The Bighorn of the Kofas

Dawn had come over the Kofa Mountains — imperceptibly filtering, changing that gray mood of heaven into a sky softly flushing with color. Vast canyons flooded with mauve and pink in a quickening cast of glowing light.

Suddenly, cradled in that panoply of color and form, movement occurred. The brightening sunrise revealed in the distance a bighorn ewe standing in stark silhouette, with a tiny lamb laying beside her.

The ewe's nervousness betrayed the anxiety of new motherhood. She browsed at a few dried grasses. Then, startled, she raced away, up over a precarious slant of rock.

In a few minutes she turned and slowly trailed down to her lamb. At every plant rustle, at every bird chirp, she would quiver and start.

She bent down and licked her infant's face and sides.

Struggling upon its dainty hoofs, the lamb rose to nurse. She broke away. The lamb followed, three steps to her one. She stopped, looked over her shoulder, went on.

In tandem they ambled off, she in that stiff-legged gait peculiar to sheep, and the lamb, in that faltering walk of the newborn. Under a nearby overhang they lay down again.

Then the sun rose still higher over the desolate, jagged peaks and gloriously backlighted the scene, as old as time — the miracle of life.

But while life was just in its beginning for the lamb, the story of Arizona's bighorn originates eons ago in Asia, their primordial home. What caused their forerunners to cross the land bridge over the Bering Sea is a mystery, but migrate they did, sometime during the Pleistocene Age.

During the fluctuation of glacial epochs, some sheep were forced onto a relatively ice free area between the present Brooks and other mountain ranges in Alaska. The remainder of the sheep, and certainly the more numerous, were driven southward by moving ice sheets.

For thousands of years the original stock was divided into two groups. Thus evolved the thin horn, or the Dall sheep of Alaska and the Yukon, with three climatic races, and the mountain bighorn of the Rockies, with five more races.

Descending from the mountain sheep, the desert races are somewhat smaller and more tawny in pelage, though the males exhibit massive horn growth. They were first seen by the white man in 1540, when Coronado's entourage entered Arizona.

The expedition's scribe, Pedro de Castenada, recounted in his diary, that he and his soldiers first saw bighorn after passing between the Pinaleno and the Santa Teresa Mountains along the Mexico-Arizona border. (Now, there is a monument located on the site where Coronado first crossed into Arizona.) "I saw them and followed them," wrote Castenada. "They were large of body, had abundant long wool, and very thick horns. When they run they raise their heads and rest their horns on their backs. They are fleet in the rough country, so we could not overtake them, and had to let them go."

The fact that the sheep were unusual and unique to the Spanish is evident in the rather odd description of the animal.

"The horn was a fathom long and as thick as the base of a man's thigh. From its shape it looked more like the horn of a he-goat than any other animal. It was worth seeing."

Later, travelers in Arizona recorded that at a village near the confluence of the Gila and San Pedro rivers, a huge monument of sheep horns could be seen, a fact verified by the Kino expe dition of 1687-1710. Juan Mateo Mange, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino's official recorder, wrote, "Having traversed four leagues, we arrived at a town, Tuconimon, which is so named for a great heap of horns like a hill, and from the numbers that there are of the animals they make the common subsistence of inhabitants."

The size of the mound would indicate that the horns (estimated at over 100,000) had a certain cultural significance for the Indians.

For the Pima-Papago and other desert Indians the bighorn was their mainstay. They depended upon this animal much in the same manner as the Plains Indians depended upon the buffalo. The thousands of hunting pictographs left by these hunters attest to the significant encounters these early tribesmen had with the sheep.

Pioneer tales also relate how plentiful sheep were in Arizona. And indeed they were, for the bighorn had adapted remarkably well to the vicissitudes of the deserts. But, incessant pressure by market hunters began to eliminate the

bighorn in short order. Tucson restau-rants, in fact, featured sheep meat on their menus during the 1880s.

Competition with livestock further reduced the bighorn. And the introduc-tion of domestic sheep infected with scabies almost doomed them. Com-pletely without resistance to this new malady, the bighorn died in appalling numbers.

Today, the bighorn sheep are gone from much of their original habitat, except for a few places such as the Kofa Game Range in the Kofa Mountains west of Phoenix.

