River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1872-09-27
The Digger Indians.


These seem to bear the same relative
position to all the other tribes as the
feeblest of, the white races do to their
more powerful neighbors.
Whether they are hunted out and
driven from the grounds that offer the
smallest indications OF a subsistence, or
whether they gravitate to their present
localities by yirt0e of their nature, is a
question not yet satisfactorily an
swered.
They are found in the most out-of.
the.way laces and dismal localities to
be imagined, and like the very elements
among which they move and have their
being, they partake of the lowest devel-
opment OF form and character.
They are small in stature and shr y
en- in lamb, and have withered ap-
pearance in manhood and old age.
There are few individuals as exoep.
tons to this statement. They are DIES.
titute OF covering save rag suspended
from the waist, and sometimes the rem.
nant oil an old blanket over the head
or shoulder. They possess neither tents
nor ponies, which, with their culinary
utensils and weapons, constitute the
wealth Of the powerful tribes. They
use the bow and arrow, preierring the
stone head to that of iron, now obtain
able from the white man. Some of them
carry a sharp.pointed stick only.
Their huts are usually made of sage
bushes loosely thrown together, and
would be easily taken for q heap of
brush. Yet often eight or ten persons
are found around one of these little
huts. In Mendocino county, away on
the Pacific coast, they build their
lodges of pieces of bark and the refuse
bits of slabs and planks which they find
floating down the streams from the saw.
mills above. These they simply stand
up in circular form, resting them
against few longer pieces, which join
each other at the top. the same as we
sometimes stack our tire-wood
Whether they are the outcasts of
many tribes, or tribe not yet risen to
the dignity of those surrounding them,
is not ascertained. A careful study of
their habits, language, ETC., would help
to solve the question.
The Shoshones claim to be the parent
stock of several powerful tribes, as the
Bannocks, the Brules, the Utes, and
the Comanches. These are found in
Southern Idaho, i'll Utah, in Northern
Texas, in Colorado, and as far as Cali
fornia, and wherever these tribes are,
among them.in the desolate places are
found these Diggers. They have fire,
mostly think to warm themselves, as
do not remember ever to have seen
them using it for other parposes.
A landscape covered scantily with
brush, not much larger than your hand,
of grayish color, bounded at the hori.
zon by smooth, rounded, roc&y hills,
with dozen or more of these lodges
scattered around, with their occupants,
male and female, young and old, squat
ting listlessly about, literally with
nothing to eat" nothing to wear"
and nothing to do, and bearing unmis-
takably in their whole aspect the pres
sure OF the times and tribes upon them,
and watching Ike hungry dogs to snap
up the least moIsel that may be dropped
or thrown away, is indeed picture of
Indebtedness and desOlation that the
Peace Commissioners" or Army
Regulations" will need all their re-
sources to renoyate They seem to 90
after their food as the animals are said
to-by instinct.
They eat roots, balls of the pine-tree,
snails and insects. Now and then a bird
or fish may fall in their way yet they
must be very rare, as in these desolate
regions they are seldom seen. Although,
as you may say, naked, they will have
some paltry piece of tin or brass sus-
pended from the neck or ear, or both,
when they can. Quite as sensible in
this respect as the Christian whites,
who have not yet outgrown the savage
in many directions. - Pot. s. j.
Sedg10ick.