United States, the Akimel O'odham traded both corn and wheat flour to the U. S. Army. After the war ended and gold was discovered in California, thousands of "argonauts" trudged through Pima villages along the Santa Cruz and Gila on their way to the goldfields, stimulating the Pirnas to intensify production and expand their acreage. The market continued to grew with the establishment of a stagecoach route through Pima territory in 1857 and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. By 1870, Akimel O'odham along the Gila River were selling or trading several million pounds of wheat a year. Pima fields had become the breadbasket of Arizona Territory. In recognition of their importance, the federal government created the first Indian reservation in Arizona for the Akimel O'odham and their Yuman-speaking Maricopa neighbors in 1859. Known as the Gila River Indian Community, it was enlarged seven times between 1876 and 1915 until it encompassed 371,929 acres."
Given a reservation recognition of their importance... That is another story.
Eating dirt:
About the Maricopa processing mesquite beans:
The ground bean meal was sifted in a Pima tray-basket by shaking it over the edge into a cloth. An elliptical (eighteen inches long, rwelve inches wide, by ten deep) was dug in the ground and sprinkeled with water until its surface was firm. The sifted flour was poured into this, sprinkled, anothe layer of flour added, sprinkled, and so on. Finallyit was sprinkled and covered with dirt. The following morning they would remove the hard cake of mesquite flour. (Speir pg51) Speir goes on to describe how this cake was used when other bean pods could not be ground because of dampness. Pieces of the cake would be broken off and socked in water to make a drink or boiled and mixed with other seeds.
I found this process questionable as why would a method be used that would introduce dirt into the food? The Maricopa had baskets, pottery and even cloth of some kind. Speir did not mention anything to separate the dirt from the food, when they clearly had many ways to do so. Was Speir given wrong information or was he again trying to dumb down the native? So, I went searching for ways of processing mesquite beans.
I ran across an article by Peter Felker, "Mesquite Flour -New Life for an Ancient Staple" from a publication called Gastronomica publisd in the spring of 2005. https://www.bashanfoundation.org/contributions/Felker-P/felkerflour.pdf In the article, Felker decribes the above dirt process almost word for word, but he did not cite Speir, Felker cited "Willis H. Bell and Edward F. Castetter, “The Utilization of Mesquite and Screwbean by the Aborigines in the American Southwest,” University of New Mexico Press Biological Series 5 (1937): no. 2." I felt a bit of excitement, someone else wrote about the dirt process. Maybe it was really done that way. I went looking for the above article and found it at the University of New Mexico, https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028&context=unm_bulletin. On page 29 of the article was the dirt process, and guess who was cited, Speir... It seems the only documentation of the dirt process came from Speir and was copied at least two times in 72 years.
Basic tools:
The prickly pear was rolled on the ground with a stick to remove the fine spines or brushed with a bit of sage bush. **Tongs were unknown**.(Speir pg54 It seems that Speir would have you believe that the Maricopa people were to dumb to have the concept of a basic tool. However, on page 56 Speir describes a tool made from a long stick with another short piece to form a hook to harvest the fruit from sahuaro. Speir has a footnote that the description of the sahuaro harvesting tool is from Curtis, but was denied by Speir's informants. Why did Speir not find out exactly how the harvest was done? Remember, the bit from Wikipedia about how Speir was known for in depth studies? HA HA.
This reminds me of a silly cartoon.
Curtis did have his own bit of contoversy from a silent film he worked on, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Land_of_the_Head_Hunters. He also do a lot of good work,
Eventually, 222 complete sets of photographs were published. Curtis's goal was to document Native American life, pre-colonization. He wrote in the introduction to his first volume in 1907, "The information that is to be gathered ... respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind, must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost." Curtis made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of Native American language and music. He took over 40,000 photographic images of members of over 80 tribes. He recorded tribal lore and history, described traditional foods, housing, garments, recreation, ceremonies, and funeral customs. He wrote biographical sketches of tribal leaders.
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_S._Curtis" ```
https://www.loc.gov/collections/edward-s-curtis/articles-and-essays/edward-curtis-and-the-background-of-the-collection
Though out the section I read of the book, Speir talked about how much of the work was done by the women, such as the harvesting and cooking. Then on page 55 we are told that when agave was gathered from the mountains to the south, women did not participate because it grew too far away for women to go. Why could women not travel? Speir does not say.
I stopped reading the book a few pages after that as it was clear Speir was not about factual information, he clearly was out to make the Maricopa people look like an unintelligent lot. He also was not much of a researcher as he relied mostly on one resource, Kutox. Then when conflicting information was presented, Speir did not try to find out what was correct. At least Speir did tell some of the conflicting information so the reader knows. I do have to ask what good that is when the reader has no way of finding out exactly what happened. Speir was there, he failed as a researcher. But did a nice job of telling how dumb the Native was. That is why one has to be very careful when reading and not fall into the trap of believing something just because the author appears to be credible.