Parts of the Kofas are unbelievably rocky and rough. View points are fantastically beautiful. Twisted, precipitous walls of andesite and rhyolite, with scattered breccia flows, accent a cataclysmic time when vulcanism changed much of Arizona's landscape. There are deep canyons, too, with a variety of microclimates, sustaining an amazing variety of plants.

It was in such a place, concealed in thick underbrush, that I was to witness one of the rarest moments in my years of wildlife observation. Here it is as I recorded it in my journal.

"Three rams are angling down toward my vantage point. The old one comes first. He has the aurora of years. Two massive, horny wreaths project a majesty that seems scarcely real. He approaches theclearing and is momentarily obscured by lacelike branches of palo verde. Then he is in the saddle, now standing clearly defined. "The old ram draws himself up. I can see the sinews beneath his skin draw taut, his muscles tighten, then he relaxes. He drops the majestic head, paws the ground slowly with his front hoof then changes to the other hoof and fashions out a comfortable bed.

clearing and is momentarily obscured by lacelike branches of palo verde. Then he is in the saddle, now standing clearly defined. "The old ram draws himself up. I can see the sinews beneath his skin draw taut, his muscles tighten, then he relaxes. He drops the majestic head, paws the ground slowly with his front hoof then changes to the other hoof and fashions out a com-fortable bed.

"The other two rams come now. They all examine one another, sniff, and throw up their heads. They shove one another, in jovial manner, and then the younger one digs out a bed. The third seems of more nervous temperament.

"He goes to a clump of brush and rubs his horns in its sticky abrasive-ness. He charges another bush and pushes downward again. Then he, too, goes back to the others and scrapes out a bed."

It was amazing to discover their gentleness, thrilling to record their regalness of form. But it was flabbergasting to witness the following behavior.

"The rams seem more restless now. The oldster gets up and nudges the younger one. Then, in a flash, the third ram leaps to his feet, and all three stand and face one another. "They flay outward, toward each other, with their front hoofs, then drop back to the ground again. "The three rams engage in this ritualistic, ponderous ballet, then shove each other with their heads. They come together with resounding cracks. Suddenly as it started the contest ends. The rams resume their amiable manner. They leave, the oldster leading single file up the canyon."

Was it an exhibition of play or a test of dominance? Though such unique displays of horned might usually herald the mating season. Yet, some of it is done just for practice or even in good humor.

Single rams often select mesquite trunks, branches, creosote bushes and other brush with stiff, resilient growth to use as butting posts, returning to their favorite sites again and again to test their mettle for hours on end.

The banding together of the sheep in late summer tends to make family groups, with about an equal ratio of females to males. For now, the rams who have stayed together for much of the year mix with the females and lambs.

This is the time when the ram's good-natured bachelor society comes to an end.

This season demands a high metabolism-rate, and yet this is one of the times in the desert when conditions become the most stringent because of heat and drought, though the latter may be offset somewhat by late summer monsoon rains.

Toward, it pushes last year's growth ahead. Eventually, the curl is formed. With this kind of growth pattern, the horn can be used as a reliable method to gauge the age of sheep. Growth rings show prominently, particularly in the rams. As the age of the ram increases the rings become less discernable. A full curl ram is usually 10 to 11 years old. Like fingerprints, there are no two identical sets of horns. As can be imagined, a sheep's armament takes a tremendous beating throughout the length of the animal's life, and it is not uncommon to find horn tips of old desert rams split, frayed and blunted. "Brooming" it is often called. And it may be due to desiccation, as the condition seems to be more pronounced in desert sheep than in the Dall or even the Rocky Mountain species.

Another negative aspect of this desert existence would seem to be a scarcity of browse. However, a surprising variety of plant food does exist. This is particularly true of the perennials, and herbaceous plants. The annuals cannot be depended upon every year, since their life cycle hinges upon a delicate balance of seasonal rain and temperature, and in many years these conditions are not met. But, of the annuals, filaree is one of the main forage plants.

Mesquite is probably one of the next most palatable browse plants, with ironwood, palo verde, and cat's claw adding variety to the diet, and providing highly nourishing pods and beans later in the spring. Brittlebush, coffee-berry and creosote bush also are popular.

While foraging, sheep ramble constantly, snatching a leaf here and a few stems there. Fortunately, for the desert, where the ecosystems are so delicately balanced, this nipping of plants does not materially affect plant recovery because of the large area browsed.

