Their houses were also covered with these leaves.
I never saw but two of these plants in bloom. One was about fifty
miles north of Sacramento and the other in Golden Gate Park, near
San Francisco. It was said they held their flowers four months.
These flowers are very beautiful, being four inches across and
look as though they were made of wax.
But to return to my story. These Indians had three days of
worship, also three days of feasting. On assembling at their place
of worship, the chief chose four men from the audience, whom we
would term preachers, but which they called abblers. They never
pray, but the abblers stand up and talk to the audience, during
which time the Indians preserve the very best order. The abblers
tell them what they must do and what they must not do. When ready
to break up, all join in singing, but never sing before preaching.
Just how they learned this mode of worship was a mystery to me,
and is yet, for that matter. We attended service while in the
village and after preaching was over many of them invited us home
with them.
There were about five hundred men in this tribe, all of whom were
apparently very industrious, raising corn, melons, red pepper and
other vegetables in abundance. They raised some very large melons,
which were not excellent in flavor, however.
The Pimas were very kind to us while we were with them, often
taking us out to their truck patches and pulling nice, large
melons for us.
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