The record-union., 1891-03-23
WOMEN OF THE INDIANS.
Their Privations and Their Devotion
to Thefr Cruel Lords.

w az oielcSS Ol SldNtTy, l0G 1aIe
OF their sex in every savage race, have
but few amusements, writes Henry Inman
III the Kansas City Star. They accept
their condition stoically, however, by the
unerring law of heredity through ages of
abuse and servile obedience. The lower
the tribe in the scale of humanity, the
more degraded the women. Among the
Diggers of Oregon and Washington, with
which sayages | passed three or four
years, the poor squaws are to be pitied.
Living on roots and insects, which the
women must furnish, their existence as q
tribe may well be imagined to be very
precarious one. If the camas, bulb
growing deep in the ground and very
sweet, should fail, or the acorn and ''blacl
cricket crop be not plentiful in any year,
their winter is liable to be one OF pinch
ing poverty and starvation. | have often
looked with profound pity upon troops of
their old and young SquawS under the
hot summer sun wandering, day after
day, over the prairies, the mothers with
their little ones strapped to their backs,
armed with long iron, with which they
dug the sometimes hard soil for the roots
that furnished a large portion of their
support, haggard, broken down, but never
complaining of their wearisome task.
Among many of the tribes, however,
the women are allowed to have some
amusement, but it is generally when their
lords are half drunk. The Dallotahs fire.
qucntly permitted their women to in
dulge in Il game of ball, which, however,
differed entirely from that played by the
men. When the men had Worn them
selves out with their own games and were
in q maudlin state from too much whisky,
but wanted to have a little more fun, they
would notify everyone that the squaws
were going to have game of ball of their
sGWn- Then when the game began the
bucks would roll over on the ground and
laugh at the curious antics of their sduaWs
in their awkward playing. Frequently,
Wnen the men had been very lucky in
their trapping, or had been successful in
making good trades with the whites, they
would open their hearts and donate piles
OF gaudy goods, such as calicoes, ribbons
and strings of beads, besides many other
bright-colored things known only to the
Indian trade and found only IN the stores
of the traders. These things, which were
the prizes to be contended for, would be
put on stick, which itself rested on two
crotched poles upright in the ground, and
over which an old man kept guard. This
old man was also the umpire OF the game
The women were then divided into two
equal parties and the ball, or rather two,
for they play with two, fastened to the
ends OF string, eighteen or twenty inches
long. Every squaw engaged in the game
holds i'll each hand small stick on which
she must try to catch the string to which
is attached the two balls, and when she
succeeds in doing this she throws them TO
and over the goal of the side on which she
is playing. II is a remarkable conlical
sight TO see the women roll over in the
dust and dirt in their frantic efforts to
catch the string on their sticks, while the
men lie flat on the ground and roar with
laughter at them.
Notwithstanding the women are kept so
degraded, there is as much affection
[ m rafr f.ans Il l,,.1
dren as have ever witnessed among the
Caucasian race. | viii relate but two in
stances here, both of which came under
my own observation. though / could pre-
sent hundreds.
During the campaign of 1869, was
riding with party of men and officers
south of the Arkansas. We had been
watching some Of the cavalry unearth
three or four dead warriors, who had been
killed by some scouts in q terrible fight
some weeks before, and as we rode into n
small ravine in the sand hills, we came to
Il rude lodge, inside of which on q rough
platform, or bier, fashioned of green poles.
reposed dead warrior in full war dress,
his shield ofbuffalo hide, pipe ornamented
with eagles feathers, and his medicine
bag lying on the ground beside him. At
his head, on her knees, her hands clasped
in the attitude of prayer, was q squaw.
frozen to death. Which had first sue
cumbed, whether the wounded chief, her
husband, or the devoted wife. to the av
ful cold of that winter prairie, will never
be known, but it shows her love for the
man who had, perhaps, beaten her hun
dred times.
Late in the fall of 1857 was one of a
party on the trail of q band of Indians that
had been committing some terrible dep
relations in a mining camp, killing sew
eral men and mutilating their remains.
Indian fashion. On the fourth day out.
just about dusk, we struck their trail,
which we followed all night, and came
upon their camp in the gray light of the
morning. 1t was on the Upper Column
bia, in Oregon, at place called Priests
Rapids. Surprising and attacking it, in
less than as many minutes we had killed
twelve Indians, lost five of our men and
captured six prisoners. Then, just as the
morning sun began to gild a hundred
peaks of the coast range far to the west,
after having granted our prisoners a half
hour to take leave of their families, who
were there, the ankles and arms OF each
were bound, and they were made to kneel
on the prairie, facing the sun. A SQUAD
Of men with loaded rifles were drawn
up eight PAGES away in front of them,
and when the Lieutenant in command
dropped his handkerchief, before the re-
port OF the guns had echoed over the hills,
the savages had tunIbled dead mass on
VIC SUI. lHe parting between Jne con-
demned men and their young wives and
children, | shall never forget, though
thirty-three years have elapsed since
then. 1t was the most perfect exposition
of real marital and filial love that i have
ever witnessed even among the most re-
fined and cultured people. They may
seem cruel and heartless in the light of
| to-day-such harsh measures-but there
was only martial law out in the wilder
ness then, and it was necessary.