so. The chief tribe inhabiting the semi-mountainous sage-brush covered territory of Utah are the Indians of the same name (pronounced Yutas), all in a more or less savage condition, but with the exception of a few scattered bands, at peace, or at worst on terms of "armed neutrality," with the whites (p. 32). Pahutahs, Pahides, Shoshones, Loo-coo-rekah (or "sheepeaters"), &c., are the names of some of the smaller bands. Most of them are a low class, closely approximating to the Diggers, and poor in the extreme. The Goships are perhaps the most

wretched of them all. A well-known American humorist, who wrote an account of an excursion

across "the plains," as graphic as it is witty, speaks about these people in terms so truthful that, though it may surprise the author to find his notes referred to in a work of this nature, those who have seen the people spoken of will bear witness to their accuracy. "They are very considerably inferior to even the despised Digger Indians of California; inferior to all the races of savages on our continent; inferior to the Hottentots, and actually inferior in some respects to the Kytches of Africa. Such of them as we saw along the road, and hanging about the stations, were small, lean, 'scrawny,' creatures; in complexion a dull black, like the ordinary American negro, their faces and hands bearing dirt which they had been hoarding and accumulating for months, years, and even generations, according to the age of the pro

prietor.

A silent, sneaking, treacherous-looking race, taking note of everything covertly, like all other noble red men' that we (do not) read about, and betraying no sign in their countenances; indolent, everlastingly patient and tireless, like all other Indians; prideless beggars—for if the beggar instinct were left out of an Indian he would not 'go,' any more than a clock without a pendulum; hungry, always hungry, and yet never refusing anything that a hog would eat, though often eating what a hog would decline; hunters, but having no higher ambition than to kill and eat jackass-rabbits, crickets, and grasshoppers, and

embezzle carrion from buzzards and cayotes; savages who, when asked if they have the common Indian belief in a Great Spirit, show a something which almost amounts to emotion, thinking whiskey is referred to; a thin scattering race of almost naked black children, who produce nothing at all, and have no villages, and no gatherings together into strictly defined communities; a people whose only shelter is a rag cast on a bush to keep off a portion of the snow, and yet who inhabit one of the most rocky, wintry, and repulsive wastes that our country or any other can exhibit They deserve pity, poor creatures, and they can have mine at this distance. Nearer by, they never get anybody's." Yet these wretched creatures often waylay travellers, and were in the habit of attacking the overland stage. What they do now, except hang about the stations of the Pacific Railway, I cannot well imagine. The Government have attempted to gather them upon reservations, but the roving, vagabond

instinct is strong in them, as in all their race, and the experiment of preserving alive the remnant of them is hardly likely to be more successful than popular.

A few years ago their condition was even worse. Then they wore no clothing of any description, and made no more provision for their future wants than now. There were then no whites to rob, and their more powerful aboriginal neighbours took particular good care of any little portable property which they might possess. In the winter their condition was miserable. Snails, lizards, and other vermin on which they lived were torpid in holes beyond their reach, while the roots were buried beneath a deep covering of snow. They were said to retire at this season to the vicinity of timber, dig oven-like holes in the steep sides of the sand hills, “and sleep and fast till the weather permitted them to go abroad again for food. Persons who have visited their haunts after a severe winter have found the ground around these family ovens strewn with the unburied bodies of the dead, and others crawling among them, who had various degrees of strength, from a bare sufficiency to gasp in death, to those that crawled upon their hands and feet, eating grass like cattle." They had then no weapons of defence except the club, and even in the use of that they were far from skilful. Though such degradation almost passes our belief, yet it will be still more difficult to believe that less than thirty years ago, to use the language of our informant-Mr. Farnham-" these poor creatures were hunted in the spring of the year, when weak and helpless, by a certain class of men, and when taken were fattened, carried to Santa Fé, and sold as slaves during their minority. A likely girl' in her teens brought oftentimes £60 or £80. The males are valued at less."

Throughout the territory of Colorado the Cheyennes are the most powerful tribe, and one of the most ruthless of all the horse tribes. They have been continually in the midst of all the outrages on the travellers across the plains or on the settlements, and have been the subject of the most brutal retaliations by the whites. The Arraphoes and Kiowas also enter this region, and, like the Cheyennes, are beginning to get collected on reserves, finding that the railway has to a great extent destroyed their chance of successful depredation. A friend writes to me and his opinion may be taken as a fair average idea of the chances of these plain Indians ever taking to the arts of civilisation-" You were inquiring in regard to the state of the Indians in this territory. You know I always doubted whether there was a real 'friendly Indian' in this section. Last week, however, I saw one-quiet, peaceful, harmless he was suspended to the branch of a tree."

