St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-01-01
MILLIONAIRE INDIANS.
The Usage Indians Claimed to be Arts
tocratic and Very Wealthy.
THEY ARE SELF-SUPPORTING
A Lazy, Shiftless, Hard-Drinking, Car
ousing Set, Who Have Implicit Con-
fidelce in Medicine Men.

A visitor to the Usage reservation, In
dian territory, if he has mind to study
the human race under varying condi-
ton, finds much of interest. He is in
ter primes among the aristocrats. The
Usage Indians are about the only ex-
ample now left in the United States of
real aristecracy. They do not depend
upon government rations, as do the
CheyenneS and others, at all, but have
enough of their own undisputed prop
erty to make them the wealthiest COM
munity in the country. Besides the
land of the reservation, which belongs
TO them by a title hard to assail, they
have about $7,000,O0 bearing per cent
interest in the hands of the govern
ment. They are paid about $3.50, 900 a
year in cash. The entire tribe numbers
only LOGO, so that they are actually the
richest body of people we have, SAYS
the Kansas City Times.
The OSages have all the attributes of
an aristocracy. They own the land, do
absolutely no work, have plenty of
money, know nothing of barter and sale,
and therefore not much of the mean
ness which characteriZes all commercial
classes. They envy nobody, and are
satisfied with themselves and their Gus
toms: With the virtues of aristocracy
they have its vices. With generosity
they have shiftlessness and lazi-
ness in perfection. Though mag
nificent pastures lie before them
for miles, few of them take the
trouble to own cattle, the majority
preferring to buy beef alreedy slaugh-
tered and cut up from the traders. They
are not even hunters and fishers. Their
" are spent in lying around under
tents and shanties, eating to repletion
and filling their blood with impurities
which they do not take exercise enough
to get rid of. Bad habits have brought
on bronchial and strofulous diseases,
which are helping to still further reduce
their number. They have no faith in
white physicians, and their own medi-
cine-men have as much influence as 100
years ago.
The government puts a premium on
reproduction by the system of distribu-
ton adopted. Each member of the
tribe, including women and children,
receives about 500 year. The more
wives and children an Usage has, there
fore, the richer he is. In spite of this
encouragement the tribe is decreasing,
A white physician at the agency esti-
mates that the rate of decrease is not
less than 2 per cent year among the
full bloods. The half-breeds are in
creasing. 1t can be at once reckoned
that in another half century the full
bloOds will have gone. and the splendid
inheritance will be in the possession of
new policy is adopted by the govern
ment to hasten the catastrophe.
The full bloods are nearly all honest
and manly in their way. They have an
idea that every thing on the reservation
belongs to them, and they go behind the
counters and among the goods of the
post traders as freely as though they
were proprietOrs. Up to certain point
they understand business-debt and
credit-but not much beyond the SIM
pest forms. AS might be expected, they
are chronically in debt. They want to
buy everything they see, and think lit
tie of prices, and give away as readily
as they buy. Other tribes not so well
provided with worldly goods are fond
of visiting the Osages, and on
these occasions the custom of
smoking" presents works to the
disadvantage of the wealthier. Several
hundred ponies and large amounts of
various property have thus been given
to the Kaws and other poorer tribes
within few years.
Can the Osages be civilized? Of course
they can. They are not civilized, to be
sure. They speak little English, and
wear the blanket and breech-clout; they
allow their women to die by scores in
childbirth, and compel them to do all
the work; they are too lazy to raise cat
tie when pasture and feed cost neither
money nor work; they keep up the
dances and paints, and cut their hair in
helmet fashion. All these things they
do, but they could be easily taught to
adopt the customs of civilization. Five
years of education scientifically applied
would make them equal to the Cherokees
in civilization, and superior to them in
force of character.