ARIZONA'S FIRST FAMILIES

OCTOBER, 1937 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 17

Many people, especially those of the eastern states, the Indians are a race of people that inspires a first hand though, in most cases, a cursory study, it affords us of this state an opportunity to capitalize on this feature attraction, as one more of the many that hold interest for the tourist and the traveler. Roads and highways that make these remote Indian reservations more accessible have been built, and more are in the building. We need now more publicity of the right kind that will induce a longer stay among us of a few of the thousands who rush through and know but little of the wealth of things in this state that are different. And of all the worthwhile allurements scenic, climatic or ethnologic-none offers more than a study of these primitive races that lived in this country before the white man came. Races of people that are as different as are the people of Asia from those of Europe; races of people that united themselves into nations, made and executed their own laws; nations that defended their homes and property against their enemies; nations that fell and the people perished or were absorbed by the aggressors. Arizona is the frontier of the American Indian of today. The history of the aborigines of Mexico, of our eastern states, our southern states, is one that reveals the breaking down of tribal sup-remacy, of mingling through inter-marriage with other Indian tribes or other races, until tribal language, customs, characteristics, and morals, bear little resemblance to those of their ancestors. The scientist knows all this and is, and has been, busy in a study of Arizona's past, and her primitive races, but to the amateur ethnologist, or historian, and to those who are curiously inclined, Arizona has in the pure blood Indian tribes of today an asset, from a tourist attraction possibility, that might rank with the climate and the scenery. Arizona people have only a faint conception of the name, location, or number of the Arizona Indian tribes. The purpose of this and succeeding articles is to give elementary information that has been compiled from many sources, and is believed to be not only the most recent available data, but as authentic as is available.

Indians of this State are for the most part on Indian reservations, the largest of which are in Apache and Navajo counties. By counties, the Indian population is Apache, 11,732; Cochise, 108; Coconino, 4,247; Gila, 2,016; Graham, 724; Greenlee, 5; Maricopa, 3,845; Mohave, 10,126; Pima, 661; Navajo, 3,425; Santa Cruz, 41; Yavapai, 433; Yuma, 1,058.

The Indians of North America have been divided into fifty-eight linguistic groups. Most of these groups are composed of several distinct tribes, all of whom, however, either speak the same language or a language which has considerable similarity. All of the Indian tribes of Arizona belong to four of these linguistic groups, Shoshonean, Athapascan, Yuma and Piman.

The Indians of Arizona are identified with its history and the Indian influence has been perpetuated through Indian names which have been given to various localities throughout the State. Seven of the fourteen counties of Ari-zona have been named for Indian tribes. One county, Cochise, was named for a famous Apache Indian Chief. Coconino county is believed to have been derived from an Indian name which means "Green Water" and Gila county derives its name from the Gila River, which at least some authorities agree, is an Indian word which means "running water which is salt."

Arizona can claim the distinction of being the home of both the most peaceful and the most savage of all American aborigines.

The first white explorers, almost 400 years ago, found the Pima Indians tranquilly tilling the soil and defending their homes against invading tribes. Explorers, missionaries, trappers, sold'ers, settlers, and travelers for more than 300 years found them still tranquil and always peaceful.

The Pima villages became famous to all who came. These villages were a haven of safety from attacks of savage tribes, a place of plenty when provisions were low, and always throughout all the years, there was peace with the white race, and the food the Pimas raised made possible the conquest of the desert.

And also centuries ago, there came from the far North, another and a different race, the brutal and merciless Apaches. Captives and recruits from other tribes swelled their ranks, and until the coming of the white man they made war on other tribes, stealing provisions, pillaging, killing, and destroying. They did not learn inhuman reprisals for fancied wrongs from the white man; theirs was an inherent, an instinctive savagery, that grew as they grew in num-(Continued on Page 23) The "FFV'S" of the Southwest were long on brawn but short on gray matter SOME TIME, oh, quite some time, before Arizona was settled by Indians, Mexicans, cowboys and pioneers, a series of very aristocratic inhabitants roamed this country, lords of all they surveyed. That was during the Triassic Period. With all due apologies to the Petrified Forest Naturalist, I'll try and repeat for you the story he told me!

