The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-09-05

fine specimens of physique. The ba- bies are strapped to litter so that neither hand nor foot can be moved, which causes them to grow quite | straight but it certainly has a tenden- cy to tlatten the backs of their heads, as I have seen some with quite an an- gle in the cranium. They stand very erect as their long hair often hangs clear from their back, and with square shoulders, full breasts and long taper ing waists they appear quite attrac- tive, Corpulency does not exist with them, but l presume that Is more on account of not having the wherein to put on bay windows" The females are not so we'll formed as the males generally but appear to be tougher and can stand more hardships. The habits of both sexes are mostly indolen- cy, as they will not rustic until actual ly compelled to, and will set with great expectancy a whole day in camp in hopes of getting bite from the cook.
 The older ones, both male and female, do pretty much all the work there is to be done, the women doing the most, and that is but very little, Their food consist mostly of vegetables which they grow themselves, and the only thing of the meat line I have seen about them was when one of them passed me with a few kangaroo rats tucked in his grt string. The plant ing of the grain, vegetables, melons, etc, that they raise is of the most sim pie and child-like method. With no | utensil but garden trowel, and in squatting position, hitchinS from place | to place, they dig a hole about a foot | in diameter and in depth along the edges of the flat draws, or water l courses, near the river, where there is moisture, and then plant the seed in the bottom of the hole. A small por- | tion of the dirt taken out is used to | cover the seed, and the major portion | is patted down on the edge of the hole. 1 so that a patch of ground planted looks l like gigantic honey comb. They, l however, raise some very fine cante- 1 lopes and watermelons The grinding of the grain is done by the squaws and is done with flat stone inclined, and stone roller approximating to a roller for rolling out pastry. The squaw gets down on her knees before the inclined stone at the elevated end, and with the stone roller by a dexterous movement l crushes the grain, enough for one meal, | which she prepares and cooks under the arbor before mentioned. Their vic
 tuals are cooked in pottery made by 1 the women themselves. The material, l a kind of clay, having been procured in | the mountains, is wet up to the consis- tency of thick paste, convenient DOT tion is first shaped by the hands like a | small saucer. Then another suitable l portion Is rolled out with the hands to 1 length of the circumference of the saucer which is forthwith pinched carefully to the edge of the saucer. A stone evenly conveyed on one side is then held in one hand on the inner side, while with the right hand a wooden concave mallet is used to batter out the roll to the thickness of the saul cer, which when accomplished and her piece is rolled out to the desired length | and served the same way until what ever shaped vessel and height is re- quired. It is then placed in some con- venient spot and left to dry preparato- ry to being baked The cooking uten- sils and some cups are the extent of | their wares, as no plates, spoons, knives and forks are used The thumb and two forefingers answer their pur pose for solids from the pot and cups for liquids. Directly after their meals
 it is quite noticeable the thumb and | two forefingers are considerably clean
 CT than the balance of their hand when
 having a pot boil The Mojaves and
 Yumas are an extraordinary mild type of character, as they appear to show no vindicative spirit, the bricks pre- dominating in that respect, and l ques-
 tion some times if white person should hit one of them whether they
 would return the blow. They have no arms, excepting now and then one fav-
 ing a bow and arrow. I had no
 arms about me while I was alone among them and felt as secure as sleeping here at home. An incident oc-
 cured one day while among them that illustrates the simplicity of their na-
 ture. The six-footer who used to visit
 me frequently came to me one day a
 little excited and beckoned me to fol-
 low him. I did so and surmised what
 was up, although the Indian gave me
 no clew He started on ahead in a
 hurry, but as l wished to be prepared
 while had an opportunity l broke off
 a piece of grease wood about two feet
 long and went on. Soon he stopped,
 keeping off quite a. distance from the
 object and pointed towards it. Going
 in the direction indicated, I soon heard
 a rattle, and going up to a. rattlesnake
 soon dispatched him The buck
 seemed perfectly satisfied to let me
 make the aggressive movement, and
 felt quite pleased after the snake was
 killed The young men travelling up
 and down the river in the hot sun will
 run along knocking a ball ahead of
 them with stick similar to our haw-
 key stick which they call o'-con. Tn
 the cold weather they will make no ef-
 fort to warm themselves by exercise,
 generally. They have another game
 which they play called ho-to-roke.
 Two bucks have long slender poles
 which they throw endways at a ring
 about four or five inches in diameter
 served with rope yarn, which has pre-
 viously been rolled on ahead of them.
 When bringing watermelons or cante-
 lopes into camp they most invariably
 have one price for them, and that was
 "may- -chump-up," meaning four bits,
 or fifty cents. The extent of their
 counting is ten--thus, 1, Set-toe; 2,
 har-aeek; 3, moke; 4, chump-up; 5,
 har-rupt; 6, ceen-ter; :, veek-ah 8,
 moke-ah; g, pie; 10, ah-rupt-ah. Their