The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1928-07-06
IOM-TOM BEAT !
HEARD0N UTAH
RESERVATIONS
Agent Charged With ignoring
Pleas for Medicine During
Flu Epidemic
Tribesmen Demand Right to
Use Own 'Companionate
Marriage Rites

B. Merritt, assistant commits.
sioner of Indian affairs. today
discounted the possibility Of
an uprising among the Goshute
Indians on the Deep Creek,
Utah, reservation.
Inspector Herbert H. Fiske.
Of Arizona, has been dispatched
to Deep Greek, Merritt said, and
the bureau is awaiting q report
from him, but confident that the
disturbance is a minor one.
Salt Lake City, Utah. July g.
(AP)-Efforts to determine
whether alcohol may have filtered
into the camps Of Goshute Indians
in eastern Utah to find expression
IN the throb Of tom-toms, were under
way today following reports the
tribesmen had threatened one reser.
walton official and sought the re-
moval Of another.
An unofficial investigation Of re-
ports the Indians were holding
nightly councils to express opposi-
ton to B. E. Brigance, agent At the
Deep Creek reservation, was started
yesterday by prohibition officers.
After q tour Of the reservation.
the officers announced they would
make every effort to keep liquor
from the Indians. They expressed
the belief that unless the tribesmen
are reused by alcohol tn. would
not make any show Of violence in
their campaign in which they are
understood to seek the removal Of
Brigance, together with DR.. E. A.
Farrow, superintendent Of the seven
Indian agencies in Utah.
The prohibition officers, who were
accompanie" on their unofficial in
vestigation by q Salt Lake City re-
porter, heard the Indians charge that
Brigance and Farrow had ignored
their pleas for medical attention dur
ing an influeAza epidemic which
took the lives Of 40 tribesmen last
spring. From other sources it was
stated that Brigan.e himself was
bedridden for five weeks while the
epidemic was at its height.
Brigance Denies Charges
Brigance was also CHARGED with
molesting young Indian girls, and
with having bought an automobile
with Indian bureau funds. These
charges were empiatically denied by
the agent, who declared that the
Indians secured . false statement
from one Indian girl. and that the
girl had told him of being forced to
make the statement.
The agent was quoted as having
said that he heard the beating Of
tom-toms in the hills back Of the
agency at night, and that friendly
Indians had told him Of threats made
against him by other Goshutes.
One. Of the Goshutes' chief reasons
1or their opposition to him, Brig
ance said, was his demand that
young couples Of the tribe conform
to the white mans marriage cere-
nony, instead Of the tribal rites,
which he described as being similar
20 companionate marriage"
1ll-feeling against the agent had
its inception some time ago when .
Piute Indian named Askame, whose
wife, Rosy, was . Goshute. was
killed by gunshot wounds, suppos-
edly in q drunken brawl. Brigance
said. The white authorities decided
that Askame had committed suicide,
but the Piute Indians charged Rosy
and her sister. Alice Baker. with
causing Askame's death, and de-
manded that the Goshutes surrender
the women so they could be dealt
with according to tribal custom.
The Goshutes agreed. and the
women fled to the agency for. pro-
lection, Brigance said. Eleven Piute
braves came to the agency and de-
manded tho women, but the agent
drove them off at the point Of =
gun, he added.