The Triassic Period lasted only fifty million years, but they could not have been dull years when one considers the By MRS. WHITE MOUNTAIN SMITH sort of animated nightmares that ranged and rocketed through them.

True, indeed, the Triassic Period ended a hundred and fifty million years ago, but still we have with us forcible reminders of the weird uncanny caricatures supposed to be the only living creatures inhabiting a manless world.

In the midst of the vast region entombing samples and specimens of all these living things, both flora and fauna, of that dim distant past, lies the Government Reservation known as Petrified Forest National Monument. And, here for your enjoyment are gathered bits of fossilized and "ossified" and petrified skulls and bones and skin-plates and toes and teeth of the denizens of the dark ages. Fitted together in a scientific manner they present quite a stunning ensemble.

Nature has generously photographed in colors that fade not, the leaves of ferns and cycads growing during the time the great gaunt beasts infested this The Stego-Cephalian. The best we can say of him is that he was in possession of more matter than mind, since he weighed three hundred pounds, was from seven to nine feet long and had no brains to speak of.

region. In deposits of fine grained shale the lovely fragile plants lie entombed awaiting only the tap of a skill ful pick to resurrect them. So minute are some of these fadeless photographs that a complete fern with all its branches covers a space not more than three inches in diameter. Again a portion of a giant cycad sprawls over a huge slab of the kind gray stone which has sheltered it throughout the timeless eons. The same elements of water, pressure, minerals and time which went into the making of petrified logs, preserved and saved for the present world those mementos of the vanished past. But he was not interested in scientific names for the green mass of foliage above him. All he asked of life was just to slither around in the slime and swallow such succulent bits of garnishes as came his way without too much effort on his part. In times of drouth he buried him-self in the mud and lay there encased until another earthquake came along and lifted him out, or poured plenty of water out of some mud-puddle down to soften his extemporaneous sepulcher. However, the time arrived when his tomb was elevated so high above the surrounding country by one of those errant earthquakes, all the water went in another direction and alas, poor Lung Fish, he withered and died in his lonely grave, there to await the resurrection which came a few years ago and spewed him out to form a part of the family circle in Petrified Forest Museum. He's there to greet you today. And this this, ladies, and gentlemen, is a Stego-Cephalian, that lived in the good old days, some one hundred and seventy millions years ago. You will note that he is blessed with one hundred and fifty per cent eyesight, the third optic being placed exactly in the center of what is supposed to be his forehead. It is well, perhaps, that he was blessed with foresight, hindsight and topsight, since he was practically an idiot. Or at least his I Q was regrettably low. His gray matter consisted of a wad of brains about as big as an English walnut, and that went with a body seven to nine feet long and a weight of some three hundred pounds. What did he eat?

STEGO-CEPHALIAN

Well, in those days the menu was somewhat limited. There were plenty Macrotaeniopteris, pardon, ferns to you, some giant horse tail rushes, so he doubtless subsisted upon a sort of perpetual salad diet made of those lush growths. He was very thick skulled and his legs weak and ineffective, so he spent the major portion of his time crawling around in the muck of low-lying swamps where he was born, until finally quite Let us look at them, beginning with this squat lizard-like blob of blubber: This is his history: Once upon a time-shall we say some one hundred and sixty or seventy million years ago, lived a creature known as a lung fish. That is, he would have been so known had there been anybody to know him! Unfortunately that was so long ago there was neither bird, bee nor butterfly to flit about overhead and observe him oozing around in the slimy pond he called home. There were trees to be sure, not lovely flowering almonds nor glossy waxen leafed lemon trees, but instead when he chanced to look upward all he could see were big seed-like ferns five to ten feet high and laboring under the strain of the enormous name they were later much later to bear, Dipteris "Fernii." Sometimes when he crawled clumsily close to shore, using his flippers to propel himself along, he lay in shallow water under the shade of huge bracken and royal ferns, and even Lycopods, club mosses.