The Making of the Great West, 1512-1883Drake, Samuel Adams
History
The Making of the Great West, 1512-1883
Drake, Samuel Adams
America -- Discovery and exploration; West (U.S.) -- History
Grain is threshed by first spreading it out upon a dirt floor made as
hard as possible, and then letting horses tread it out with their hoofs.
It is then winnowed in the wind.
The woman, who is grinding, kneels down before a trough with her stone
placed before her in the manner of a laundress's wash-board. Over this
stone she rubs another as if scrubbing clothes. The primitive corn-mill
is simply a large concave stone into which another stone is made to fit,
so as to crush the grain by pressure of the hand.
The unfermented dough is rolled out thin so that after baking it may be
put up in rolls, like paper. It is then the color of a hornet's nest,
which indeed it resembles. Ovens, for baking, are kept on the housetops.
The processes of spinning and weaving, than which nothing could be more
primitive, are thus described by Lieut. Emory, as he saw it done on the
Gila, in 1846.
"A woman was seated on the ground under one of the cotton
sheds. Her left leg was turned under with the sole of the foot
upward. Between her great toe and the next a spindle, about
eighteen inches long, with a single fly, was put. Ever and
anon she gave it a dexterous twist, and at its end a coarse
cotton thread would be drawn out. This was their spinning
machine. Led on by this primitive display, I asked for their
loom, pointing first to the thread, and then to the blanket
girded about the woman's loins. A fellow who was stretched
out in the dust, sunning himself, rose lazily up, and untied
a bundle which I had supposed to be his bow and arrows. This
little package, with four stakes in the ground, was the loom.
He stretched his cloth and began the process of weaving."
But these self-taught weavers were behind their brethren of the pueblos,
whose loom was of a more improved pattern. One end of the frame of
sticks, on which the warp was stretched, would be fastened to the floor,
and the other to a rafter overhead. The weaver sat before this frame,
rapidly moving the shuttle in her hand to and fro, and so forming the
woof.
[Illustration: HIEROGLYPHICS, GILA VALLEY.]
Pottery was in common use among them as far back as we have any
account of the Pueblo Indians. Jars for carrying and holding water were
always articles of prime necessity, though baskets of wicker-work were
sometimes woven water-tight for the purpose.
* * * * *
PUEBLO GOVERNMENT. Each pueblo is under the control of a head chief,
chosen from among the people themselves. When any public business is to
be transacted, he collects the principal chiefs in the underground cell,
previously mentioned, where the matter that has brought them together
is discussed and settled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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