ORNAMENTS
Both sexes, but especially the men, wore strands of beads suspended from their ear lobes and necks. The beads and gorgets were of disks cut from seashells, stone, more or less wrought, bone carved and decorated, small deer bones without other manipulation than drilling, and turquoise, which was usually rubbed into flat rectangular pendants. Upon the arms of the women and on the right arm of the men were bracelets of similar materials. The men wore on the left arm a soft coyote skin wrist guard or one of rawhide for the bowstring. Large beads of blue Venetian glass were brought by the earliest Spanish missionaries, and are now to be found scattered about the sacred places of the Pimas.
"A very brave man" pierced the septum of his nose and wore therein a skewer of neatly polished bone, or else suspended from it a bit of turquoise or a shell. Two men yet living in the Santan village have pierced noses, though they long ago abandoned the practice of wearing anything in them. Indeed, all the old-time ornaments have been abandoned, and the Pimas exhibit a marked contrast to the bead-covered Navahos and other tribesmen.
The men ornamented their long rope-like locks with the soft breast feathers of the eagle, turkey, or other large bird. The war headdresses were of eagle, hawk, and owl wing feathers. We secured one that contained the hair of an Apache warrior in addition to the feathers (fig. 40).
Contestants in the relay and distance races wore an ornament in their hair that suggests those of the Yumas, which in turn resemble the "eyes" of the Huichols.[1]
The women twined in their hair coronets of sunflowers or of corn husks, in recent years colored red or blue by boiling with calico.
Ornamentation
We have seen that the Pimas, by means of paint, tattooing, and ornaments, had developed the art of personal decoration to a considerable extent. When we examine their implements and weapons it soon becomes evident that their taste for ornamentation was more rudimentary. Indeed, their desire for embellishment seldom reached expression in carving: it was confined chiefly to painting, as in the ease of shields, or to the smooth finish given to their bows. Paint-
- ↑ Such an ornament was made for the writer's collection by Sikaʼtcu of arrowwood with four hooks of devils' claw attached to it with sinew. The hooks are arranged in the same plane and curved downward as shown in figure 79. The upper pair are wound with blue strings terminating with buff at the tips. Total length, 237 mm.; spread of hooks, 170 mm.
