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Torres Straits with some misgivings, fearing that they would not possess the necessary powers of sustained concentration. Elaborate introspections, indeed, they did not secure from these people, but, in any experiment that called for straightforward observation, they found them admirable subjects for the psychologist. Locating the blind spot, and other observations with indirect vision, which are usually accounted a strain on the attention, were successfully performed. If tests are put in such form as to appeal to the interests of the primitive man, he can be relied on for sustained attention. Statements sometimes met with to the effect that such and such a tribe is deficient in powers of attention, because, when the visitor began to quiz them on matters of linguistics, etc., they complained of headache and ran away, sound a bit naïve. Much the same observations could be reported by college professors, regarding the natives gathered in their class rooms.

A good test for intelligence would be much appreciated by the comparative psychologist, since, in spite of equal standing in such rudimentary matters as the senses and bodily movement, attention and the simpler sorts of judgment, it might still be that greater differences in mental efficiency existed between different groups of men. Probably no single test could do justice to so complex a trait as intelligence. Two important features of intelligent action are quickness in seizing the key to a novel situation, and firmness in limiting activity to the right direction, and suppressing acts which are obviously useless for the purpose in hand. A simple test which calls for these qualities is the so-called "form test." There are a number of blocks of different shapes, and a board with holes to match the blocks. The blocks and board are placed before a person, and he is told to put the blocks in the holes in the shortest possible time. The key to the situation is here the matching of blocks and holes by their shape; and the part of intelligence is to hold firmly to this obvious necessity, wasting no time in trying to force a round block into a square hole. The demand on intelligence certainly seems slight enough; and the test would probably not differentiate between a Newton and you or me; but it does suffice to catch the feeble-minded, the young child, or the chimpanzee, as any of these is likely to fail altogether, or at least to waste much time in random moves and vain efforts. This test was tried on representatives of several races, and considerable differences appeared. As between whites, Indians, Eskimos, Ainus, Filipinos, and Singhalese, the average differences were small, and much overlapping occurred. As between these groups, however, and the Igorot and Negrito from the Philippines and a few reputed Pygmies from the Congo, the average differences were great, and the overlapping was small. Another rather similar test for intelligence, which was tried on some of these groups, gave them the same relative rank. The results of the test agreed closely with the general

impression left on the minds of the experimenters by considerable association with the people tested. And, finally, the relative size of the cranium, as indicated, roughly, by the product of its three external dimensions, agreed closely in these groups with their appearance of intelligence, and with their standing in the form test. If the results could be taken at their face value, they would indicate differences of intelligence between races, giving such groups as the Pygmy and Negrito a low station as compared with most of mankind. The fairness of the test is not, however, beyond question; it may have been of a more unfamiliar sort of these wild hunting folk than to more settled groups. This crumb is, at any rate, about all the testing psychologist has yet to offer on the question of racial differences in intelligence.

22. HABITAT AND FOOD PLANTS OF THE COAHUILLA INDIANS'

By DAVID PRESCOTT BARROWS

THE HABITAT OF THE COAHUILLAS

The eastern half of southern California is everywhere a desert, separated from the coast by the lofty elevations of the Sierras and the Coast Range. Northward in Inyo county is the sterile and dangerous depression famous as Death Valley. Southward, stretching from the Colorado to the Sierras, is the Mojave, the most elevated and least barren of these plains. Although its appearance is desolate, owing to the volcanic character of its rocks and its drifting beds of sand, the southern portion, now traversed by the Santa Fe Railway route, bears a valuable growth of bushes, contains many water holes, and has always proved a safe and direct route of travel. It was crossed by the old Mormon road from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, as well as the overland trail from Santa Fe, both roads meeting near the western side of the desert on the Mojave river. The San Bernardino range and a low spur running southeastward to the Colorado river, where it is known as the Chocolate mountains, separate the Mojave from the Colorado desert. This great depressed area occupies almost the whole southern part of the state and the northeastern part of Lower California, clear to the Gulf. The northwestern portion, enclosed by the San Bernardino range and the San Jacinto mountains, is the Coahuilla or Cabeson valley, the present home of the desert Coahuilla Indians. This valley is reached from the coast by the San Gorgonio pass. From Colton eastward, there is a long and continuous ascent for thirty miles, or nearly to Banning, where the divide is reached. From this point there is a descent through the pass into the Cabeson valley. Immediately from here onward one recognizes that the country and life have changed. Dry, gravelly stretches take the place of the red, alluvial soil on the other side of the summit. Stunted creosote bushes dot the plain, but there is an absence of trees and less hardy kinds of vegetation. Where the pass widens out into the valley the road crosses the White Water river. This considerable and refreshing stream, flowing from the snow peak of Mount San Gorgonio on the north side of the pass, pours itself across the rocky

1From pages 25-31 and 54-70 of David Prescott Barrows, The EthnoBotany of the Coahuilla Indians of Southern California, University of Chicago Press, 1900. The name Coahuilla, now more generally written Cahuilla, is pronounced "Kah-wee-yah.

cañon, and then turning east onto the sands disappears before it has gone a mile. The descent is still very rapid. Vast deposits of wind-drifted sand impede one's progress and desolate the upper end of the valley. Gradually, however, these disappear, and the soil becomes a fine dark silt, the alluvial floor of an ancient fresh-water lake of wide extent, over which are dotted "montes" or clumps of mesquite, amidst which the Coahuillas have for generations dug their wells and built their homes.

