VIM. PIMAN INDIANS OF THE SONORAN DESERT
517
others were killed by Mexicans and Anglo-American visitors to their territory; and the remainder wandered off to become assimilated with other
Indians or to lose themselves in non-Indian towns and mining camps during the second half of the 19th century. One Pinacateho hermit, Juan
Caravajales, survived in the Sierra del Pinacate until the second decade
of the present century, and it is possible that Piman-speaking Indians living
at Dome, Arizona, today are Sand Papago descendants (Hayden, 1967,
pp. 341-342; Vivian, 1965, pp. 125-126). In point of fact, however, with
the passing of these hardy people the North American Continent had seen
the last of its truly nomadic Homo sapiens.
B. ARENENOS
Although frequently grouped with the Sand Papagos in various historical
and ethnographic accounts, the term Arenenos should most probably be
preserved for those Piman Indians in southwestern Arizona and northwestern Sonora who lived part of the year and farmed along the Sonoyta River
or next to the few large springs in the region capable of supporting agriculture. Their habitations were less permanently fixed than those of Pimans
living in Pimeria Alta's major riverine valleys, and at the very best their
farming supplemented in only a small way food garnered by hunting,
gathering, and collecting. The major settlements of these people, those at
Quitobaquito and Sonoita, were along the Lower Colorado Valley-Arizona
Upland vegetation province boundary, just inside the latter on its west.
Arenenos, besides practicing a small amount of irrigation along the Sonoyta
River and at Quitobaquito, also carried on temporale farming, dependent
on flood waters in usually dry arroyos, somewhere west of the Sierra del
Pinacate, along San Cristobal Wash, on the western fringe of what is now
Organ Pipe National Monument, in the valley just east of the Growler
Mountains, and probably at other locations lost to history. And if their
modern-day presence means anything, beans (Phaseolus wrightii) and
teparies {Phaseolus acutifolius) at Agua Dulce Spring (Simmons, 1966,
p. 101 ) may formerly have been planted there by these Indians.
Except that they farmed, raising cucurbits (gourds, pumpkins, squash,
and melons), beans (Phaseolis spp.), and corn (Zea mays); made their
own earthenware pottery and were only seasonally nomadic in a more
restricted area, the Arenenos were very much like the Sand Papagos in
other respects. Both groups utilized much the same wild plant and animal
resources; both apparently availed themselves of the Gulf of California
and its marine fauna. Trade, on the other hand, seems to have been with
other Piman Indians rather than with the Yumans.
517
others were killed by Mexicans and Anglo-American visitors to their territory; and the remainder wandered off to become assimilated with other
Indians or to lose themselves in non-Indian towns and mining camps during the second half of the 19th century. One Pinacateho hermit, Juan
Caravajales, survived in the Sierra del Pinacate until the second decade
of the present century, and it is possible that Piman-speaking Indians living
at Dome, Arizona, today are Sand Papago descendants (Hayden, 1967,
pp. 341-342; Vivian, 1965, pp. 125-126). In point of fact, however, with
the passing of these hardy people the North American Continent had seen
the last of its truly nomadic Homo sapiens.
B. ARENENOS
Although frequently grouped with the Sand Papagos in various historical
and ethnographic accounts, the term Arenenos should most probably be
preserved for those Piman Indians in southwestern Arizona and northwestern Sonora who lived part of the year and farmed along the Sonoyta River
or next to the few large springs in the region capable of supporting agriculture. Their habitations were less permanently fixed than those of Pimans
living in Pimeria Alta's major riverine valleys, and at the very best their
farming supplemented in only a small way food garnered by hunting,
gathering, and collecting. The major settlements of these people, those at
Quitobaquito and Sonoita, were along the Lower Colorado Valley-Arizona
Upland vegetation province boundary, just inside the latter on its west.
Arenenos, besides practicing a small amount of irrigation along the Sonoyta
River and at Quitobaquito, also carried on temporale farming, dependent
on flood waters in usually dry arroyos, somewhere west of the Sierra del
Pinacate, along San Cristobal Wash, on the western fringe of what is now
Organ Pipe National Monument, in the valley just east of the Growler
Mountains, and probably at other locations lost to history. And if their
modern-day presence means anything, beans (Phaseolus wrightii) and
teparies {Phaseolus acutifolius) at Agua Dulce Spring (Simmons, 1966,
p. 101 ) may formerly have been planted there by these Indians.
Except that they farmed, raising cucurbits (gourds, pumpkins, squash,
and melons), beans (Phaseolis spp.), and corn (Zea mays); made their
own earthenware pottery and were only seasonally nomadic in a more
restricted area, the Arenenos were very much like the Sand Papagos in
other respects. Both groups utilized much the same wild plant and animal
resources; both apparently availed themselves of the Gulf of California
and its marine fauna. Trade, on the other hand, seems to have been with
other Piman Indians rather than with the Yumans.