The Camels Are Coming!

The U.S. Army's camel experiment on the "Great American Desert" in the 1850s is being given long-overdue recognition. Filmed last winter in Arizona, "Hawmps" is a film for the whole family though perhaps more hysterical than historical. It's about camels, those outlandish "ships of the desert" brought from the Middle East before the Civil War for use in army packtrains in our Southwest. The single-humped dromedary could easily handle 550-pound loads, and the Bactrians with two humps (pronounced hawmps by their Texas-bred wranglers) could transport up to 800-pound loads across the waterless desert. These photos were snapped on location during the filming of this comedy-Western, one of the many movies and television shows filmed in our state. imagined, the result is usually involved with laughter, and that's what the new movie "Hawmps" is mostly about.

A comedy-Western made for family audiences, "Hawmps" was filmed in Arizona in such diverse locations as Yuma in the southwest, Texas Canyon in the southeast, the Old Tucson movie location near modern twentieth-century Tucson, the town of Winkleman, and a fictional place called "Dagger Flats" which doesn't even sound good. Appearing in the film are Jim Hampton, Christopher Connelly, Slim Pickens, Denver Pyle, Gene Conforti, Mimi Maynard, and an Arizona native and nice guy who made it big in the movies, Jack Elam.

The film "Hawmps" is titled from hawmps, West-Texas-wrangler for what most would pronounce humps - which, as everyone knows, is what all camels come equipped with. There's but two basic models of camels, anyway: the basic one-hump design (called a dromedary), and the two-hump style (Bactrian). It's been found that the dromedary is best suited for passenger-carrying, the Bactrian best for baggage and general hauling; but in a pinch the two-humpers can cart people as well.

Hollywood animal trainer Frank Inn worked with the 16 camels used in the making of the movie. Real-life camel driver Hi Jolly is portrayed in the film as an Arab, naturally, but with scriptwriter's license has been transformed for the film into a highly educated man of letters with credentials from Oxford who persists in dressing up like a draperysale display. His good humor on film, as in history, helps the picture's "Cavalry Corps" adjust to the various situations encountered in the story, and his training helps save their lives.

And so, well over a century after camels were first brought to Arizona, camels once again carried men in army uniforms about our state this time for movie audiences around the world. "Hawmps" may be loosely-written history told in a light-hearted manner, but it's nice to know that after all these years Hi Jolly and his camels are being given due credit and that's straight from the camel's mouth!

NOTE: Just before press time we received a copy of Odie B. Faulk's latest book for the Oxford University Press, The U.S. Camel Corps, which will no doubt be the book on the government's use of camels in the Southwest. Though we've not yet had a chance to read it, we'll see that it's reviewed in a future issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. The Editor.

Bookshelf

by Donald M. Powell Head, Special Collections, The University of Arizona Library, Tucson.

The Hohokam: Desert Farmers & Crafts-men Excavations at Snaketown, 1964-1965. Emil W. Haury. University of Arizona Press, Post Office Box 3398, Tucson, AZ 85722; 1976. 412 pp., $19.50.

Mr. Haury participated in the first excavations (1934-35) at Snaketown on the Gila River in south central Arizona (not far from present-day Sacaton) and wrote parts of the original report. In 1964 and 1965 he returned to do further excaVation and study. This book details the results and arrives at some new conclusions about the vanished Hohokam, "those who have gone." The Snaketown people, Haury now believes, may have arrived from somewhere in Mexico as early as 300 в.с., bringing with them some well-developed skills such as canal building. In the Gila River Valley they built one of the largest peaceful sedentary communities in the Southwest and developed a culture based on irrigated agriculture that may have lasted into the fifteenth century. Much of the material culture has vanished, but excavation has uncovered house floors and the outlines of their canals. Vessels and shards of their beautiful and distinctive pottery, and artifacts of bone and shell attest to their high level as craftsmen.

This is a difficult book for a layman to assess, for it is an archaeological report replete with charts, maps, diagrams, and tables; perhaps few but archaeologists will want to read it from cover to cover. It will be invaluable, however, as a reference in anyone's Southwest collection, especially for its wealth of illustration. Surely it is one of the year's most significant Arizona books.

Rules and Precepts of the Jesuit Missions of Northwestern New Spain. Charles W. Polzer, S.J. University of Arizona Press, Post Office Box 3398, Tucson, AZ 85722; 1976. 141 pp., $8.50.

This is the first volume in an ambitious and important new three-part historical series, "The Documentary Relations of the Southwest," divided into Jesuit Relations, Franciscan Relations, and Civil-Military Relations; each will reflect the primary sources for Southwest history and ethnohistory.

The Jesuit missions of New Spain's northwest frontier were far from individualistic enterprises for the conversion of native tribes founded by highly-motivated men pushing on their own into the wilderness in search of souls. Motivated these men were, but their actions and the daily conduct of their lives were governed in almost every respect by precepts laid down by the administrative hierarchy of the Society. Under these rigid rules the system developed uniformly from simple evangelization to a complex social and religious institution. From a group of documents which belonged at one time to the mission rec-torado of San Francisco Borja in what is now the Mexican state of Sonora, Fr. Polzer has translated the regulations which evolved wisely with the times and the requirements of reality. They begin with the rules of Father Visitor Rodrigo de Cabredo, S.J., and conclude with the brief precepts of Father Provincial Francisco Ceballos, S.J., set down not long before the expulsion in 1767 of all Jesuits from Spanish jurisdiction. Cabredo's regulations specified even the number of mules permitted for missionary pack-trains, and the number of books a man might take when transferring from one mission to another. They were detailed rules, indeed.

As a Jesuit historian, Polzer has the thorough understanding of the history and structure of his order that one would expect. Altogether, this book is an auspicious beginning for the new series of documentary sources.

"Arizona's Cowboy Ambassadors" Singing in Europe.

The new stereo album, "Liberty, Our Heritage," may be obtained by mail for $5.75, postpaid, from the Orpheus Male Chorus, Post Office Box 217, Phoenix, AZ 85001.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS is pleased to pass along the news of the Chorus' new record to the many from around the country and the world who have so enjoyed their previous recordings.

The Orpheus Male Chorus of Phoenix left Arizona on the sixth of June to fulfill a three-week concert tour schedule in Western Europe. The tour, prompted by an invitation to participate in the seven-teenth choral festival of the German Saengerbund (singing clubs) to be held this summer in West Berlin, will also include performances by the world-famous Arizona group in Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, and France.

With more than 60,000 singers taking part in the Saengerbund Festival, members of the Orpheus Male Chorus feel especially honored by the request to sing a concert in Europe commemorating our American Revolution Bicentennial.

35mm COLOR SLIDES

This issue: 35mm slides in 2" mounts, 1 to 15 slides, 40¢ each, 16 to 49 slides, 35 each, 50 or more, 3 for $1.00. Allow three weeks for delivery. Address: Slide Department, Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85009.