260 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



who come out at night to sit on the margin of the water and 

 sing doleful songs ; and of a great variety of other strange 

 and ghostly personages, and they have a host of stories con- 

 cerning these weird people, many of which have been careful- 

 ly .gathered up. 



It is found that their political organization has a territorial 

 basis. All of the region of country between the Rocky Mount- 

 ains and the Sierra Nevada, south of Middle Oregon, has 

 been divided or parceled out, and to each district of country 

 some small tribe belongs, taking the name of the land. Wish- 

 ing to discover with what tribe or political organization an' 

 Indian is connected, it is necessary to ask him, " What is the 

 name of your land ?" or, " How are you land-named ?" Some- 

 times two or more of these land organizations are united into 

 a confederacy; but this is not very permanent, and is of little 

 force unless strengthened by necessities for defense against a 

 common enemy. The most fundamental, and the universal 

 political organization, is that depending on a division of the 

 land. As all of these tribes call themselves severally by the 

 names of the districts of country which they occupy, such as 

 affiliate socially and speak the same or nearly the same dia- 

 lects, know each other by the same names ; but tribes more 

 remote, either in territory or language, call each other by 

 terms which are descriptive of some peculiarity of the peo- 

 ple some habit, perchance. Thus the Indians whom we 

 know as Utes call other Indians, whom we know as Western 

 Shoshonees, by the name of Ta-sau-Avi-his, or White Knives, 

 and the Arapahoe Indians they call Sa-ri'-ta-kais, or Dog- 

 Eaters. 



A careful study has been made of their rude industries, 

 their clothing and ornaments worn anterior to the advent of 

 the white man, their bows and arrows, war clubs, spears, nets, 

 snares, hooks, and other devices for catching animals and fish, 

 their primitive methods of cultivating the soil, and a great 

 variety of seed, some of which they cultivate, others which 

 they gather as they grow wild on the plains. 



Their burial rites and marriage customs, and many other 

 facts to illustrate their mental habits and their social and 

 physical condition, have been noted, so that the forthcoming 

 report on these explorations will treat at length of the Indians 

 of the valley of the Colorado. 



