The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-12-17
SOME INDIANS
| HAVE KNOWN
The Cheyennes of Southern
Montana
The U. S. Reclamation Service, a Short
Time ago, Completed a Large |rri-
cation Project to be Used En-
tirely by the Indians
Choutauq,ta Paper By L. p. F.

We all hear a great deal, or at
least read great deal, concerning
the rapid progress and successful
achievements of the North Ameri-
can Indians; who are proteges OF
the U. S. Government and are loca-
ted throughout the country on many
different reservations. Newspapers
and numerous periodicals from time
to time print different articles, or
stories, of some one Indian, or some
tribe of Indians, who have disre-
garded all ancestral savage tactics,
and have shown. or are showing,
that they are rapidly approaching
the stage of becoming self sustain
ing, intelligent American citizens.
But, because certain Lost Leg
or Iron Hand, has succeeded in:way-
laying and destroying all barriers
between the unciyilized and civilized
spheres of existence; because of him,
and few others like him, who have
succeeded in entering into the fold
of superior beings, do you think
that all his other brothers and neigh
boris brothers, will be repetitions Of
his case?
My answer to that question, is no.
Now because my answer is no, do
not think that 1 profess to be an
authority upon the life of the Indian.
Nor have 1 given my time to in
vestigate the life and habits of the
Indian, nor ever consulted a volume
containing statistics of the Indian.
But have lived and worked among
some Indians for a period of two or
three years upon one of these many
Reservations located in the west.
And you see by doing so, could
no, help but pick up an acquaintance
with several chieftains, and chief
tain's brothers, and it is of these
several chieftains, and chieftain's
brothers, that 1 will endeavor to
write. l shall call them: Some
Indians I have Known.
This tribe, they are Cheyennes.
Prisoners of War. They are locat-
ed upon a small Reservation ajoin-
ing the Crows, in the extreme
southern part of Montana.
The u. S. Reclamation Service,
a few years ago, completed large
irrigation project to be used entirely
by the Indians, whereby they could
raise their own crops and soon be-
come self-supporting.
At the time of it's completion,
large percentage of the Indians
those of whom the local Agent had
hopes in-were allotted five and ten
acre sections to call their homes,
with a Government employed Boss
Farmer, to instruct them in the art
of gardening. They were told how,
when, and what to plant, and they
were promised as an inducement, a
fenced twenty-acre section above the
ditch, for their own personal pasture
use. They were instructed as to
the operation of their lateral head
gates, and they were shown just
where to tap their laterals in order
to irrigate any certain strip of
ground. Above all, they were re-
peatedly and emphatically informed,
that it was absolutely impossible to
make water run up hill.
Well, they started. That is about
as much as some of them did do.
The plow points became dull from
connecting with that never titled
alkali soil; the farmers were too
busy to sharpen them, and the In
dams were to tired to sharpen them.
As a consequence, some Informed
the Agent they were perfectly will
ing to surrender their allotments to
any, or all who came along, and any,
way, semi no onthly rations, had more
of an appealing nature to them, than
once a-seasOn crop.
Their were few, I will admit.
who did as we we would say in
slang stuck it OUT" but these few.
were the ones who had previously
resided a mile or so from the river.
As things were on there allotment.
it was much handler for the squaws
to take their washing those few
steps to one of the laterals, than it
had previously been to journey
those two long miles to the river;