Their eating habits do, to some degree, however, control their life span, though this may over-simplify the matter. The rate of wear upon the sheep's teeth is directly proportional to the quality of the feed and its abrasiveness. Therefore, a bighorn consistently eating optimum feed should live to an age of 14 or 15 years, while the average is probably about 9 to 10. When their teeth wear down, or are damaged or broken, the sheep quickly succumb.Old rams always seem to be grinning. Teeth protrüde in ludicrous fashion. They remind one of a person with ill-fitting dentures, peering, half embar-rassed, yet smiling at the same time to minimize the defect.

On the other hand, there is a magnificence exhibited in the stance of the ram that is thrilling to behold, for here he seems to epitomize the free spirit of the wilderness. This spirit is all the more vividly portrayed when he leaps from crag to crag or bounds from rock to rock in an oblique or zigzag fashion, moving up the faces of precipices with a surefootedness that is amazing to witness.

Their feet, of course, are especially designed for such locomotion. The soles of their hoofs are rubber-like, resilient, tough and able to absorb hard shocks. This plus supreme coordination and tre-mendous muscular power enables them despite the ram's 200 pound weight to bounce in a flow of rhythm. Even when rocks give way beneath them the bighorn can muster reserve strength to overcome the added climbing difficulty.

In late March, lambing season begins and continues through April. Nature's timing is perfect. This is the best season for green forage, and particularly for the ripening pods of the many leguminous plants. After birth the young lambs weigh about one to three pounds and are so small they can easily walk beneath their mothers.

Only rarely do desert ewes have twins, though it is somewhat difficult to tell at a distance, since all females take turns baby-sitting other lambs. In this homely chore, the ewe usually lies down to watch her frolicking charges, while a short distance away the other mothers browse unconcerned. As summer approaches, life begins in earnest for the lambs. Gone are the days of easy play. All effort must now be concentrated on the search for food and water.

Sheep go to water every one to four days depending upon the heat. Their gaunt appearance changes miraculously as they "tank up." In a very short time their bodies fill out as their tissues absorb water.

The bighorn appears to be similar to the camel in these recuperative respects, and similarly may lose up to 20 per cent of its body weight by dehydration. In comparison, 10 or 12 per cent loss of body weight is considered fatal for man.

Many water holes in the Kofas are scarcely more than seeps. Once drained, it may take many hours to refill, even days. But, in the recesses of its canyons there are much deeper rain-filled depressions. These deep holes, eroded out of solid rock, are filled during periods of runoff and may hold water for several weeks. Of course, with the availability of high quality green feed the herd spends less time at the water holes.

Strangely enough, ewes provide the herd with leadership. The rams are content to follow if they are with the band, though much of the year they congregate by themselves.

How the herd leader is chosen is a mystery. Perhaps it is a combination of self-reliance and experience that other sheep seek. As the band travels, the sheep usually maintain a strict marching order, with the leader at the head of the column, followed by the next ablest, and so on. Each also shares the tenor of the leader: should she be nervous, all tend to be nervous, and vice versa.

A herd, as a rule, is comprised of less than a dozen members. Seen from a distance the individuals seem pitifully minute in contrast to the great bulwark of their Kofa Mountain home.

The sheep, now and then lost from view as light and shadow continue in ever changing patterns, remain as one of nature's great symbols of freedom. They have a definite value as an esthetic and integral part of creation, and must be inviolate and protected.

Bookshelf

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

Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place. By Angie Debo. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1976. 480 pp. $14.95.

If you were to read one book on Geronimo, this would be it. Angie Debo has produced a fine, reasoned and compassionate picture of the Indian whose place in Southwestern history is assured, but often for the wrong reasons.

Even today there are some to whom Geronimo was the arch fiend incarnate. That picture, however, has slowly changed. S. M. Barrett's transcript of Geronimo's autobiography (a project of the Apache's old age) and recent books by Odie Faulk and Alexander Adams, and anthropological studies of Apache culture have given us less biased and emotional approaches to the Apache white confrontation. In Debo's book, however, Geronimo the man, is the central figure, and his life is fully told from childhood to his death, still a prisoner at Fort Sill.

