# The Pima Indians/Technology/Trade

The Food Supply - Domestication of Animals - Agriculture - Trade - Artifacts Standards of Value · Measures · Barter
TECHNOLOGY
Trade
STANDARDS OF VALUE
For purposes of trade or in gambling the following values were recognized: A gourd was equivalent to a basket; a metate, a small shell necklace, or the combination of a basket and a blanket and a strand of blue glass beads was equivalent to a horse; a string of blue glass beads 4 yards long was equivalent to a bag of paint; and a basket full of beans or corn to a cooking pot.
MEASURES
The principal linear measurement was the humakâ os, "one stick," equal to the distance from the center of the breast to the finger tips. The writer is inclined to regard this as a primitive Pima measurement, notwithstanding its resemblance to the yard of the invading race. This corresponds with the Aztec cenyollotli, the Cakchiquel ru vach qux, and the Maya betan. It was the basis of a sort of decimal system, as follows: Ten "sticks" made one "cut" of calico, equivalent to a "load" of wheat, or about 150 pounds. Ten cuts or loads were equivalent to ​one horse in value. Two units were employed in measurement of distances. One of these is an ancient measurement which it will be of interest to apply to the Hohokam ruins of the region. It is humakâ kuirspa, "one step"—that is, one step with the same foot, equal to about 5 feet. Land is divided into plots 100 or 200 "steps" in width, according to the size of the family. Long distances were measured in terms of a day's journey on foot; thus it is said to be seven days to Zuñi. The term "step" is also applied to the English mile, but they have had as yet little opportunity to acquire a definite knowledge of the meaning of the latter term.
BARTER
For a long period prior to 1833 the Maricopas lived at Gila Bend and came at harvest time to trade with the Pimas. Soon after that time they settled beside the Pimas, living upon such intimate terms with them that barter between the tribes was of no more consequence than between two Pima villages. With all other tribes they were perpetually at war, except with their Papago kinsfolk to the southward. These people live in a vast territory of cactus-covered plains, here and there interrupted by up-thrust barren peaks that, with striking outlines, form good landmarks and yet offer little to those that hunger and are athirst. The Papagos are a desert tribe, and yet so well had they mastered their all but hopeless environment that the trade which they carried on with the Pimas was by no means one-sided, as may be seen from the following list of products that were formerly brought to the Gila at the time of the June harvest. Of vegetable products there were saguaro seeds, the dried fruit and sirup; tciʼaldi, a small hard cactus fruit; agave fruit in flat roasted cakes; agave sirup; rsat, an unidentified plant that grows at Santa Rosa; prickly pear sirup; wild gourd seeds; a small pepper, called tcĭl’tipĭn; acorns of Quercus oblongifolia; baskets of agave leaf; sleeping mats; kiâhâs and fiber to make them; maguey fiber for picket lines. They brought the dried meat of the mountain sheep, deer meat, deer tallow in small ollas, buckskins, dried beef, tallow, cheese, and cords of human hair. Cattle were formerly traded "sight unseen," but the modern "education" of the Papagos led them to exaggerate the good qualities of their stock and even to deal in "fictitious values," or cattle that the new Pima owner sought in vain to find, until finally the Pimas would consider no proposition to trade stock unless the animals were exhibited. Of mineral products they brought red and yellow ochers for face and body paint, and the buff beloved by Pima weavers. They ​made religious pilgrimages to the salt lakes below the Mexican boundary to obtain the sacred salt. They lived on pinole during the journey and walked with their eyes fixed upon the trail, looking neither to the right nor to the left.
As they approached the shore of the lagoon in which the Great Spirit resided they ran at topmost speed and circled four times around the salt deposits before those who understood the proper ritual began to collect the salt. Even on the homeward journey there was magic power in the salt, and if a horse died the whole load was thrown away. As the salt gatherers approached the home village they were given a noisy welcome but were compelled to remain outside for four days, and for a long time thereafter they must abstain from certain acts that need not be detailed here. For four days those who remained at home sang for those who journeyed, and then all might eat the salt and were free to bring it to the Pimas. The latter sometimes made journeys to the lake for salt, being two days on the way to Quijotoa and two days on the trail beyond.
In exchange for the objects of barter brought to them the Pimas gave wheat, which was also given the Papagos for aid in harvesting it; corn; beans; mesquite beans; mesquite meal, roasted in mud-lined pits; cotton blankets and cotton fiber, with the seed; dried squash, pumpkin, and melon; rings of willow splints and of devil's claw for baskets; besides articles of lesser consequence.
In recent years there has been some trade carried on in colored earths and salt with the once hostile Yumas and Mohaves.
* ↑ D.G. Brinton, The Lineal Measures of the Semi-civilized Nations of Mexico and Central America.
* ↑ The author of the Rudo Ensayo, who wrote in 1762, stated that "these very numerous nations [Opas and Maricopas] inhabit both sides for a distance of 36 leagues down the river, and at the far end of their territory there is a very abundant spring of hot water a short distance from the river to the north." This spring is now known as Ojo Caliente; it is at the southern end of the Bighorn mountains, Guitéras translation in Records of the American Catholic Historical Society, V, 129.
* ↑ "These Papagos regularly visit a salt lake which lies near the coast and just across the line of Sonora, from which they pack large quantities of salt, and find a ready market at Tubac and Tucson. Mr. Lathrop, superintendent of the Sonora Mining Company, told me that he had bought some twenty thousand pounds annually from them." (John Walker in S. Ex. Doc. 2, 720, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 1860.) It would seem from this rather extensive traffic that the Papagos did not allow their religious scruples to interfere seriously with trade.