Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-11-08
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE.

They are not Self Sustoimiag.
Dakota Correspondence Chicago Tribune.
Major Love, who for four years was the
Indian agent at the Cheyenne agency, and
who is now resident of Pierre, has some
queer stories to tell about Indian life as he
found it and isin possession ola number of
articles exhibiting the ingenuity and skill
of the Indians when they choose to work.
Generally they are an indolent, worthless,
dirty and disgusting peoples and he was SO
completely disguised with the life
he was leading among them that he re-
signed short time ago. There are
Major Love states, a number of French.
men throughout the reservation who are
married to squaws, and some of these
s'squaw-men." as they are called, have ex
tensive cattle and horse ranges. One of
them in particular, man named Narcelle,
has nearly 1000 head of cattle and other
stock, and is easily worth upwards of
$4,000; and yet his family regularly draw
| rations, food and clothing from the agency.
Upon one occasion, when the govern
ment failed to supply the agency with
| cattle, Major Love was instructed to pur-
| chase about $4,000 worth. The bar
gain was made with Narcelle; the money
| paid over to him, the cattle slaughtered,
and Narcotics family carried off as rations
| considerable portion of the meat. Maj.
Love says it is perfectly useless, and a
| waste OF public money for the government
| to present the Sioux with plows, reapers,
| agricultural implements of all sorts and
seeds, as they have been doing. The plows
are seldom touched; the reapers are curl
osities for few days only, and then are
abandoned on the prairies, and the seeds,
instead of being properly planted or sown
broadcast, are nearly always dumped
| by the handful into hole
in the earth and stamped in. Give
| them potatoes to plant and show them how,
! and they will put the sprouts under ground
properly enough, but before the green
shoots appear above the surface they will
have them all dug up and will have eaten
| them raw. Their reservation is literally
strewn with farm utensils going to waste
and ruin. At the agencies tickets are now
given them for intestines as well as for
meat. Formerly only meat tickets were
given. but the Indians used to fight so
| furiously for the intestines which
| were to be had for the ask
ing and which were greatly esteemed as a
| relish by the squaws, who chew them up
| raw, that tickets were issued for certain
quantities of intestines as well as the usu-
al one and one-half pounds of meat per
day. In this way the squaws are prevented
from tearing each others eyes and hair.
They consume large quantities of every
thing, or rather waste it, and it is safe to
say that five white men could be kept on
what is taken to feed and clothe two Indi-
ans.
The Sioux will not work. They deride
work of all sorts, and say only white men
and squaws were made for work, and
should any one of their number follow the
advice the white man gives him and till
the soil for his own pecuniary benefit, they
| call him a ''squaw-man," term which
though not particularly obnoxious to the
French Canadian, is terribly opprobious
to the Indian. That they will not work is
| not to be wondered at, however. The
treaty by which they are confined to their
present reservation, besides provid-
ing for their welfare in a number
of ways, provides that their ra-
| tions and annuities shall continue until
| such time as they shall become self-sup-
porting, and the medicine men who know
this, tell them that if they work their ra-
tions will be stopped, and they will be
compelled to work for their living to the
end of their days. AS matter of fact all
the work they engage in is the manufac-
| ture of such trinkets as Maj. Love has in
great quantities. These are highly orna-
mental, and display high order of skill
A stone pipe displays some pretty work in
| metal about the bowl, war club displays
talent in the stonecutter's art,
and the rawhide encircling
| the handle is as neatly stitched
together as any harnessmaker could do it.
War-clubs, necklaces of elk's teeth and
beads. quivers, all sorts of ornamental
work on buffalo robes, mats, etc., with col
ored porcupine quilts, and large variety
of other articles are manufactured simply
for the purpose of putting little grog
money into their pockets. Major Love has
two young sons who talk Sioux very cor
rectly, and the elder is quite an adept at
the sign language. The younger, little
| fellow of an age at which most children
are learning to talk English plainly, not
only talks English, but can interpret Sioux,
and knows many of the Indian songs by
heart.