As he matured Geronimo advanced toward leadership, as others did, by virtue of courage, determination and intelligence. He was a forceful leader, not without fault, and he made mistakes. He could be ruthless and unforgiving in his hatreds, but his actions were always governed by the Apache code of ethics and beliefs, and were just and right to the Apache way of thinking. This way of thinking was, of course, never understood by 19th century Americans. Also the Americans never understood that Geronimo was but one leader of a number, each with its own band that often acted independently.

Angie Debo's characterization of Geronimo emphasizes a new aspect of his personality. He was a devoted family man with a deep love of the Southwest land in which he was born. He had a practical economic sense that was clearly demonstrated in his years as a prisoner, and he had a keen and inquiring intelligence. He was a whole man with both faults and virtues. As Debo says, a lesser man could not have written his name so boldly in the history of the Southwest. The book is admirably structured, giving due emphasis to all phases of his career. Much of the early part of Geronimo's life must be conjecture, the author admits, but it is conjecture solidly based on research in available documents and on interviews with people who remembered the man and the years of captivity. It is particularly strong on this last period, which is told in some detail. Here Geronimo and the Apaches are seen as a people who kept their word, in contrast with the army which emerges with a badly tarnished record, to put it most charitably.

EDWARD SHERIFF CURTIS

VISIONS

Of a

VANISHING RACE

FLORENCE CURTIS GRAYBILL

VICTOR BOESEN

Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of a Vanishing Race. By Florence Curtis Graybill and Victor Boesen. T. Y. Crowell, New York, 1976. 302 pp. $35.00.

His true memorial is no marker in a graveyard. It is a magnificent set of 20 quarto volumes of text and photographs and 20 accompanying portfolios of separate plates, all recording in word and picture the culture of the North American Indians, from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to Alaska, at a crucial time.

When photographer Curtis in his early 30s turned his attention to photographing Indians he quickly realized that the traditional cultures, the old ways with roots perhaps centuries deep, were fast changing or disappearing. He resolved to make a record of them before it was too late. The project consumed the rest of his life, as he grew from mature manhood to old age. The first volume was published in 1907, the last in 1930.

The work has its beginning when Curtis accompanied the Harriman expedition to Alaska in 1899 as official photographer. The following summer he spent among the Blackfeet as guest of George Bird Grinnell. There he witnessed one of the last great gatherings of the prairie tribes. It was an experience he never forgot the broad undulating Montana prairie stretching toward the Rockies, carpeted with tepees. The same summer he began photographing and recording notes among the Hopi.

Curtis developed an unusual rapport with the Indians; they trusted him and revealed secrets of their beliefs and ceremonials that few if any white men before him had learned. Although he is perhaps best remembered for his photographs individual prints from the portfolios bring stiff prices today he was also an accomplished, self-taught ethnographer. His writings drew praise from some of the outstanding ethnologists of his day, men such as Henry Fairfield Osborn, Franz Boas, and Frederick Webb Hodge, editor for the entire series.

The biography by Curtis' daughter, Florence Curtis Graybill, and Victor Boesen concentrates on the great work, the years 30 of them of field work and writing. It is based on the daughter's knowledge and notes and on the voluminous correspondence between Curtis and his editor, Hodge and Curtis and Harriet Leitch of the Seattle Public Library. It is properly illustrated with 175 Curtis photographs and 96 in a special portfolio section. Many of them have not been published previously. It is a belated but fitting tribute to the man and his achievement.

The Domínguez-Escalante Journal. Translated by Fray Angelico Chavez. Edited by Ted. J. Warner. Brigham Young University Press, Provo, Utah, 1976. 203 pp. $12.95.

This is a wholly new translation of the journal kept by Fathers Domínguez and Escalante, of their Journey in 1776, northwest from Santa Fe into Utah and having failed to find a route to Monterey south to the Grand Canyon country and back to Santa Fe. The expedition is covered in Walter Briggs' Without Noise of Arms (see Bookshelf January, 1977) which notes this translation as forthcoming.

It corrects a number of errors in previous translations, and is based on the copy of the journal in the Newberry Library, which Chavez found to be in the handwriting of Father José Palacio, secretary to Domínguez. The inference is that this was the first copy made from the original, and is thus possibly the most accurate.

Chavez is thoroughly familiar with 18th century Spanish and an ideal translator, able to put the idioms of the time into colloquial, unstilted English. He and his editor have supplied copious explanatory notes and the original text.

