# The Pima Indians/Esthetic arts/Festivals

Personal Decoration - Ornamentation - Musical Instruments - Dancing - Festivals - Athletic Sports - Games
ESTHETIC ARTS
Festivals
Of course all festivals partook somewhat of the nature of sacred ceremonies, but when this element was at a minimum, as in the saguaro harvest festival, its description may properly appear here with the arts of pleasure. These festivals were of annual occurrence, except during the occasional seasons when the fruit failed. The leading feature of these gatherings was the preparation and drinking of navait or saguaro liquor, and they became drunken orgies in which, since the introduction of knives and firearms, men were sometimes killed. The Government has prohibited "tizwin drunks," as they are called by the whites, though they are still surreptitiously held.
The sirup of the saguaro fruit is boiled for two days in the preparation of the liquer, and in the meantime the people gather and dance in the plaza nearest to the spot where the large ollas are simmering. During the final carousal all the men and some of the women become intoxicated. Through the influence of the missionaries, the native police under the agent's orders, and the actively exerted influence of the more intelligent men in the tribe, the custom is dying out. The subchief, Kâemâ-â (pl. II, c), at Gila Crossing has been a zealous advocate of temperance for a number of years. and it is not unlikely that the folly of such debaucheries was apparent to ​some members of the Pima community during preceding generations before outside influences were brought to bear upon them. Indeed, soine measure of prudence was enforced by the fact that the Apaches were hovering upon the outskirts of the villages watching for an opportunity to attack when the warriors were incapacitated for resistance.
The "Name song" is a social device that accomplishes the ends of organized charity, together with those of the ordinary festival. If a village suffers from a scarcity of food, it visits one where the crops have been plentiful and shares in the bountiful harvest in the following manner: The visitors camp outside the village and come in during the evening to learn the names of the residents and to arrange these names in the song, which provides places for two names in each stanza. There are seventy stanzas in the song, and if there are more than twice that number of visitors it may be repeated and other names substituted. Each visitor assumes the name of a resident of the village as a seal of fellowship and for the purpose of contributing to the pleasure of the festivities of the morrow, when the strangers come into the village to sing. As the song is sung and a name is called the wife or daughter of the person of that name runs with some light object, and the wife or daughter of the person who has assumed the name for the day pursues the other woman to take it away from her. If she is unable to catch her, some of the other visiting women aid in capturing the runner, and she leads her captors to where "the value of her husband’s name," in the form of corn, wheat, beans, or other foodstuffs, is ready to be presented to the visitor.
When there are many participants in the ceremony nearly the entire day may be consumed in its performance. When some of the resident villagers are destitute, only the names of those who have plentiful crops are used. The visitors give nothing but their services as singers, and they receive very substantial rewards. Etiquette requires that the visit be returned within a reasonable time—late the same season or during the following year. However, when the nomadic Papagos come to give the Pimas entertainment the visit can so seldom be returned that the gifts are more of the nature of exchanges by barter, with the advantages in favor of the Papagos. The Pimas always received the Papagos cordially, though rarely returning their visits—so rarely that in the last fifty years the Pimas have sung the name song but twice in Papagueria, the two visits being to Suijotoa.