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Building a State in Apache Land by Charles D. Poston
page 11 of 66 (16%)
understood spinning and weaving, and passed the winter in this
industrial pursuit.

Their subsistence is wheat, corn, melons, pumpkins, vegetables, and the
wild fruits. They have herds of cattle, plenty of horses, and great
quantities of poultry.

The Americans are indebted to the Pima Indians for provisions furnished
the California emigration, and for supplies for the early overland
stages, besides their faithful and unwavering friendship.

The habitations of these prehistoric people form the most unique of all
the anomalous dwellings of Arizona, and a more minute investigation than
has hitherto been made will show the earliest habitations of man. There
are similar edifices in Egypt and India, but they are mostly temples.
These Arizona cliff dwellings are the only edifices of the kind that are
known to have been inhabited by mankind. They exist mostly in the
mountains in the northern portion of Arizona. A more ancient race,
still, lived in the excavations on the sides of the mountains, prepared,
no doubt, as a refuge against enemies.

At the time of our first exploration (1854) there was virtually no
civilized population in the recently acquired territory. The old pueblo
of Tucson contained probably three hundred Mexicans, Indians, and half
breeds. The Pima Indians on the Gila River numbered from seven to ten
thousand, and were the only producing population. We could not explore
the country north of the Gila River, because of the Apaches, who then
numbered fully twenty thousand. For three hundred years they have killed
Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans, which makes about the longest
continuous war on record.
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