Chapter IV: Californians (9)

[626] Among the Snakes in Idaho garments of four to five beaver-skins were sold for a knife or an awl, and other articles of fur in proportion. Horses were purchased for an axe each. A ship of seventy-four guns might have been loaded with provision, such as dried buffalo, bought with buttons and rings. Articles of real value they thus disposed of cheaply, while articles of comparatively no value, such as Indian head-dress and other curiosities, were held high. A beaver-skin could thus be had for a brass-ring, while a necklace of bears' claws could not be purchased for a dozen of the same rings. Axes, knives, ammunition, beads, buttons and rings, were most in demand. Clothing was of no value; a knife sold for as much as a blanket; and an ounce of vermilion was of more value than a yard of fine cloth. _Ross' Fur Hunters_, vol. i., pp. 257-9. See further, _Lewis and Clarke's Trav._, p. 316; _Townsend's Nar._, pp. 133, 138; _Prince_, in _Cal. Farmer_, _Oct. 18, 1861_; _Farnham's Trav._, p. 61.

[627] 'They inflict no penalties for minor offences, except loss of character and disfellowship.' _Prince_, in _Cal. Farmer_, _Oct. 18, 1861_; _Lewis and Clarke's Trav._, pp. 306-7; _Remy and Brenchley's Journ._, vol. i., p. 128.

[628] 'It is virtuous to seize and ravish the women of tribes with whom they are at war, often among themselves, and to retain or sell them and their children as slaves.' _Drews' Owyhee Recon._, p. 17. The Pi-Edes 'barter their children to the Utes proper for a few trinkets or bits of clothing, by whom they are again sold to the Navajos for blankets.' _Simpson's Route to Cal._, p. 45. 'Some of the minor tribes in the southern part of the Territory (Utah), near New Mexico, can scarcely show a single squaw, having traded them off for horses and arms.' _Burton's City of the Saints_, p. 582. 'Viennent trouver les blancs, et leur vendent leurs enfants pour des bagatelles.' _De Smet_, _Voy._, p. 29; _Knight's Pioneer Life, MS._; _Utah, Acts, Resolutions, etc._, p. 87.

[629] 'A refusal in these lands is often a serious business; the warrior collects his friends, carries off the recusant fair, and after subjecting her to the insults of all his companions espouses her.' _Burton's City of the Saints_, p. 582.

[630] 'The women are exceedingly virtuous ... they are a kind of mercantile commodity in the hands of their masters. Polygamy prevails among the chiefs, but the number of wives is not unlimited.' _Remy and Brenchley's Journ._, vol. i., pp. 123-8. They are given to sensual excesses, and other immoralities. _Farnham's Trav._, p. 62; see also p. 60. 'Prostitution and illegitimacy are unknown ... they are not permitted to marry until eighteen or twenty years old ... it is a capital offence to marry any of another nation without special sanction from their council and head chief. They allow but one wife.' _Prince_, in _Cal. Farmer_, _Oct. 18, 1861_. At the time of their confinement the women 'sit apart; they never touch a cooking utensil, although it is not held impure to address them, and they return only when the signs of wrath have passed away.' _Burton's City of the Saints_, p. 573. 'Infidelity of the wife, or prostitution of an unmarried female, is punishable by death.' _Davies_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1861, p. 133. 'Our Pi-Ute has a peculiar way of getting a foretaste of connubial bliss, cohabiting experimentally with his intended for two or three days previous to the nuptial ceremony, at the end of which time, either party can stay further proceedings, to indulge other trials until a companion more congenial is found.' _Farley_, in _San Francisco Medical Press_, vol. iii., p. 155; _Lewis and Clarke's Trav._, pp. 307-8, 315; _De Smet_, _Voy._, p. 27.

