"Indians!" ****** 93 



gions there were conflicts between the parties whose year-around terri 

 tories were on opposite sides of the continental divide. 



The Indians of the Zion Park country were Piutes, a tribe that 

 ranged over much of Utah, nearly all of Nevada, and into eastern Cali 

 fornia, beyond the Sierra. There were Piutes in Owens Valley in the 

 Sierra Nevada, and in the 'sixties they were so fierce and warlike that 

 the United States had to send in troops to quell them. Fort Inde 

 pendence was built as a base for these troops. Today these Indians can 

 be seen in short side trips from Yosemite Park. 



The Piutes were troublesome to the early emigrants, first to the 

 Mormons, then to the California gold seekers. A string of early Mormon 

 forts was built in Utah as a protection from these redskins. One of 

 these forts is at Pipe Spring in northern Arizona, and is now in a 

 national monument, protected by the National Park Service. This fort, 

 however, was used mostly for the protection of early settlers from 

 marauding bands of Navahoes from the Southeast. 



One of the worst massacres recorded in American history was the 

 Mountain Meadows Massacre in southern Utah, perpetrated by Piutes 

 and the renegade whites who led them. This occurred not far from Zion 

 Park on the road to California. An entire emigrant train was overtaken 

 by these Indians and their white leaders, and most of the members of the 

 pioneer party were slain. 



Salt Lake City was the haven of safety and peace, the Zion of the 

 early Mormon settlers. In southern Utah, the canyon of the Mukuntu- 

 weap Creek, a branch of the Virgin River, was a place where the 

 Mormon pioneers of the southern part of the territory could hide from 

 the Indians in time of danger. They called this canyon Little Zion, and 

 today this canyon is the main feature of Zion National Park. In it and 

 in the Parunuweap Canyon near by are many indications of prehistoric 

 peoples. There were cliff dwellings in these canyons as well as other 

 structures on the cliffs and on the valley floors. 



In the California national parks, one finds traces of an entirely 

 different type of Indian. The natives who live in the foothills of the 

 Sierra Nevada are known as Digger Indians. They are rated low in 

 the classifications of Indians. Life was simple for them. In a balmy 

 climate, they needed little shelter and they eked out a living on nuts, 

 roots, plants, and such small animals as they could shoot, adding to this 

 diet the delicacy of grasshoppers. They were of the same general type 

 of Indian as those whom the Franciscan padres gathered in the Cali 

 fornia missions. Under the direction of the missionaries, the California 

 Indians were fair workers, but in their natural state they developed no 

 art other than basket making. 



In Sequoia National Park, the Potwisha tribe of Diggers lived and 



