A lot of people have got most of their information
about American Indians from the movie world of Hollywood. Many adults,
after watching Western films as children, grew up believing that American
Indians could communicate with smoke signals almost as easily as people
nowadays talk on the telephone , the idea that the individual puffs
of smoke easily represent complex messages is typical of the kind of
exaggeration that Hollywood loves. Smoke signals were indeed used, but
their content is limited to a few simple messages. For example, returning Piman
fighters in Arizona might signal the end of a successful battle by sending
up a column of smoke, and the village would reply with two columns of
smoke. One or two unbroken columns of smoke were all that was needed to send a
message. It was the place that the signal came from-whether the fire was
on a hill or in a valley - that was important. When Apaches, while
hunting, spotted another group of Indians in the distance, they lit a
fire well to the right of their own group, which meant, " Who are you?"
The others, in order to let the Apaches know that they were friends,
would send a prearranged reply. Smoke signals were most often used to
broadcast news of victory in battle, or to warn of dangers, such as
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