NOTES FROM "THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN" BY EDWARD S. CURTIS
VOLUME 2- THE YUMA
LANGUAGE: Yuman
LOCATION: Arizona-The Yuma lived in Arizona, at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers, near Yuma, Arizona. They were originally thought to live on the California side of the Colorado river.
DRESS: The Yumans wore little due to the extreme heat. Men wore a loin cloth, made of skin. Women wore a short apron made of bark, which later became a short skirt. Both sexes painted and tattooed their bodies.
DWELLINGS: The Yuman house was rectangular with a slanting woven roof of brush and mud, supported by heavy posts and cross beams.
RELIGION AND CEREMONIES: Medicine-men are born, not made, among the Yuma, and power and knowledge are supposed to come from divine sources through revelation in dreams. The main ceremonies, similar to other tribes in the region, consist of Maturity (puberty), Cremation, Mourning, and Harvest dance.
QUOTES FROM "THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN:" "So far as United States history is concerned, these people first became known in the days of the California gold rush. Prior to 1849 the Yuma lived in their primitive way unmolested."
"Though a river people, the Yuma, like the Mohave, never made canoes. Cottonwood logs
were sometimes roughly hollowed out for ferrying camp equipage across the river. This rude contrivance was called "Challis." For a like purpose very large clay bowls, "Katelhakam," as much as three feet in diameter and equally deep, were made. Clothing, bedding, and children were placed in these curious craft and ferried across the Colorado by the adults who swam beside and pushed them along."
"If it be possible. the Yuma are more deficient in handiwork than the Mohave... As has been seen, the Yuma exhibit slight tendency toward ingenuity or inventiveness. Their creations in handicraft, in mythological conceptions, and in religious observances or ceremonies, are few and of inferior order in comparison with those of other Indians of the Southwest."