File:Image from page 937 of "Bulletin" (1901) - 19804392364.jpg

English: Title: MOHAVE WOMAN. (American Museum Nat. Hist.)

Identifier: bulletin3011907smit Year: 1901 (1900s) Authors: Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology Subjects: Ethnology Publisher: Washington : G. P. O. Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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Text Appearing Before Image: MOHAVE MAN. NAT. Hist.) on their, pottery. Though a river tribe, the Mohave made no canoes, but when necessary had recourse to rafts, or balsas, made of l^undles of reeds. They had no large settlements, their dwelUngs being scattered. These were, four-sided and low, with four supportiug posts at the center. The walls, which were only 2 or 3 ft high, and the almost flat roof were formed of brush covered with sand. Their granaries were upright cylindrical structures with flat roofs. The Mo- have hunted but little, their chief reli- ance for food being on the cultivated products of the soil, as corn, pumpkins, melons, beans, and a small amount of wheat, to which they added mesquite beans, mescrew, pinon nuts, and fish to a limited extent. They did not practise irrigation, but relied on the inundation of the bottom lands to supply the needed moisture, hence when there was no over- flow their crops failed. Articles of skin and bone were very little used, materials such as the inner bark of the willow, vegetable fiber, etc., taking their place. Pottery was manufactured. Baskets were in common use, but were obtained from other tribes. According to Kroeber, there is no full gentile system, but something closely akin to it, which may be called either an in- cipient or a decadent clan system. Cer- tain men, and all their ancestors and descendants in the male line, have only one name for all their female relatives. Thus, if the female name hereditary in my family be Maha, my father's sister, my own sisters, my daughters (no matter how great their number), and my son's daughters, will all be called Maha. There are about twenty such women's names, or virtual gentes, among the Mohave. None of these names seems to have any signification. But according to the myths of the tribe, certain numbers of men originally had, or were given, such names as iSun, Moon, Tobacco, Fire, Cloud, Coy- ote, Deer, Wind, Beaver, Owl, and others, which correspond exactly to totemic clan names; then these men were instructed by Mastamho, the chief mythological being, to call all their daughters and female descendants in the male line by certain names, corresponding to these clan names. Thus the male ancestors of all the women who at present bear the name Hipa, are lielieved to have been originally named Coyote. It is also said that all those with one name formerly lived in one area, and were all considered related. This, however, is not the case now, nor does it seem to have been so within recent historic times." Bourke (Jour. Am. Folk-lore, ii, 181, 1889) has recorded some of these names, called by him gentes, and the totemic name to which each corresponds, as follows: Hual- ga (Moon), 0-cha (Rain-cloud), Ma-ha (Caterpillar), Nol-cha (Sun), Hipa (Coy-

Text Appearing After Image: MOHAVE WOMAN. (am. mus. Nat. Hist.) ote), Va-had-ha (Tobacco), Shul-ya (Beaver), Kot-ta (Mescal or Tobacco), Ti-hil-ya (Mescal), Vi-ma-ga (a green plant, not identified), Ku-mad-ha (Oca-

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