The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-01-23

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were devoured. Animals, such as rabbits, prairie
rats and dogs were then strangled to death that
their souls would announce to those in the other
world the immediate coming of the deing war
rior. The bodies of the animals were then chopped
up, boiled and eaten When the feast was over the
neighbors retired and the wives began to weep and
howl, tearing out their hair, and, with obsidan OF
flint, knives cutting gashes in their limbs and
bodies.
To dwell longer the superstitions manners
and customs of the Utes is beyond the paginal
limit and scope of this history so we pass from
the Timpanogoes or Lagunas of Utah Lake to the
Puaguampe or "sorcerers" of Great Salt Lake.
Who then were these sorcerers this witch tribe
who, when the priests we're with the Timpanogoes
were no friends to the Lagunas!
Would it surprise you to be told that all France
Italy. Spain and few minor European common
weaths, confederated into an empire. would, ter
ritorialy. barely represent the area of the region
held till, historically very late by an Indian peo-
pie whose name is probably unknown to any stu
dent in high schools, colleges and uniyerites
Fifty years ago there was no race of people in
the world less known than the Northern Denes
from whom descended the fighting Apaches and
the Navajos. For time this Athabascan nation
was thought to be Algonquin till Horatio Hale
Major Powell and that distinguished Oblate mis-
sionary and ethnologist, Father Morice, proved
them to be great and separate people West of
the Rocky mountains the Denes roamed through
five and one-haf degrees of latitude, even to the
borders of the Eskimo hunting grounds
Some time in the remote past, why, or when
Il +r;I,o
separated from their parent stock and wandered
into south and southwestern lands Two facts alone
seem to be established, namely, the drifting apart
of the southern members of the Athabascan nation
resulting in disruption of national W and the !
formation of three distinct bodies the Atalbascan
the Apache and the Navajos. For hundreds, it
may be thousands of years, two vigorous branches
of the great Dene lived and thri7ed apacc
knowing nothing of their parent trunk. These off
shoots took root and flOurishcd in Arizona. north
eastern California, Oklahoma and Colorado.
'Ihese" (thc Denes). writes the ethnologst Brin-
ton, extended nterruptedIy from the Arctic sea
to the borders of Durango. Mexico, and from uud
son bay to the Pacific ocean"
Early in the sixteenth century wondering fam
lily Of Apaches (Dcncs) intcrn;ayrcd with Utc
family. from which union sprang the JaclriIia,
Apache. better known as Apachcs-Y agneros. and a~
the Uuta iennc (G2ografia de las Lcnguas BY
Orozco Bcrra). Tire Puaguompc of Salt Lake
were an outlawcd band ct jacorill9s rejected alike
by tic and Apache
In the summer of 1871 Father De Snet visited
this band Of Yutaicnne Pay-Utcs and this Is
what he writes cf them.
"The Pay-Utes are the nearest neighbors to the
snakes (the Tmpanogces or Lagunas of Father
Escalante), There is not, very likely, in the UNI
verse more degraded and poorer people They
have clothing: they live in holes dug in the
Garth: they range the land in search Of ants or
grasshoppcrs, which they feed. Respectable ana
credible persons assure NC they cat the corpse G.
their own kindred and sometimes even Of their own
children. | have seen the Pay-Utcs cat vermn
off each other b. the fistful' pages 9601022.) Il
When. in 1859, Lieutenant Simpson was on hi,
official survey of the Great Salt Lake region Ike
them on the southwestern shore of
Salt lake. They were then known as Piceds
Snake caters" though Simpson, unfortunately.
omts their name i'll his Report.
Simpson got enough of them. and gives expres
sion to his loathing in vigorous terms He writes
They are more filthy than beasts and live in hab
itatons which. summer and winter are nothing
than circular Enclosures about three feet high
made of sage brush and cedar branches and which
serve only to break off the wind. Their vOcabu
larry shows them to be distinct tribe. Children
at the breast were perfectly naked. and this at a
time when ovcrcoats were required by US. | visit !
cd one of their dens or wikiups the offal around
and within few feet of it was so offensive as to
cause my stomach to reach and force me to re
treat"
These animazed people fed roasted grass
hoppcrs and large crickcts gophers, rats ans
snakes chopped up and mixed with grease. The
sacrificed human beings to propitate the demon
whom they invoked. and fed on the flesh of the
victim to complete the sacrifice. With the hope of
propitiating and gaining the good will Of the de
mon, they cut and pierced their flesh endangerine