[log in to unmask] wrote:
> At the time Patience Kershaw's remarks were being reported,
> Arizona must have been almost empty of white people (except some
> Spaniards) of either gender. Any mining must have been done by the
> local Apache/Navajo and if they followed the ways of tribes further
> north - it was women's work.
>
This generalization, like many others in this thread, seems to have
little foundation in fact. Who exactly are the "tribes further north"?
Nor is it true that any mining "must have been done by the local
Apache/Navajo", who were relative latecomers to the Southwest - probably
no earlier than the 15th century, according to the linguists. There are
several other Native American groups in the region, some of them (like
the Hopi) probable descendants of groups who mined on a small scale for
turquoise, for obsidian and perhaps for galena (used to made lead based
glaze paints on pottery.
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