**A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SALADO FAMILY**

Although little sunlight penetrated the stone and earth walls, the woman
woke at first light. In appearance, she resembled today\'s Zuni and Hopi
people. She stood five feet tall, had light brown skin, and brown eyes.
Her dark brown hair was cropped to supply her constant need of material
for string.

She dressed in the dark stuffy room, which smelled of wood smoke from
last night\'s cooking fire. A yucca-string skirt was all the clothing
she would need for this hot day. In winter, she would add a cotton
blanket, passed under the left arm, fastened on the right shoulder, and
held in place by a narrow belt around her waist.

She was 25 and feeling her age. In a society with an average life
expectancy of 30, she was already past middle age. Since the birth of
her eldest son 11 summers ago, she had borne eight children. One had
died in infancy, two more in early childhood. She sat to feed her
youngest, a 6 month old daughter. Although it was not yet apparent, the
back of the child\'s head was slowly being flattened by the hard
cradleboard.

The room's furnishings were minimal. Mats and blankets of hide or cotton
were used for sleeping; baskets and jars for storage and cooking lined
the walls. Tools for hunting, weaving, farming, and other activities
were also kept in the room.

She picked up a short, hard drill stick, placed it into one of the holes
of a broader saguaro rib hearth-stick, and rotated it rapidly until the
fine sawdust began to glow. She blew gently on the spark, adding dry
grass and a few sticks until a small fire blazed in the clay fire pit in
the center of the room. Taking a handful of ground corn meal from a
storage jar, she mixed it with ground walnut meat and placed it in a
cooking pot with enough water to make the morning\'s mush. Her mate and
eldest son would soon be returning from their pre-dawn hunt and she must
have the first meal of the day prepared for their return.

More than half of her family\'s diet came from wild foods that grew in
the surrounding hills. Her people had moved out of the valley and up to
this cave high in the cliff to escape the crowding in the river
villages. Her mate built check dams and grew a few crops on the gentle
slopes, but there was not enough water or flat land nearby to grow all
of the corn her family needed. Her mate had a thorough knowledge of the
trails and water holes frequented by large game. He also gathered jojoba
nuts, cholla buds, walnuts, and other wild foods. She was an excellent
potter. Her finely painted three-colored bowls and jars were much sought
after in other parts of the basin. Her family made frequent trips to the
valley trade centers to exchange their surplus goods for the corn,
beans, squash, and cotton grown by the valley farmers.

Her mate and eldest son soon returned, descended the ladder from the
roof above, and ceremoniously hung their wooden bows and reed arrows
from the roof beams. A prayer and the proper ritual were necessary to
pacify the gods and ensure the success of tomorrow\'s hunt. They brought
in two rabbits and a wood rat, a good morning\'s hunt, for meat was
scarce in the desert.

Their brightly painted arrows were made of hollow river reeds that had
been straightened and scraped to remove the nodes. A sharpened stick had
been lashed into the hollow end of the reed to act as a projectile
point. Her mate had seen other men fasten sharp triangular stone points
onto the end of this stick, but no one in his village was proficient in
making them. Perhaps he could acquire some on his next trading
expedition. They would be much more efficient in bringing down mule deer
and other large game.

The woman strapped on sandals woven of yucca leaves. They were not worn
in the pueblo, but would protect her feet while walking on the rocky,
thorny desert hillsides. She collected a gathering basket and other
tools she would need for the day\'s work, and climbed the ladder to the
patio area that covered the top of the pueblo. Most of her day would be
spent outdoors, on the roof, or in the community work area at the back
of the cave. The dark and stuffy room was only for sleeping, storage,
and shelter in bad weather.

Two of her daughters took large jars and went a mile from the cave to
collect water from the spring at the base of the hill. When the children
were old enough, they had to help with the daily chores. Everyone in the
family needed to work if they were to survive. When brought back to the
village, the water would be stored in a large jar, or olla, located
within the house. Everyone drank from a single gourd dipper.

The woman paused for a moment to survey the morning\'s activities at the
busy pueblo. A group of men was building a new room on the front of the
dwelling. Each year, additional rooms were needed to house the growing
population. The walls were built of unshaped quartzite stones taken from
the fractured cliffs and held in place by mortar made of clay and
caliche. The walls were built in sections, each about two feet high.
When the mud of one course was dry, another section was added. Bonding
the corners of the walls was unknown; one wall was simply butted against
the other. Once the walls reached a height of six feet, a large main
roof beam was placed across the long axis of the room, with smaller
crossbeams of pinyon pine or juniper placed on top. Saguaro ribs, river
reeds, or grasses formed the next layer; six to eight inches of mud
capped the roof.

Behind her, women were gathering in the community work area to grind
corn on stone metates or in the mortar holes worn into the ledge. Corn
meal was used for various forms of mush, pudding, and bread. The
preparation and storage of this important food source consumed a
significant part of every Salado woman\'s day. However, she had no time
for corn grinding today. July was the season of the saguaro harvest.
This was a joyous time in the village, when the women and children
worked together to harvest the delicious fruit. The women knocked down
the small green cucumber-like fruits with a long pole made from two
saguaro ribs lashed together. A short crossbar was attached to the top.
Children picked up the fruit as it fell to the ground, dug the sweet,
sticky pulp out of the shell, and dropped it in their mother\'s
gathering basket.

Because of the intense heat of the July day, saguaro fruit was picked in
the early morning or late afternoon. The rest of the day was spent
cooking the fruit for jams or syrup, or sitting in the shade of the
mesquite trees drinking the sweet, cool juice that was drained from the
fruit.

She and the children returned home in late afternoon, climbing the
ladder through the only entry to the pueblo - a V-shaped notch to the
left of the cave. Her mate was sitting on the roof, twine-plaiting an
elaborate ceremonial shirt from a skein of white yarn. This weaving
technique produced lace-like fabrics in which diamond-shaped holes were
made and distributed to form decorative patterns. He would wear this
shirt at the time of the full moon to celebrate the end of the saguaro
harvest, one of the countless ceremonies that regulated every aspect of
their lives.

She sat beside him in the late afternoon sun watching the younger
children playing on the rooftops. Even in July, the cave was cool. Her
people had chosen the site carefully. The cave faced southeast so the
morning sun would warm the dwelling in the winter, and cool afternoon
shade protected them from the blistering summer sun.

Times were good in the Tonto Basin, but life had taught her that change
was an essential element in their lives. Her people\'s ancient stories
told of cycles of plentiful rains and good harvests followed by drought
and starvation. As she rose to prepare the evening meal, an unaccustomed
shiver of apprehension touched her. How long, she wondered, would the
good harvests last?