The Arraphoes, or "dog eaters" (Plate V., p. 129), get their name from their habit of fattening and eating dogs. They are sadly fallen off since the whites came on their borders, both in morals and in numbers. Thirty years ago, or less, trappers who lived amongst them gave them the name of being a fearless, ingenious, and hospitable people. At that time they owned large numbers of mules, dogs, sheep, and horses, and manufactured from the sheep's wool blankets of a very superior quality. So dense were these blankets, that rain would not penetrate them. A curious law of naturalisation prevails-or at least did prevail amongst them, which any man, either white or red, could avail himself of. The applicant was simply required to bring to the chief a horse swift enough to hunt the buffalo on, and another horse or mule capable of carrying a load of 200lbs. His intentions being made known, he was declared a member of the tribe, with all the honours, dignities, and immunities thereunto attached. wife was then provided for him. "The wife of an Arraphoe takes care of his horses; manu

A

factures his saddles and bridles, leash-ropes and whips, his mocassins, leggings, and huntingshirts, from leather and other materials prepared by her own hands; beats with a wooden adze his buffalo robes, till they are soft and pleasant for his couch; tans hides for his tent covering, and drags from the distant hills the clean white pine poles to support it; cooks his daily food, and places it before him; and should sickness overtake him, and Death rap at the door of his lodge, his squaw watches kindly the last yearnings of the departing spirit. His sole duty, as her lord in life and as a member of the Arraphoe tribe, is to ride the horse which she saddles and brings to his tent, kill the game which she dresses and cures, sit or slumber on the couch which she spreads, and fight the enemies of the tribe." Does civilisation supply much more, even on terms not widely different in kind though in degree? The Arraphoe language is the same as that spoken by the Comanches and Shoshones.

A curious medicine-rite, in performance of which young men go at a certain season of the year to fast in solitary places, &c., obtains amongst this and other plain tribes. This ceremony differs only in details from similar rites found among other tribes, both of North and South America, and even of Asia, where the young warriors and "medicine men" require to fast, and to frequently mingle in strange mystic dances, before they can attain the position at which they aim. Even among the Eskimo-the last people whom we should suppose to be addicted to this -the angekoks have to fast and dream in a manner almost identical with the custom as practised among the North-west Americans (p. 125). ·

The Arickarees, Poncas, Yanktons, Gros-ventres, and Sioux (or Dacotahs) are the chief tribes of the territory of Dacotah, and the latter also extend into Minnesota and the British territory of Red River (or Manitoba). They are one of the tribes which, in the American territory at least, have inflicted most injury on the white settlements. Numbering about 18,000 some eight or nine years ago, they descended on the white settlement, massacring and burning everywhere, and taking the women and children prisoners. The result was a long, bloody, and very unsatisfactory war, which in course of time died out, and for the time these Indians are at peace. It seems that the fear of the extermination of the buffalo is the chief cause which has led them to attempt to keep back the tide of emigration to and settlement on the prairies, once only sacred to the Indian and his prey. They roam about the country, subsisting on the buffalo, antelope, elk-deer, &c., which still abound. They have numbers of the common hardy fleet Indian ponies, and are most expert horsemen and daring warriors. In riding they use no saddle or bridle, and have no vehicle save the travaille-as the French Canadians call itcommon to many of the northern prairie tribes, which is a triangle formed of two poles, each twelve feet long, and connected by cross bars, which bear the load, while the apex rests on the horse's neck. For dogs they have a similar contrivance, but on a smaller scale. In travelling you generally see the women perched on the horses which have the travaille attached, while a long straggling chain of loaded dogs brings up the rear. On this travaille is placed their skin lodges and a few cooking utensils. In navigation most of them have little skill, using nothing but a rude boat formed of a buffalo-hide stretched over a round frame like a tub. When the stream is too deep to ford they use these to cross in, and then abandon them. They are a powerful race of men, averaging fully six feet in height. Notwithstanding that among these Indians, as among most savage tribes, who possess this animal, the term "a dog" or "a dog-eater" is an expression of contempt, yet they will eat its liver in order to try and become possessed of its courage

common with various other tribes of Indians, and many other savage races, they worship a watergod, his Sioux name being "Unktahe." They also worship gods of another type. Prescott tells us that a Sioux "will pick up a round stone of any kind, and paint it, and go a few rods from his lodge, and clear away the grass, say from one to two feet in diameter, and there place his stone, or god, as he would term it, and make an offering of some tobacco and some feathers, and pray to the stone to deliver him from some danger that he has probably dreamed of." If so, this is rather singular, for most of the Indians have no semblance of their gods. Among the Sioux also, as among other tribes, there is a curious variation on the ordinary marriage custom. A man will wed (by purchase) the chief's eldest daughter; after this all the other daughters belong to him, and he will take them to wife as suits him. Sir John Lubbock, perhaps