The Opelousas courier., 1889-01-05
AN INDIAN AGENCY.
Scenes 1T the Issue of Annuities
at Fort Yates.
How the Indians Pass the Win
ter Near the Agency.

~ UoCA AouS at tu6 q
-ck Agency, Fort Yates, Dakota, says
a ritter in the New York Sun, when
tb regular issue of annuities was made
to the Indians of the reservation. The
Indians received their articles in q room
about thirty feet square, surrounded on
three sides by counters piled high with
annuity goods. Along the other side of
the room were the desks of the clerks,
Inspector, Indian agent, &c. When !
reached the building, there was a string
OF Indians pressing against the door like
a lot of theatre .goers at the box office
on a first night. It was only by actually
taking hold of and pushing some of the
evil-smellrng fellows aside that I was
able to reach the door at all.
When I entered a blanket full of
various articles was being liiL,gged out
of the opposite door. WitEep ne Il. had
entered an Indian to receive his .,,issue,
AS soon as he entered q blanket was
spread on the floor, and a glib-tongped
young clerk began to rattle off the f.eA
OF things that the Indian and his famiI'
were to receive. In a moment the all
was literally thick with articles. Trou-
sers, pals, caps, shawls, blankets, stock
ings, tin plates and cups, woven wire
mattresses, butter knives, boxes of
axle grease, wooden ~scarfs, mittens,
axes, canvas, needles, thread and cotton
shirts, all rained down in the most
bountiful ann upon the blanket,
which was then gathered at the four
corners and dragged to the floor, where
Its new owner received it.
While all of the Indians receive GER
tain articles, those who have made the
most progress in civilization and have
been most subordinate during the past
year are specially favored, and it is the
further carrying out of the policy here
Indicated that is so rapidly turning the
Sioux Indians from their savage habits
to those of civilization. The principal
articles are always issued in the early
winter, in order hat the Indians
may be as comfortable as possible dur
ing that cold season. Other thin s,
such as horses, ploughs, wagons, har-
ness, oxen, etc., are issued in the spring,
when they are most needed to help the
Indians in their agriculture.
Some of the Indians accept civilized
customs with great reluctance. A day
or two after the issue 1 saw spring mat
tresses used to soften the joltings of
their wagons, and axle gSaase used as
butter, while trousers were in almost
every case transformed into leggins,
The issue of annuities signifies to tho
Indians that winter has really come, and
Immediately after it those Indians who
have spent the warmer months wander
Jag about the prairies come in and camp
in a great village about q mile from the
agency. A great many live, even dur
ing the intense cold Of a Dakota winter,
in canvas tents, OF tepees. These are
made circular, and are left open at the
top to allow the escape OF the smoke
from a small wood fire always kept
burning in the centre of the earthen
floor. In order to protect themselves
from the cold as much as possible, the
Indians build their village in a broad
bottom thiekly overgrown with dwarf
willows. In addition to this, two or
tire families pitch their tents together
and tuild a high hedge or fence of
brushWood around them to break the
force of the wind. The lower edge of
the tent is piled afoot high with sods
and earth. It would be difficult for
a white man to live through a win
ter IN ono of these tepees, on account of
the cold as we'll as on account of the
smoke with which they are always
filed when the fire is burning. The
perform all of the manual labor,
and I have seen old, bent, wrinkled
ones trudging homeward through the
deep snow, each bearing upon her back
a bundle Of dry sticks twice her size.
Some of the indians have built them
selves small log houses and have been
provided with stoves. This transition
from the tepee to the house is one of the
for the indians to make In
this respect they resemble the more civ
ilized tribes Of wandering gypsies.
Nearly all of the Indians own ponies
and many own oxen. As soon as the
first snow falls these animals are seen
harnessed to sleighs of the Indians own
construction. The sleighs are made en-
firely of wood, deity hewn into proper
shape with the axe, and fastened to-
BY wooden pins. Even during
the coolest weather, the Indians ponies
and oxen are turned loose to provide for
The ponies are accustomed
to that sort Of thing, and paw The snow
the ground and manage to find
enough grass to keep them alive until
but the oxen have to content
with what willow tops and
wild ose bushes they are able to find.
They suffer greatly from the cold, and
id the spring it is not unusual to see oxen
covered with raw. hairless matches az