34 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OP THE TEREITORIES. 



top, at which point a round hole is left, two feet in diameter, for the 

 smoke to pass out, then this frame-work is covered over with sods 

 and dirt. The fire is placed in the center in a circular depression of 

 about six inches deep and four feet in diameter. All around the inside 

 of the hut are board bunks of the rudest kind, usually designed for 

 two persons. Upon these are spread skins or blankets, which serve 

 them for beds. 1 have seen ten of these in a single hut. On the sides 

 and posts are suspended a great variety of articles — cooking-utensils, 

 clothing, the hunting-apparatus, &c., which constitute the furniture of 

 the dwelling. 



The entrance is about ten or twelve feet long, and is protected by a 

 thick sod covering. Sometimes twenty or thirty persons sleep at night 

 in these huts, every avenue for the admission of fresh air closed up, so 

 that it can hardly be expected that their children will grow up healthy. 



Many of these Indians have been educated to some extent at the 

 mission-school, but all that has been taught them, and all that they 

 have seen of the sujjerior comfort of the whites around them, has had 

 no iniiuence in changing their mode of life. They seem to be destitute 

 of the desire for improvement and averse to change, preferring their 

 ancient habits and customs. If they can avoid it they will not travel 

 in the roads made by the whites, but follow their old trails. 



A few of the half-breeds live in bark huts. In August, when the 

 heat is excessive, and when the fleas and other vermin become too 

 abundant, they go down by the river in the timber and erect temporary 

 bark huts, and live in them until cold weather commences. 



Not far distant from the village are the graves of their dead. In this 

 matter, also, they adhere to'their ancient customs. They dig a hole in 

 the ground just about large enough to receive the body, and then pile 

 a mound of earth on it from two to four feet high, and if the deceased 

 possessed a horse, it is killed at the grave, so that the spirit need not 

 be compelled to walk to the celestial hunting grounds. When the flesh 

 of the horse decays, the skull is usually placed upon the grave. 



There are, also, two oak-trees near the burial-ground in which were 

 a large number of bodies, some in small board coflins, and others in the 

 original wrappings of skins and blankets; these were piled one across 

 the other, as many as could rest in the tree. 



The Indians have great veneration for their places of burial, and are 

 always loth to leave the graves of their ancestors. They have attempted 

 to protect them by means of permanent graves. 



On a high hill across Plum Creek may be seen the nicely fenced 

 graves of two native interpreters of this tribe, who were killed by them 

 some years ago. It is supposed that while on their annual hunt tliey 

 committed some depredation on white people which they wished to 

 have kept a secret. These interpreters were privy to it, and being on 

 most friendly terms with the white men, the Indians suspected they 

 intended to expose them. They were shot in a ravine in the night near 

 the same spot, and within two days of each other. 



We-ha-ta, "Wild-fire," was the presiding genius of our camj). He 

 considered himself specially commissioned to look after our interests in 

 return for his board and that of his family. He wore a turban about 

 his head and a huge necklace of bears' claws around his neck, and con- 

 ducted himself with all the dignity of a chief. 



As I have before mentioned, these Indians possess a reservation cover- 

 ing over 150,000 acres of land. They do not make use of 2,000 acres. 

 They are now surrounded with white settlers who are bitterly prejudiced 

 against them, and the Indians do very little to remove that prejudice. 