Underneath the soft deposits of soil that cover the Cabeson valley there is a constant seepage of the waters that, falling upon the desert faces of the mountains, sink into the hot sand of the desert as soon as they emerge from the cañons and gorges of the hills. The depth of this subsurface flow varies in different parts of the valley, being greatest at the upper end. Indian Wells, west of Indio, is twenty-five to thirty feet deep, but in the lower parts of the Cabeson, toward the Salton Sink, water is reached at from twelve to sixteen feet below the level of the sand. In his most delightful work, the Discovery of America, Mr. John Fiske, in reviewing the culture of the southwest tribes of the United States, speaks of their irrigating as "mainly an affair of sluices, not of pump or well, which seem to have been alike beyond the ken of aboriginal Americans of whatever grade." The statement is in part disproved by the Coahuillas. For generations they have been well-diggers. Their very occupation of this desert was dependent on their discovery of this art. The whole valley of the Cabeson is dotted with wells, most of them marking sites of homes long ago abandoned, the wells themselves being now only wide pits partly filled with sand, but many dug in the old way still remain, supporting life and giving refreshment miles and miles away from the rocky walls where the streams of the mountains disappear in the sands. These wells are usually great pits with terraced sides leading down to the narrow hole at the bottom where the water sparkles, built in such a way that a woman with an olla on her head can walk to the very water's edge and dip her painted vessel full. The deeper it is down to the water, the larger, of course, is the excavation and the greater the diameter across its upper terrace. The Coahuillas call these wells témaká-wo-mal-em, a pretty figure. Ká-wo-mal is the word for a tinaja or water olla, and témal is the word for earth or the ground. There is no question but that the Coahuillas learned of themselves to dig these wells, and this practice cannot perhaps be paralleled elsewhere among American Indians.

The low San Bernardinos to the north of the Cabeson valley are called by the Coahuillas Ká-wish-Po-po-kú-ut, or the "mountains of mesquite and tules," a name which their desolate, sandy appearance belies. The splendid San Jacinto range on the south is called the Káwishwa-wat-ácha, or the "lofty mountains." Across the San Bernardino hills

is the way to the Chemehuevi country, and behind these peaks these Indians annually make their camps when they come to this region to hunt mountain sheep. Up the San Jacinto ridges, dark and gloomy with shadows, run the ancient trails by which the Coahuillas entered the mountains and became hillsmen, as well as men of the desert. These trailsor "pit-em," as the Indians call them-are almost unmarked paths. They ordinarily climb out of the desert across some great alluvial fan of cañon detritus and then follow up some deep gorge until the roughness of its torrent-swept bottom compels one to pull his scrambling pony up onto the great black ridges, that look like the giant vertebrae of fossil monsters. Water is terribly scarce in these mountains, and most of these trails converge at a little valley north of a peak of the range, Torres mountain. This valley is known to hunters as "Piñon Flats," from its forest of juniper, and here water can always be found. Long ago there was a small village here, and the site is still known to the Indians by its old name, Kwá-le-ki. High up on the northern side of Torres was another called Pá-nach-sa. These villages seem to have been halfway camps between the desert and the mountain rancherias farther on, and probably never more than a few families occupied them at a time. The elevation is five or six thousand feet higher than the desert, and the air bracing and fine. And from these eyries one can gain a wide view of the Coahuillas' home.

These mountains, arid as they are, and scantily supplied with vegetation as they seem to be, are nevertheless rich in botanical species, and the region is one of wondrous interest to the collector and of great value to the Indian, for it is from here that there come many of his most valued plant products. . .

Such in general are the characteristics of life everywhere on the southern parts of the American desert. The Colorado desert, the particular home at present of the Coahuilla Indians, has, however, bizarre features peculiarly its own.

This arm of the desert was in very recent geologic time an arm of the Gulf of California. More than 1,600 square miles is still below the level of the sea, the most depressed portion being 275 feet lower than the ocean.

The Colorado river in its course south to the ocean built up a flood plain on a higher level that finally shut off the western part from a direct communication with the sea, and evaporation, with a gradual uplifting of the whole section, finally laid it bare, although leaving a great part of it below the present sea level.

The waters of the Colorado, 275 feet above sea level at Yuma, break through their banks at the summer season of high water and flow southwestward and then northward and inland, forming a widely inundated area with many sloughs, the best known being the New river. This

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