GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 33 



It occupies a surface 10 x 24=240squaremiles=153,600acresof the finest 

 laud in Southern Nebraska. The Big Bhie, one of the most beautiful of 

 the inland streams, with several of its most important branches, passes 

 through it. Like all other portions of the State, there is, comparatively, 

 little timber, yet as much as on other streams. Some of the branches 

 have the most desirable farms bordering on them. They occupy a small 

 village bordering on the Blue, and are not distributed over the reserve. 

 The land is not divided out to them, but they are all aggregated to- 

 gether in the village of mud huts. They seem to have no idea of indi- 

 vidual independence, but have all things in common, as it were. 



They have now about 300 acres in corn in good condition, which will 

 prevent them from starving if judiciously cared for by the agent and 

 farmer. It seems hardly possible that a tribe with over 150,000 acres 

 of this tillable land should have no more than 300 or 400 acres in culti- 

 vation. These Indians have the same lazy, improvident habits of the 

 wild Indians farther west, and the result is that there is at least from 

 three to four months of the year that they are in a pitiable state of 

 starvation. Last spring they ate all the cats and dogs within their 

 reach ; horses, cows, or sheep that had been dead for ten or twelve days, 

 and were in a complete state of putrefaction, were eagerly devoured by 

 them. Anything, however filthy or decayed, that had ever been in the 

 form of food, was eagerly devoured ; and yet no lesson is taught them 

 by such severe experience, for nothing could be easier than to place 

 themselves beyond the possibility of want. Even at this time they have 

 nothing to eat but corn, which they cook by boiling in the kernel. Most 

 of the tribe, both men and women, have gone on a hunt at this season 

 to the Eepublican, where bufialo are saidto be plenty. They usually 

 prepare about 500 robes annually, for which they get $5 to $7 apiece. 

 The meat they dry for winter use. 



There are now about 430 persons in the tribe, men, women, and chil- 

 dren, a small remnant of a once-powerful tribe. They persist in living 

 in filthy, ill- ventilated mud huts, which at night they close up as tightly 

 as possible, so that they are swept off annually by various diseases, and 

 those that remain are deficient in energy and strength. 



Two or three of the families live in rude board houses, but they are 

 not pleased with them, preferring their rude huts. 



There are three groups of huts occupying three different elevations on 

 the same ridge, representing three different bands, which are governed 

 by sab-chiefs. The head chief is quite a shrewd man. Some one asked 

 him, when the agent and farmer first came, how he thought he would 

 like them. He at once replied that he could tell that better when he 

 had seen their table. So they made the head chief and his principal 

 men (eight in number) a feast, and they prepared themselves to do 

 iustice to the agent's dinner by a three days' fast previously — one hun- 

 dred pounds of mutton, bread and coffee in proportion — and they made 

 way with it all. Their i^owers of endurance are exhibited in as marked a 

 manner in devouring food as in abstaining from it. It is a rule with 

 them to eat all that is set before them, however much it may be. 



The Indians have a saw-mill and grist-mill, all under one roof, and a 

 great amount of lumber is sawed* and grain ground for the inhabit- 

 ants of the neighboring region, the avails of which are supposed to go 

 into the Indian fund. 



The dirt huts have a diameter of about thirty feet. They are formed 

 by placing a circular row of upright posts in the ground and then fast- 

 ening to the tops of these horizontal poles, and to these horizontal 

 poles are fastened the poles that form the roof, all slanting toward the 

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