[631] The Snakes 'ont une sorte de tabac sauvage qui croît dans les plaines contiguës aux montagnes du Spanish-River, il a les feuilles plus étroites que le nôtre, il est plus agréable à fumer, ses effets étant bien moins violens.' _Stuart_, in _Nouvelles Annales des Voy._, 1821, tom. xii., pp. 82-3. The Kinik-kinik 'they obtain from three different plants. One is a _Cornus_, resembling our _Cornus sanguinea_; after having detached the epidermic cuticle, they scrape the bark and dry it, when it is ready for use. Another is a Vaccinium with red berries; they gather the leaves to smoke them when dry; the third is a small shrub, the fruit and flower of which I have never seen, but resembles certain species of Daphnads (particularly that of Kauai), the leaves of which are in like manner smoked.' _Remy and Brenchley's Journ._, vol. i., p. 130; see also p. 132; _Ross' Fur Hunters_, vol. i., p. 250; _Lewis and Clarke's Trav._, p. 306; _Fremont's Explor. Ex._, p. 174; _De Smet_, _Voy._, pp. 25-6; _Parker's Explor. Tour_, pp. 228-9, 237, 242-3.

[632] 'En deux occasions diverses, je comptai cinq personnes ainsi montées, dont deux, certes, paraissaient aussi capables, chacune à elle seule, de porter la pauvre bête, que le cheval était à même de supporter leurs poids.' _De Smet_, _Voy._, p. 127; _Lewis and Clarke's Trav._, pp. 266, 309-11, 316; _Graves_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1854, p. 178.

[633] 'With strong constitutions generally, they either die at once or readily recover.' _Burton's City of the Saints_, p. 581. 'There is no lack of pulmonary difficulties among them.' _Farley_, in _San Francisco Medical Press_, vol. iii., p. 155. Syphilis usually kills them. _Lewis and Clarke's Trav._, p. 316. 'The _convollaria stellata_ ... is the best remedial plant known among those Indians.' _Fremont's Explor. Ex._, p. 273; _Davies_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1861, p. 132; _Prince_, in _Cal. Farmer_, _Oct. 18, 1861_; _Coke's Rocky Mts._, p. 276; _Parker's Explor. Tour_, pp. 228-9, 240-2.

[634] 'The Yutas make their graves high up the kanyons, usually in clefts of rock.' _Burton's City of the Saints_, p. 150. At the obsequies of a chief of the Timpenaguchya tribe 'two squaws, two Pa Yuta children, and fifteen of his best horses composed the "customs."' _Id._, p. 577. 'When a death takes place, they wrap the body in a skin or hide, and drag it by the leg to a grave, which is heaped up with stones, as a protection against wild beasts.' _Id._, p. 582; _Remy and Brenchley's Journ._, vol. i., pp. 131, 345; _De Smet_, _Voy._, p. 28; _Domenech's Deserts_, vol. ii., pp. 359, 363.

