The Pimas went on a campaign against the Salt River Apaches soon after a heavy rain. When they reached the Salt river it was too high to be safely forded, so they built a raft and tried to take their saddles and blankets across upon it. The raft sank and they lost all their effects. Some of the party who had not engaged in the raft enterprise found a safe ford and continued on their raid, in which they killed several of the enemy, and near Four Peaks captured an Apache lad.[1]
1874–75
Gila Crossing. A man trying to catch his pony approached from the rear so that he could reach its tail, which he probably thought it advisable to lay hold on until he could fasten the rope around the animal's neck. One end of the lariat was attached to his waist, the other he tied to the horse's tail. The animal broke away and dragged him to death.[2]
Blackwater. The Apache White Hat killed a Pima.
1875–76
Gila Crossing. In this year sickness prevailed in the village of Rsânûk, apparently the same as in 1866, when the principal symptom of the disease was shooting pains through the body. Two medicine-men were suspected of having caused the trouble by magic means, and they were killed to stop the plague.
Blackwater. For a short time the Pimas were free from Apache attacks, and they ventured into the mountains to gather mescal. While there, a race took place between a man and a woman, in which the woman won.
Later in the season there was a general gathering of the villages to witness a race with the kicking-ball.
1876–77
Gila Crossing. There was an Apache village called Hâvany Kâs at the junction of the Gila and Salt rivers while a truce existed between the Pimas and Apaches. During this year an epidemic of smallpox prevailed in that village, as well as in all those of the Pimas and Maricopas.
- ↑ He afterwards became known as Doctor Montezuma, now a prosperous physician practising in the city of Chicago.
- ↑ This, the only event of the year in the Gila Crossing record, is unimportant in itself, and yet it illustrates a phase of Pima character that is worthy of notice. In handling horses they exhibit a patient subtlety resembling that of the snake creeping upon its prey, until they have gotten a rope or halter on the animal, when their gentleness disappears. Yet in all their harnessing or saddling they manifest an innate tendency toward carelessness. They always work up on the right instead of the left aide of a horse, and they also mount from that side.
