The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1902-02-09
OKLAHOMA
FULLBLO0DS
ARE D00ME
Matt Duhr, Student of Indians
Predicts Their End
IN FIFTY MORE YEARS
They Must Observe Health Law
to Maintain Race.

the Oklahoma Indians is a subject on
which Matt Duhr, the Indian writer, has
spent much study, and in regard TO this
subject has made many interesting OBJ
servations. in speaking about the des-
tiny of the Indians Mr.. Duhr says:
THE 10000, more or less, Oklahoma In
dams are working out. with the able
assistance Of surrounding circumstances,
their inevitable destiny. Their doom is
certain, like their once favorite beast,
the American buffalo, and it win be the
utter extinction of the fuH-bloods within
the next fifty years. Like the Israelites
in the Babylonish captivity, they hang
their harps on the willow trees and re-
fuse to be comforted, bewailing their
fate meanwhile.
They blame the 'pesky' white man for
all their troubles and tribulabons. when
it is a fact that none of them ever ate a
decent meal except when prepared by
their so-called enemies.
MANY of their present evils no doubt
were engendered by too pettish treat
ment from the government for having
sold their patrimony, like the prodigal
son. they spent it in riotous living, until
sometimes they have to subsist on the
husks that are fed to swine. They are a
stiff necked, a perverse generation, being
inflicted with the incurable 'big-head.'
Most of the younger chaps are smart and
able.
The white man has raised the value Of
their land 50 per cent. They could learn
agriculture and kindred useful branches.
if they wanted 10. But, alas. they are
hound to run after their own idols, de-
light to wallow in primeval heather ig-
norance and knock out their scanty
brains against the stone wall of fate
Eight years ago, at Pawhuska, a res
ident Catholic priest told me: The GOO
Usage half-breeds are trying to live civ
ilized lives. but the 700 Usage fun
bloods are as much heather as were their
ancestors 1000 years ago. They deposit
their dead on rocky mounds, make glut-
tons of themselves, and make much fun
Of more sensible. Indians that try TO
work and learn something.
THE $50 Pawnees are mostly retrograd-
ing. INDUCING in weird ghost dances.
grunting over their awful lot drinking
all of the bad liquor they can get, OFTEN
gorging themselves on meat and then
starving for several days. The older
scalpers delight 10 exhibit their large col
lections of scalps. and then close up by
saying 'Ha, no. hi: the millennium is at
hand. when the white man viii be
changed into fish and the negroes into
bears and buffaloes, and the earth viii
give up all of the Pawnees that ever
lived since the first Pawneee adorned the
earth.
The Otoes. Poncas and Missouris are
rushing TO extinction at a lively rate, so
that only a few viii be left in thirty
years. The Sacs and Foxes have dwin-
died down to about 400. Consumption,
intemperance and veneral diseases are
fast undermining the health of the rem
nants, so that in fifty years genuine
Ozoukee win he stared at by curiosity
hunters in freak dime museums.
1.-The few hundred Kickapoos are
mostly langushing in far distant Mexico,
and aften eat only one meal every two
days. Only few of them stoop to the
work of cultivating their rich allot-
ments, and Miss Test. the Quakeress, who
has labored among them for the last
thirty years. feels that the most of her
work has been lost.
THE Cheyennes and Arapahoes are
making little progress, only few of them
consenting to work even a little. \ ma
iority of the younger Indians that were
educated at Haskell or Carlysle revert to
barbarism as soon as they return 10 the
boundless plains or primeval forests The
older ones actually joke them back into
their former savsgery. The squawmen
arc also becoming greatly less, at least
since the settling of Oklahoma by the
whites. Hardly any marriages between
whites and Indians took place during the
last twelve years. Fertile allotments
seem TO be poor 'beau-catchers' in Okla
homa. and that is another good sign
that the days Of the Oklahoma Indians
are surely numbered.
The inevitable doom OF the red race in
this territory could 10 some extent be
postponed by making the Indians live ac-
cording TO the laws Of health. make them
cultivate their lands. severely punish
them for incestous marriages. discour-
age their inveterate gambling and much
strong drinking. and otherwise keep them
from tumbhng into their open graves.