St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-26
A PRIMITIVE PEOPLE.
The Tribes Lieutenant Ray Found at Point
BarrosC Station.

|
| San Francisco Cor. New York Herald.
The Ooglaamiem are the tribe of ma
tiyes in the immediate vicinity of where the
Signal Service station was at Ooglaamie.
The tribe consists of 100 souls. A few miles
| distant is another tribe, the Noowookmeuns,
numbering 140 people; but the relations ex-
! listing between the two are not so harmonious
as one would be led to believe was due to
neighbors where acquaintance are so few.
! There have not been any open outbreaks be-
tween the tribes, and they often mingled to
| gether near the station, but each eyes the
other suspiciously, and the members OF the
! two tribes were observed to breathe more
| freely when they were surrounded only by
their own people. Neither tribe holds allegi-
ance to any chief or ruler. No congresses
or legislatures have as yet broken in upon
the rude mode of living. They are anarch-
lists in the full sense of the word. Each man
is his own chief, and strange as it may seem
Lieutenant Ray pronounces them the best
governed and happest people in the world.
There appears to be no clashing OF interests
among them, and no bully has ever yet come
| to the front and bulldozed the tribe by assert
ing that might made right. Fighting aud
quaTeling are unknown. Ray says he new
er saw a child punished in any form, and
yet he reports the children as well behaved,
modest and honest. As high as twenty-five
children have visited the station at one time,
and their department would be such that he
could not help but notice the striking con-
trast between them and the children who had
all the advantages of civilization. However
small the child might be it never intruded
itself into unlimited places. No mat
| ter how many tools, articles of clothing or
| provisions were scattered around, the lieu
tenant never saw them touch thing, much
less to try to appropriate or steal them. III
anything was given a child, it showed its ap-
! probation thereat, sometimes in words, but
more often in smiles, and by informing its
| playfellows that he or she had been shown
especial favors by the great white captain.
The only blow Raw ever saw struck in these
tribes was by husband who boxed his wife's
ears for supposed inidelity.
Thieving is seldom known among the men
or women of the tribes, and when it does oc-
cur there is no punishment for the crime.
The thief makes no secret of his action and
|
the whole tribe a few minutes after appropri-
ating to its own use. The pretty thief will
| take a Ratchet from its owner and in half an
| hour loan it to him to some work and the
| owner is in honor bound to return it to the
scamp who stole it. A case in point is as fol-
| lows: One of the tribe stole tent from an
other one. He ''pitched" the tent few
minutes later, and in half an hour had at his
| guest for dinner the original owner. The
| owner knew the tent and yet came within
its folds and partook of the hospitality of the
thief. Possession appears to be nine points
of the law with them. A police court would
soon become bankrupt there. Neither tribe
| appears to have any marriage ceremony. II
| the man is willing and the woman also, there
is no legal impediment and the twain are as
| one. There is but little funeral ceremony.
When a male dies his body is sewed up in
canvas or deer skin, placed on sledge
and moved out on the tundra, where it re-
mains. The deceased's effects are all broken
up over the body. If a woman died the only
change in form of burial in simply breaking
a bowl over the body. Having no impli-
ments to penetrate the hard frozen ground
and there being scarcity of lumber where
with to build catches, the above manner Of
disposing of their dead seems to be the only
practicable way. Many persons have accused
these tribes of having no feeling for their
doad, not stopping to consider the difficulties
surrounding them and the almost impossible
ity of giving them decent sepulchre. Ray
| says the memory of the deceased is ever cher
ished with kindliest feelings, and when they
speak of the departed it is with reverence
ahd charity not surpassed by the white race.