The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-04-21
INDIANS WINTERING.


here day or two ago, and took g
peep into a number of tepees to
see how the Cheyennes were max
ing out with the thermometer
at forty-seyen degrees below zero,
In the first lodge or tepee were half a
dozen lazy bucks, sitting around q
smoldering fire in the center of the
place, and all furiously smoking-both
the fire and the bucks, After being
elected from their nostrils in great
clouds, the smoke assembled to the top,
where the lodge-pole crossed, and es-
capped through an aperture left for that
purpose. These idle fellows did moth.
ing for living, but sat around in q
circle from morning till night, saying
scarcely word to one another and
smoking necessarily. The squaws
brought them a little parched corn
once in awhile, which made up their
bill of fare for the day. The first thing
in the morning they would all take a
smoke, and then eat little corn for
breakfast. Then they'd smoke again
till dinner time, eat little more corn
and 90 to smoking again. The putting
would continue until evening, when
supper would be had of the same old
menu, a little more smoking. and then
a bed of buffalo robes or animal skins
until morning, Next day the same
old laborious programme would be
gone through with, and so on until the
advent of warm weather.
/ was little curious TO know Just
what the Indians were smoking, for |
knew il was not tobacco from its Pc
culiar odor-a sort of greenish fresh
ness that was very pleasant to inhale.
So made bold TO inquire of a Chey-
enne buck, with whom / had some
slight acquaintance from frequently
seeing him in the post traders store at
the fort, what the compound was. Be
tween nv broken Cheyenne and his
broken English we managed TO make
mutually understood, and this
is the substance of it:
The stuff is called kinne-kan-nick.
and is a sort of wild tobacco made
from the bark of willow trees. Dur
ing the summer the sguaws gather
bundle of the large sized shoots and
carry them TO the tepee, where the wind
does not blow. and there scrape off the
bark with a knife. First the outside
coating is taken off, which is thrown
away; the soft inner bark is then
seraped into a piece of antelope or
deer skin and left 10 dry. Ii is of a
dark greenish color, and emits a pleas
ant smell. When dry, the squaws
grease their hands with buffalo fat. and
then crush the bark until it is pulver-
lied fine enough for the pipe, the re-
suit of which is the grease adhering to
the particles of bark makes it burn
freely. The Crows and Piegans use a
sort of sumach for tobacco, which is
found growing on a stunted vine in the
Rocky Mountains, far above the per-
petual snow-line.
All through this Cheyenne village In
dians were existing rather than living,
a kind of Information. as il were, await
ing the advent of warm weather before
they come forth from their tepees to lay
in a supply of kinne-kan-nick and
parched corn for the ensuing winter
The Cheyennes have now a reservation
set apart for them by Executive order
dated November 26 last, and as their
reserve joins the Crow reservation on
the east. Agent Armstrong, the present
agent of the Crows, is 10 act in like
capacity for the Cheyennes.
This reservation is about thirty miles
long by twenty miles wide, and con-
tains little over six hundred square
miles, or about three hundred and
eighty-five thousand acres of land. 1t
is on the south side of Yellowstone
River. between the southern limit of
the forty-mile grant of the Northern
Pacific Railroad and the northern Dor
der of Wyoming. There are exactly
six hundred and ten Cheyenne Indians to
provide for, which will give just one
square mile of land TO each buck,
squaw and pappoOSe. The order pro-
vides that bona fide settlers who were
On the new reserve prior to October 81,
1884, should be allowed to remain and
retain a homestead claim of one hundred
and sixty acres of land each, but they
must keep themselves, their herds and
their fiocks within their one hundred
and sixty acres and not allow them to
roam at large nor Craze over the
remainder of the reservation. There
are fifteen settlers, or ranchmen. who
come under the head of bona fide set
tiers, and their herds are scattered far
and wide over the country. Consider
ing it from any point of view, the or
der gives satisfaction to neither whites
nor reds. The Indians do not want
white men living on their reservation,
and the latter want the Indians moved
out of the country. For long time
the Cheyennes and the cattlemen have
been at war-not real open warfare,
but war on the sly; cowboys shooting
at Cheyennes, and Cheyennes killing a
steer or two when hard pressed by hum
ger, in which, as q general thing, the
Indians got the worst of it-and as this
of a great race, nomadic for
Al