The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1895-08-16
THE ALABAMA INDIANS.
Remnants Of the Tribe Located in
the State Of Texas.
Engaged In Agriculture and Industrious
Workers : Some of the Queer
Customs Still In Vogue
Among Them.

The remnant of the Alabama tribe,
which migrated to the Trinity river re-
gion early in the present century, is
branch of the Creek nation, and is in
termixed with few Coshattas and
Muscogees. They speak three differ
ent languages, all evidently dialects OF
the Creek, and most of them under
stand the Mobile tongue, or servite
Choctaw, which, like the French of Eu-
rope, was the universal language
among the tribes and their usual means
of communication with the whites.
The remnant of this race, says the
Chicago Tribune, now numbers about
a hundred. Their crops are principally
cultivated for their own use, rather
than for sale. Indian corn is the
principal, although many of them
plant potatoes, and all of them vege-
tables, and they usually fill their
villages with fruit trees. During the
season of cultivation they remain
closely at home, working Industrious
ly, and hunting only at such times as
they have leisure from their crops.
''But when everything has been
gathered and housed, the last crevice
Of their granaries is closed to exclude
light and air as guard against weevil,
then comes the return to Indian life
and Indian enjoyment. They break up
into hunting parties after the Arab
fashion, taking with them their wives
and children, their horses and tents,
i I. I. II \ ..Az IL
wild pine forests, away from the settle
ments, and work their way in the dense
canebrakes along the rivers which
white men rarely if ever penetrate.
They soon fill their campswith game,
and alone with themselves and nature,
ever safe from the intrusion of a supe-
rior and conquering race, they enjoy
the realization of Indian life as it was
before the white man discovered their
country. When weary of the chase,
or satisfied with its results, they rettsrn
to their villages their horses laden with
dried meat, deerslins to be dressed for
the market, and bears oil in skins for
their own use or for sale. These ex-
cursions occupy their time until the
season comes for repairing their fences
and making ready for their crops,
when they all return home cheerful
and eontented to begin the routine for
another year.
Like other Indians they have that
fatal passion for ardent spirits which
seems destined to be their extermina-
tion. But it is generally kept within
bounds, as they do not drink habitual
ly. A constitutional depression of spir-
it's, to which they are peculiarly sub
ject, or an overflow of social feeling on
the reunion with friends returning
from their hunting excursions, usually
leads to debaueh. One after anoth-
er is drawn in and the revel sometimes
extends over two or three davs and
nights When it is over they carefully
efface all traces of their dissipation,
dress themselves handsomely, return to
their usual avocations, and for long
time drink nothing Intoxicating.
They have wild, irregular code of
dueling of their own and are always
ready to throw away life on point of
honor, and do it with coolness and
Indifference which would excite the
envy of white advocate of the code.
In fact, they do not seem to feel any
instructive dread of death. They speak
of it with as much indifference as of
any future event and meet it apparent
~ without fear or reluctance.
When their crops are worked to
point of safety they are willing to help
their white friends At farms where
they are kindly treated and where they
find it agreeable to stay they work at
moderate wages, and during the cotton
season give important aid Cotton
picking is their favorite work, Their
small hands and 1.-THE and agile forms
glide through the cotton without
breaking or otherwise injuring it. As
they pick by weight and are permitted
to choose their own time of work. this
leaves them that freedom of action
they prize so highly. They pick very
neatly and carefully, attend strictly to
the instructions of their employers, and
in this, as in all their relations with the
whites who treat them kindly, are uni
formly desirons to please.
Etiquette with them requires the wife
to wait on the husband. This rule is
notallowed to bear heavily upon the
woman. however. What time the hus-
band can spare from his own peculiar