Pima Bajo - Settlements

The Pima Bajo live in isolated homesteads called ranchos, in rock shelters, and in dwellings on the outskirts of mestizo towns or cities. Each rancho is made up of one or more households linked by kinship ties and surrounded by small farms. The word paraje is used by Dunnigan (1981a) to refer to a group of ranchos (similar to what the Spaniards called a ranchería) as well as to a neighborhood found in towns. Pima also live in the traditional Indian town of Maycoba, the ranching town of Yécora, two sawmill towns, in lowland towns and cities, and in a colonia in Cuidad Obregón. A campo is a small camp of agricultural workers similar to the migrant labor camps inhabited by undocumented workers in the United States. A few Mountain Pima use caves. Most Pima dwellings are constructed of adobe, wattle and daub, or pine boards or shingles nailed over a one-room pole framework. Most dwellings have an enclosed porch attached for cooking. Ramadas, or brush-roofed habitations with no walls or low walls of piled stones, are used as temporary structures in warmer seasons, when Pima work away from home. Occasionally a huki, a semisubterranean one-room structure with a slanted roof, is still used as a place for keeping weaving fibers moist and as a cool place for women to make baskets, mats, and hats.