desert calendar - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

Answers, Please . . .
Burbank, California
Desert:
In the May Desert Quiz, the answer
to number 6 was omitted. The same
misfortune befell question 16 in the
June issue.
I only missed one so far in the June
test, and hope I guessed right on that
San Ildefonso puzzler. Why not publish
these two answers in July?
WILLIAM H. REEVES
For Mr. Reeves and other quiz
fans frustrated by Desert's oversight,
here are the answers: The stream
which Major Powell called the Dirty
Devil River is now known as Fremont
Creek, Utah; True, the Indian
craftsmen of San Ildefonso in New
Mexico are best known for their pottery
making.—R.H.
• • •
A Reservation for the Papagos . . .
Following the publication in
the February issue of Harold
Weight's biographical sketch of
Father Bonaventura, some interesting
sidelights on the history of
the Papago Indians were furnished
in a letter written to Harold
by Henry J. McQuigg, first superintendent
of the Papago reservation.
McQuigg wrote in part as
follows:
Santa Ana, California
Dear Mr. Weight:
We read with pleased interest your
excellent story of Father Bonaventura
in the February issue of Desert. I have
pleasant memories of my work with
the good Father in the development
of the Papagos.
I was appointed by President Wm.
H. Taft as first superintendent of the
Papagos in Pima County and the San
Xavier reservation in 1910, remaining
there until 1916.
Before December 1909 the desert
Papagos and the small reservation at
San Xavier del Bac were under the
superintendent at Sacaton, but Commissioner
of Indian Affairs Valentine
felt that the time had come to give
more autonomy and attention to the
Papagos so an Agency with headquarters
at San Xavier was founded.
Shortly afterwards good Father Ventura
arrived to renew the missionary
work of the Franciscans that had been
interrupted by politics in old Mexico;
and I gave him all the assistance possible
in developing his school system
and missionary work. At the same
time I started the construction of seven
government day schools.
When I arrived at San Xavier in
January, 1910, Carl Aspaas was engaged
in allotting the desert Papagos
a quarter section each, which obviously
was an unrealistic approach to their
problem of land tenure under desert
conditions and their communal method
of farming.
When the federal census of these
desert Papagos was completed in May,
1910, and it was learned that there
were upwards of 4500 Papagos in
Pima County instead of the less than
2000 that was previously estimated,
the advisability of establishing and
creating a separate reservation was
justified in my opinion.
The first suggestions made to Washington
for the creation of a reservation
were made when Inspector Carl Gunderson,
later governor of South Dakota,
and I made the trip through the
desert and recommended by wire in
1910 that the allotment work be
stopped immediately and a reservation
be created. This recommendation was
OF;DEATH VALLEY
Members of the Coast Camera
club were in Death Valley on
their annual field trip. They had
been out during the early morning
exposing their films to the
Valley's scenic wonders, and had
returned to the Inferno store to
loiter around the cold drink stand
during the middle of the day.
"Takes shadows to make good
pictures" one of the camera enthusiasts
explained to the clerk
behind the counter. "Pictures
are too flat when the sun is directly
overhead. We'll be going
out again late this afternoon."
Hard Rock Shorty was seated
on a counter, corncob pipe in
one hand and a fly-swatter in the
other.
"Too bad you-all didn't come
down here a coupla months ago,"
he remarked. "If yuh like to
take pictures o' shadders we
really had a good one fer yuh.
Was a perfect likeness o' 01'
Chief Flatfoot, the Paiute Indian.
"Flatfoot wuz in Death Valley
when the first white man cum
here. No one knew where he
cum from, but the day after this
here store wuz opened back in
1906 he showed up. He looked
hungry and Pisgah Bill bought
'im a box o' crackers. The next
day Flatfoot cum back again.
opposed and obstructed for a time by
politicians in Washington and elsewhere.
It was not until the fallacy of individual
Indian allotments was discussed
by correspondence and orally with
Commissioner Sells during his trip
through the Papago country, with the
precious and profitable help of good
Father Ventura, that these efforts for
the creation of a reservation finally
attained success.
I opposed the removal of the agency
headquarters from San Xavier to Sells
as a waste of money, and said personally
I would refuse to move there.
District farmers could be deputized to
settle most problems, and furthermore
they could all be connected by telephone
to San Xavier.
HENRY J. McQUIGG
Scanty
Sat all day on the bench out under
the front porch. Boys in the
store figgered he hadn't had anything
to eat since he finished off
that box o'crackers, so they gave
him a hunk o' cheese.
"After that Flatfoot wuz a
regular visitor. He'd show up
jest after sun-up and sit all day
on that bench. Generally somebody
bought 'im something to
eat. And do yuh know, that ol'
Indian sat there every day fer
40 years. When the late afternoon
sun hit the porch Flatfoot
jest stayed there anyway—him
an his shadder on the wall.
"One day he didn't show up,
an' that afternoon down in the
dunes where the Indians had
their camp they wuz havin' a
burnin' ceremony. Lot o' wailin'
an' singin'. One of the Indian
boys told us ol' Flatfoot had
gone to the Happy Hunting
Ground.
"Ol' Flatfoot wuz gone—but
not his shadder. That shadder'd
been on that wall every afternoon
fer 40 years—and I guess it didn't
know the ol' chief wuz dead.
Yep, that shadder stayed there
on the wall fer six months afore
it went to the Happy Hunting
Ground too."
28 DESERT MAGAZINE