Yours Sincerely AGREES WITH EDITOR

Editor: I am not in the habit of writing letters to editors, but this time I can't hold back - Have just received my February ARIZONA HIGHWAYS and the letter from Michael and Cathy Schaller (concerning our failure to mention God repeatedly in our Christmas edition The Editor) to you is beyond belief. How anyone could deny themselves the pleasure and beauty of this magazine for such a narrow-minded, foolish excuse is about as un-adult as you could get.

There would be no market for your magazine if all the various religions looked to you for the proper time coverage. Consider the religions who don't even believe in Christmas, or feel it was some other date.

I feel sorry for the Schallers and wonder what religion they profess. I think they would have done well to restrain their feelings. On the other hand, they surely will have found out some of the rest of us know our Bible and haven't lost track of the real purpose of the ARIZONA HIGHWAYS MAGAZINE.

But, there is no use dwelling on that my purpose is to congratulate you for your marvelous response. Just perfect. And indeed that Christmas edition was the very finest ever put out. I have looked through it many times and I have loaned it out. I have never been in Arizona but my day will come, hopefully. In the meantime, I travel from here with you.

Mrs. M. Ellis Long Beach, CA

BAD TYPING

Editor: Let me congratulate you for your article on page 16 of the February, 1977, issue of the excellent magazine ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.

Please accept these felicitations on two accounts: Your magazine is first class. The articles are always interesting and the photos very beautiful. We have read it for several years now, after an original vacation through your beautiful, sunny country, and we look forward to the arrival of each month's issue.

But more than that, you have really gone to a regular “tour de force” in increasing the speed of sun rays bathing your state and letting us poor outsiders wait for more than eight minutes every morning to get the benefit of its light and heat. I overcome my envy in the evening, however, knowing that the darkness is overcoming you eight minutes and 11.02 seconds before catching up with us. Everything considered it would be nice to know how you do that trick. It can hardly be with mirrors. Please tell me soon.

Robert E. Brandt Delavan, WI You're so right, Bob. We pushed astronomy back several hundred years with that statement. Actually, I was copying correct information from material received from our good friends at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson. But in doing so, I read minutes, but typed seconds.

As you pointed out, dividing the distance to the sun (approximately 93 million miles) by the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) you get something like 81/3 minutes.

Now, if I only had a better typewriter . . .

- The Editor

INDIANS

Editor: I teach at a preschool in Monroe, Wisconsin.

I am trying to teach these young children that modern Indians are not people who are naked to the waist, beat tom-toms and smoke a peace pipe. I went through two years of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS looking for pictures of mod-ern Indians. There are thousands in Arizona who are educated, talented and who are living in the sophisticated 20th century.

But I could find few pictures of them in your magazine. Shame! They're there. I've met some in visiting Mesa, Arizona.

Show in some issue of your magazine how well the Indians have made it under terrible deprivations. We've stolen everything from them and yet they have survived.

R. W. Watkins Monroe, WI You might check our September issue for a story on the new Navajo Community College (“Bridge to the Outer World” - page 42). You might also read the story on Arizona's junior college system in this issue, and the participation of Indians in these schools. And watch for our July issue, devoted exclusively to the Apache Indians living in Arizona. The Editor

WATCH FOR SHALLOW WATER

Editor: You did it! You got me into trouble with my mother-in-law! She will never believe me again.

When we returned from our June, 1976, trip to Phantom Ranch, she asked us if we had enjoyed the pool after our hot trip. I replied there was no pool. Pond yes, pool no. Now your Phantom Ranch article in the February, 1977, issue mentions a pool.

Come on fellas. 'Fess up and save me.

Joyce Clifton Upland, CA We have come to your rescue. In fact, there's no danger of anyone drowning in the pool at Phantom Ranch (at the bottom of the Grand Canyon), because the pool was filled in with dirt in the early 1970s.

Author Jim Tallon remembered this shortly after he submitted his story to us. He sent us a correction deleting reference to the pool, but we lost it, and the issue came off the presses with the error. The Editor (Inside back cover) The Easter ceremonies of the Yaqui include the Deer Dancer, one of the oldest traditional dances of the tribe. His performance is dedicated to the 'little brother,' or saila, the deer.

(Back cover) A Chapayeka Dancer, in homemade javelina hide mask, represents the evil forces at the Yaqui Easter pageant, held each year at Pascua near Tucson.

Photographs by Tom Ives

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.