The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1861-11-01
A Visit to the Lower Sioux Agency.

CHAREs S. Bryant, Esq, United States
Commissioner contributes to the St. Peter
Statesman, interesting information of the
Sioux Indians, gathered while on an official
visit to the Agency, in company with other
United States officers, to look after this
offenders against law and order on the res'
ervatiOns. We make few extracts
FIRST INDIAN VILLAGE.
Some twelve miles from Fort Ridgley
over the most delightful country ever visit.
ed by man, without human habitati0n in
sight, we came upon an Indian village built
of bark. Here q half clad Indian boy,
with hen in his arms, was endeavoring to
introduce this fowl of civilization through
hole under the bottom of his wigwam.
This was the first evidence we had yet seen
of Indian civilization. A halt dozen bark
lodges, without any form or comeliness.
smoking at the top like coal pit, on the
open prairie, like unto houses built out
doors that is, without an enclosures sent
few chills to the " warm precincts of this
vital clay" from which we have not yet
wholly recovered. "Lo! the poor Indian,
whose untutored mind sees God in clouds or
heart Him in the wind" stood before US in
almost naked reality, leaving but little play
for the imagination.
MORTALITY OF INDIANS.
Another view at short distance from
these bark lodges, took in the more numer-
Gus and imposing city OF the dead. This
latter city was built in the air on fragile
scaffOlds, containing the recent dead, clad in
habiliments peculiar to the Indian mode of
preparing their dead for final burial. The
mortality of Indians at the Lower Agency
is very great, compared to the white race.
Out of 1900 over thirty have died within
the last three months-equal to mortality
of l20 per year out of say 1000; or, nearly
seventeen per cent. The complaints are of
scrOfulOus character colds and consump-
lions prevail extensively among all ages.
AGENCY BOARDING HOUSE.
At the boarding house We found enter
tainment with forty odd dodgers, in build
ing Is by 40, one story and half high,
with the privilege of dinner with forty hale,
hearty men with all conceivable fashions of
dress, from the common pants and shirt
sleeve, to the more fancy blanket of the In
dian. In the morning after all the dodgers
had gathered in from the nights repose-
from the joyous refreshment Of balmy sleep
the common rendezvous was we'll filled
with the most animated mass, all smoking
to the highest capacity OF the human in
closure. Occasionally some one at the door
would perform the ceremony of ventilla-
ton, and the exercises went on as usual.
The call to breakfast, where fifty hungry
men, without woman among them to
moderate their movements, had singular
effect upon that heterogeneous crowd of
consumers. Smoking ceased in much less
time than you can read tn account of the
fact and one aim seemed to animate the
whole. The willing and the unwilling, if
any such were present, were forced on by a
driving power 10 the Tear sufficient to urge
them to the opposite wall OF the small din
ing room.
METHOD OF CIvILIZING INDIANS.
Some hundred Indians, among them the
principal chiefs, were to pass the ordeal oil
losing their " scalp locks" under the
scissors of the Agent, prerequisite to re-
ceiving the citizens dress. This ceremony
had brought many OF the blanket Indians
also to the Agency to witness the, evidences
of their decline and deride the taste of their
degenerate brethren, who were taking sides
with the white man by adopting his mode
of dress. The change was indeed radical
and ludicrous. Even the white man laughed
at the wonderful transformation. Think of
it, reader, and you will join the blanket
Indian in hearty laugh in contemplating
the change. A tall, graceful, long haired,
blanket-c!ad Indian sits down to be shorn
of bis long cherished raven locks. A few
sashes OF the keen edged steel and he rises,
dofs the blanket, and puts on the suit OF
gray army cloth, perhaps with row OF
bright, gilt buttons down the cuffs, and in
front of the dress coat, and stovepipe hat,
it may be, upon bis head, and a cane, or q
long handled pipe in his hand, be suddenly
walks forth from the hand of the shearer, a
wholly different man, looking more like a
dandy or merchants clerk than wild
Indian He laughs himsef-the white
man laughs, and the blanket Indian gives
the finishing touch by open derison. Some
seventy odd in one day, the 18th OF Sep.
TENDER, had, while the writer was at the
Agency, passed through this stage OF civil.
cation.
PHILANDER PRESCOTT.
Phiander Prescott, the gentlemanly Su-
perintendent OF Indian farming on the Re-
serve, gave US some idea of the success o.
efforts of civilization among these Indians
the results of his observation Of these To-
dians from residence among them of for.
ty-twO years. He married second wife
and resides with his family, numbering sew.
eraI boys and girls, among this people. He
knows their habits, wishes, thoughts and
inclinations better than they can themselves
express them. He is their constant adviser
and interpreter. He assisted in compiling
the great Dakota Dictionary, published
some years since by the Smithsonian Insti-
tuition, and contributed many of the most
valuable articles in Catin's great Indian
work, published Dy authority Of Congress.
If any mans experience is worth anything
in Indian affairs, MIR. Prescott's is worth
as much as any mans in the Northwest.