Pima Sketchbook

An artist spends a vagrant afternoon on the Gila River Indian Reservation, south of Chandler. There he finds the Pimas busy farmer folk among the Arizona Indians living a carefree life on their plots of land along the Gila.

The Pimas are children of the desert and their mission is the tilling of the soil. The building of Coolidge Dam, storing the waters of the Gila, brought security to their lives and life-giving moisture to their crops.

The Pimas have given their name to a county and a town in Arizona. History records their friendship to the white settlers in the early days of Arizona territory when the Apaches set the frontier west aflame. Kin to the Papagos, the Pimas are scattered through three reservations in southern Arizona, but principally they reside on the Gila River Indian Reservation, whose agency is at Sacaton. Pima women excel in basket weaving and pottery making.