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Show 1 8 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 42 The climate is dry and warm. The summers are very hot, the mercury reaching, on some days, as high as 118° F. The nights during this season are warm, necessitating sleeping in the open. The winters are usually dry, delightful in the daytime and cool at night, without snow or frosts. In February and March and occasionally during the summer there are showers, but these are seldom heavy. As to civilization, these people are in the transitional period. While clinging to their old habits, and living largely as they did before the advent of the white man, they nevertheless wear clothing similar to his, buy his household utensils, bedding, etc., possess horses and wagons, and follow him in other particulars. Their dwellings ( pis. 18- 22) are mostly large, well- made shelters, open on all sides, a mere frame of cottonwood posts and poles, supporting a roof of brush. In addition to these, a number of families have fairly substantial brush- adobe houses, used chiefly in the colder weather. All of the Mohave dwellings have floors of earth or sand. In the open shelters the warm, soft sand, when cleaned from all large particles by sifting, is suitably hollowed and used for a bed, particularly by the old people. It is also the playground of the little children. Yet this sand is at the same time the receptacle of remnants of food, of the expectorations of sick and well alike, and of filth from the chickens, all of which look diseased. As already mentioned, the Mohave dress quite similarly to the whites. The calico dresses of the women are, however, of their own picturesque design, and moccasins are worn by the older people. During the summer young children and old men are often seen nude. The Mohave men have no steady occupation. They make small plantings of corn, beans, and melons on a few clearings near the river and work at times on the irrigating ditch operated by the Government. So far, however, neither the farming nor the irrigation has proven very successful. Rabbits, quail, large mice, and occasionally waterfowl are hunted to some extent, and the families living nearest the river catch some fish. When opportunity offers, the able- bodied men work for the whites, but the occasions are not common. In addition to doing housework, the women collect large supplies of native foods in season, particularly the mesquite beans and screw beans. They gather also young cactus leaves, cactus fruits, and numerous native seeds. The older women, in addition, make considerable beadwork for sale to the whites. The diet of the Mohave consists of the above- mentioned native and cultivated articles, also of fish, meat, and wheat tortillas, together with crackers and canned fruits, which are purchased from the store. Mesquite beans and screw beans are collected in large quantities, cured |