[635] The Shoshones of Carson Valley 'are very rigid in their morals.' _Remy and Brenchley's Journ._, vol. i., p. 85. At Haw's Ranch, 'honest and trustworthy, but lazy and dirty.' _Id._, p. 123. These Kusi-Utahs 'were very inoffensive and seemed perfectly guileless.' _Id._, vol. ii., p. 412. The Pai-uches are considered as mere dogs, the refuse of the lowest order of humanity. _Farnham's Life and Adven._, p. 376. The Timpanigos Yutas 'are a noble race ... brave and hospitable.' _Id._, p. 371. The Pi-utes are 'the most degraded and least intellectual Indians known to the trappers.' _Farnham's Trav._, p. 58. 'The Snakes are a very intelligent race.' _Id._, p. 62. The Bannacks are 'a treacherous and dangerous race.' _Id._, p. 76. The Pi-Edes are 'timid and dejected;' the Snakes are 'fierce and warlike;' the Tosawitches 'very treacherous;' the Bannacks 'treacherous;' the Washoes 'peaceable, but indolent.' _Simpson's Route to Cal._, p. 45-9. The Utahs 'are brave, impudent, and warlike ... of a revengeful disposition.' _Graves_, in _Ind. Aff. Rept._, 1854, p. 178. 'Industrious.' _Armstrong_, in _Id._, 1856, p. 233. 'A race of men whose cruelty is scarcely a stride removed from that of cannibalism.' _Hurt_, in _Id._, p. 231. 'The Pah-utes are undoubtedly the most interesting and docile Indians on the continent.' _Dodge_, in _Id._, 1859, p. 374. The Utahs are 'fox-like, crafty, and cunning.' _Archuleta_, in _Id._, 1865, p. 167. The Pi-Utes are 'teachable, kind, and industrious ... scrupulously chaste in all their intercourse.' _Parker_, in _Id._, 1866, p. 115. The Weber-Utes 'are the most worthless and indolent of any in the Territory.' _Head_, in _Id._, p. 123. The Bannocks 'seem to be imbued with a spirit of dash and bravery quite unusual.' _Campbell_, in _Id._, p. 120. The Bannacks are 'energetic and industrious.' _Danilson_, in _Id._, 1869, p. 288. The Washoes are docile and tractable. _Douglas_, in _Id._, 1870, p. 96. The Pi-utes are 'not warlike, rather cowardly, but pilfering and treacherous.' _Powell_, in _Id._, 1871, p. 562. The Shoshokoes 'are extremely indolent, but a mild, inoffensive race.' _Irving's Bonneville's Adven._, p. 257. The Snakes 'are a thoroughly savage and lazy tribe.' _Franchère's Nar._, p. 150. The Shoshones are 'frank and communicative.' _Lewis and Clarke's Trav._, p. 306. The Snakes are 'pacific, hospitable and honest.' _Dunn's Oregon_, p. 325. 'The Snakes are a very intelligent race.' _White's Ogn._, p. 379. The Pi-utes 'are as degraded a class of humanity as can be found upon the earth. The male is proud, sullen, intensely insolent.... They will not steal. The women are chaste, at least toward their white brethren.' _Farley_, in _San Francisco Medical Jour._, vol. iii., p. 154. The Snakes have been considered 'as rather a dull and degraded people ... weak in intellect, and wanting in courage. And this opinion is very probable to a casual observer at first sight, or when seen in small numbers; for their apparent timidity, grave, and reserved habits, give them an air of stupidity. An intimate knowledge of the Snake character will, however, place them on an equal footing with that of other kindred nations, either east or west of the mountains, both in respect to their mental faculties and moral attributes.' _Ross' Fur Hunters_, vol. ii., p. 151. 'Les Sampectches, les Pagouts et les Ampayouts sont ... un peuple plus misérable, plus dégradé et plus pauvre. Les Français les appellent communément les Dignes-de-pitié, et ce nom leur convient à merveille.' _De Smet_, _Voy._, p. 28. The Utahs 'pariassent doux et affables, très-polis et hospitaliers pour les étrangers, et charitables entre eux.' _Id._, p. 30. 'The Indians of Utah are the most miserable, if not the most degraded, beings of all the vast American wilderness.' _Domenech's Deserts_, vol. ii., p. 64. The Utahs 'possess a capacity for improvement whenever circumstances favor them.' _Scenes in the Rocky Mts._, p. 180. The Snakes are 'la plus mauvaise des races des Peaux-Rouges que j'ai fréquentées. Ils sont aussi paresseux que peu prévoyants.' _Saint-Amant_, _Voy._, p. 325. The Shoshones of Idaho are 'highly intelligent and lively ... the most virtuous and unsophisticated of all the Indians of the United States.' _Taylor_, in _Cal. Farmer_, _April 27, 1860_. The Washoes have 'superior intelligence and aptitude for learning.' _Id._, _June 14, 1861_; see also _Id._, _June 26, 1863_. The Nevada Shoshones 'are the most pure and uncorrupted aborigines upon this continent ... they are scrupulously clean in their persons, and chaste in their habits ... though whole families live together, of all ages and both sexes, in the same tent, immorality and crime are of rare occurrence.' _Prince_, in _Id._, _Oct. 18, 1861_. The Bannacks 'are cowardly, treacherous, filthy and indolent.' _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. iv., p. 223. 'The Utahs are predatory, voracious and perfidious. Plunderers and murderers by habit ... when their ferocity is not excited, their suspicions are so great as to render what they say unreliable, if they do not remain altogether uncommunicative.' _Id._, vol. v., pp. 197-8. The Pa-Vants 'are as brave and improvable as their neighbours are mean and vile.' _Burton's City of the Saints_, p. 577. 'The Yuta is less servile, and consequently has a higher ethnic status than the African negro; he will not toil, and he turns at a kick or a blow.' _Id._, p. 581. The Shoshokoes 'are harmless and exceedingly timid and shy.' _Brownell's Ind. Races_, p. 538.