The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1884-07-06
THE DIGGERS.

People Who Live pom Grassloppers. Liz
ards aud Horned Frogs-Roots IA Deli
acy--posscssing No Language to EN-
press Their Wants-Degradation Com
plete.
"Talk about cheap living, economy,
allowing nothing to go to waste, you
should live among the Digger Indians
awhile. There's people that live cheap
for you. Why, the very slop-barrel
licnds of great city fare better than
they do said II gentleman who had
spent many years in Mexico and South
America, In the presence of Cincinnati
| Enuuirer man, a few evenings since.
"'lhey are the meanest looking people,
| think, on the face of the earth 1 even
question il they are of much higher or
| der than monkeys. They are of II dirty
brown or copper color, and stand
about five feet in height, and,
poor in flesh, their body is ali
bones, and when old their skin is cor
ruguted like the hide of n rhinoceros.
| Their legs have no calves and their knee
pans are Of enormous size. Their cheek
bones are broad and high, and their
head covered with thick, matted hair,
which falls down unkempt, never
combed. matted with mud, lousy and
sun-burnt, over their shoulders. Their
! eyes are small and sparkle, not with in
| telligenre, like dog, but with low cum
ming, like mud-groveling animals"
"And where do they liveY
"On the great deserts, where many a
poor traveller has starved to death and
left his bones TO bleach in the sun. The
most peculiar vegetation that grows on
these great deserts IL the wild sage, a
sort of grayish-white substance, and
where IL is found YOU can rest as.
Sured there is neither food nor drink for
! man or horse. Even the donkey
won't eat il. In the days of the old
Spanish trail these Diggers, hiding in
crags and caves, used to pounco upon
horses and mules that strayed away
from the town, and, not using the ami
mails as beasts of burden, killed and ate
them. But these good old days for the
DiVgors have gone by, and now thoy
subsist upon few articles that would
not sustain civilized man an instant.
| They eat grasshoppors, and relish them,
| too. Sometimes they roast thom IN
small oarthcn pots, but moro often mix
| them with mesquite seed and pulp,
making kind of grasShoppcr plum
pudding. When the crop IL plentiful
| they have no trouble in collecting
sufficiently large quantities To
keep them alive. hut il the
! season Is bad one they are
put to their trumps To catch an adequate
supply. Then they exhibit considera-
Bile savage shrcwdness. They dig a hole
about three feet deep i'm the center of a
sage plain, and about as wide across the
top, and thon the whole settlement,
men, women and children, turn out,
and, armed with sticks, beat the wild
sage bushes, aiming TO irighten the
grasshoppcrs and drive them To the
center. Al last the crickcts, which were
scattered here and there over the plain,
begin TO swarm In "A great black mass,
and the beators press hard upon them
until in one vast hurly-burly they tum-
bic them over the edges of the pit. Then
! piles of dry grass previously gathered
are thrown on top of the sccthing mass.
and the insects are roasted to donth.h
"flis Is not their only iOol?"
so, no; there Is very small animal
called n sago-hun, the color of which is
precisely the same us the snge-brush, so
that II Is difficult to distinguish Il. This
animal Is esteemed great delicacy,
though the flesh Is bitter ms NORWOOD.
Tho skin is preserved to ia used VITA
others as q covering in cold weather, and
the flesh eaten with relish. Worms
grubs, and lizards are eaten nv thos,
creatures, and even the horned frog q
horrid looking reptile, is made available
~ an article OF food. Armed with long
Tp'ngsi hooked al the end, the Digger