Next morning there was a great stir in
the community, because a Maricopa war
party, gaily dressed, and mounted on good-
looking horses, was preparing for an expedition
against the Apaches. They had no
weapons but their bows and arrows, and
would have been glad to add some artillery
to their effective force by borrowing a few
muskets; but since the Americans were
bound in policy and justice to take no part
in the quarrels between tribe and tribe, they
were of course refused. The commissariat
was simple, consisting of small loaves of
bread and dried meat, and the equipment of
the troops was in accordance with the usual
military taste—they were decorated with all
the finery that could be mustered. Many of
them wore old cotton or red flannel shirts, and
so attired, considered themselves to be in the
height of fashion. A ragged shirt discarded
by an emigrant is the greatest treasure that
can fall to the lot of a Maricopan Brummel
—he wears it pure and simple. What more
could the most exact taste desire? But if
he should chance to possess several such
shirts, or even pantaloons, in that case, if he
makes a state visit, or desires for any reason
to appear in full dress, he will put them all
on one over the other. Those who had no
such finery wore their own cotton blankets
folded round their loins; and those who did
not possess this garment either had put on
only a coat of paint. The men had all been
more attentive to the dressing of their heads
than of their bodies, and they had decorated,
also, their horses' manes and tails with bits
of white and scarlet cloth.

The Coco-Maricopas are particular about
their hair. In the first place it should be
understood, that, except over the eyes they
never cut it, and that when fully let down it
falls over their backs and shoulders, reaching
to the knees; commonly, however, it is
knotted up behind with a great club. Just
over the eyes it is cut off in a straight line,
so that it is quite removed, not merely parted
from before the face. These Indians weave
for themselves handsome figured belts which
they wear commonly as head bands, and they
usually fill their hair with clay, which is, on
the whole, a cleaner dressing than the fragrant
fat which is used by some European
tribes. They are patient weavers, and they
grow good cotton, but they weave, only by a
rude and slow process, white cotton blankets
with buff borders, and head bands with coloured
geometrical patterns that resemble the
patterns which they work in black over their
pottery. Their pottery is like the Mexican,
and they make basins also of basket work
(still with the same geometrical patterns),
that are so closely woven as to be impervious
to water. The women drudge more than
the men, and may be seen carrying on their
heads not only baskets of corn, but also, on
the top of the corn, cradle and child. Though
the men often go wholly naked, no Maricopa
woman, even as an infant, is to be seen without
drapery that passes round the loins, and
hangs down to the knees. Children a year
old, supported by one arm, are carried about
sitting astride upon one of the mother's hips.

These are some of the ordinary habits of
the Coco-Maricopas in which the Pimos resemble
them, but the Pimos speak another
language, and differ in their mode of disposing
of the dead. The dead of the Maricopas are
burnt, those of the Pimos buried. In all
other respects the two nations agree, and
thirty or forty years ago the Maricopas
moved their villages from a more distant
spot, where they were much harassed by the
Yumas, and came to live near the friendly
Pimos, who were harassed equally by the
Apaches, in order that the two tribes might
unite their strength. and hold their own by
help of one another. Though quietly disposed,
they are not cowardly. They fight
well when they must fight, and when they
catch an enemy they torture him as mercilessly
as they would themselves be tortured
in the hands of the Apaches or the Yumas.
They fight only with bows and arrows, and
take great pleasure in archery meetings,
when their sport is to shoot at the tops of the
petahayas. In the neighbourhood of their
villages, the tallest columns of the petahaya
are often to be seen bristling with arrows
near the summit.

They are brave in war, and they are faithful
too in love. Each man takes but a single
wife, and though it is his business to  conciliate
her parents with gifts, he marries only
upon receiving the free assent of the fair one,
or rather dusky one, whom he is courting.
He makes love with a flute. It is rather a
cat-courtship. When the Coco-Maricopa, or
the Pimo Indian thinks that the heart of his
beloved is perhaps inclined towards him he
proceeds to a declaration in form, which he
makes by taking a flute of cane pierced with
four holes, sitting down in a bush near the
lady's dwelling, and setting up a dismal too-too-too
for hours together, day after day. If
the girl takes no notice of his call he is a rejected
suitor; if she be disposed to marry him
she comes and says so. The bridegroom is
expected by gifts to compensate, according to
his means, the parents of the bride for the
loss of her services, the services of a girl
being, among these tribes, most valuable, because
she does all household work, and even
helps to till the ground. Sometimes, indeed,
she also weaves, but generally weaving is the
work of the old men.

Francisco Dukey, the Maricopan chief and
interpreter, was a greedy fellow, with the
temper of a Jew. He was the most civilised
of his tribe, and appeared in shirt, pantaloons,
and hat. To get what pickings he could
out of the Americans appeared to be his
business; all that he could for himself and
the rest of his friends. Francisco sitting
down to dinner with the visitors as guest in