While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Tontos (Spanish: 'fools,' so called
on account of their supposed imbecility; the designation, however, is a
misnomer).
A name so indiscriminately applied as to he almost
meaningless.
(1) To a mixture of Yavapai, Yuma, and Mohave, with some Pifialeno Apache,
placed on the Rio Verde res., Ariz., in 1873, and transferred to San
Carlos reservation in 1875; best designated as the Tulkepaia, q. v.
(2) To a tribe of the Athapascan family well known as Coyotero Apache.
(3) To the Piftalenos of the same family.
(4) According to Corbusier, to a body of Indians descended mostly from
Yavapai men and Pinal Coyotero ( Pinaleño
) women who have intermarried. The term Tontos was therefore applied by
writers of the 19th century to practically all the Indians roaming between
the White mountains of Arizona and the Rio Colorado, comprising parts of
two linguistic families, but especially to the Yavapai, commonly known as
Apache Mohave.
The synonymy following, therefore, does not always
represent true equivalents of any tribal name. The Tonto Apache
transferred to San Carlos in 1875 numbered 629, while the Yavapai sent to
that reserve numbered 618 and the Tulkepaia 352. The Tontos officially
designated as such numbered 772 in 1908, of whom 551 were under the San
Carlos agency, 160 under the Camp Verde school superintendency, and 11 at
Camp McDowell. See Apache
