It is one difficult to acquire, and different from any other
in the Province.
The Opata are the best of the native Christians, having never turned
upon their teachers, nor once risen against the royal authorities; nor
do they, like other Indians, make the women bear the heavier share of
the labor in the fields. They are industrious husbandmen; but they are
not any the less wanting in valor on that account, having oftentimes
shown their good conduct when bearing arms with the king's forces
at the expense of the Missions. Individuals there were, and perhaps
still are, who did the work of blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, stone
cutters, masons, learning any craft readily, and practicing it with
skill. They and some of the Endeve, although in a less degree, are to
the other Indians what the people who live in towns are to those in
the country, still for all it was remarked, they were none the less
Indians. Such was the general character of the Opata, which is the
same that is given of them in our time by that curious and instructive
observer, John R. Bartlett, in his narrative of an expedition into
that country.
The Jove were a rural people, quite the greater number of them,
unwilling to be brought together in communities, lived in chasms
among the ridges where they were born, proof to the solicitations of
kindness and conveniences of civilized life.
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