72- 



Iboundary-line of said Territory ; tlieuce south with said -vresteru boundary-line of said 

 Territory ; thence east ^vith said southern boundary-line to the place of beginning, 

 shall be, and the same is hereby, set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and 

 occupation of the Indians herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual 

 Indians as, from time to time, they may be -filling, with the consent of the United 

 States, to admit among them ; and the United States now solemnly agree that no per- 

 sons, except those herein authorized so to do, and except such officers, agents, and em- 

 ployes of the Government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in 

 discharge of duties eujoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, 

 ■or reside in the territory described in this article, excepb as herein otherwise provided. 



They cannot be said to possess a language, but rather a jargon, com- 

 posed, for the most part, of guttural sounds, mingled with words from 

 the Spanish and English. The jargon is dialectic, as may be proved by 

 the fact that distant branches of the same general tribe use many words 

 which are not intelligible to each other. It is a very erroneous idea, 

 harbored by many in the East, that all of the Indian tribes west of the 

 Kocky Mountains employ but one language peculiar only to the American 

 race. On the contrary, however, there exist as many Indian dialects as 

 there are distinct tribes. If we find such discrepancies iu the same or 

 neighboring tribes, is it not probable that distant tribes are much more 

 apt to differ in this respect ? Such we find is the case, for the i^ava- 

 joes and Utes, although on the most friendly terms, are unable to under- 

 stand each other, having scarcely a word iu common, although they are 

 located within one hundred miles of each other. Last summer, (1874,) a 

 delegation of Navajoes visited the Utes at the White Eiver agency, Colo., 

 for the purpose of trading their blankets for ponies, guns, «&c., and it 

 was only through a Spanish interpreter that they were enabled to effect 

 their trading, the Spanish language being an intermediate link between 

 the two dialects. In dress these nations, if we may so call them, differ 

 considerably, the iSTavajoes wearing simply a shirt, loose, short breeches 

 extending to the knee, a blanket, leggings, moccasins, ornamented 

 usually with little or no bead-work, and the head bound with a cloth or 

 bandana. In this connection it mky be well to briefly allude to the 

 Navajo blankets. 



The Navajoes, being a semi-civilized tribe, devote much of their atten- 

 tion to sheep raising in New Mexico, and from the wool they manufacture 

 blankets which, for durability and impenetrability of water, far surpass 

 anything of the kind made by civilized methods, and in the arrange- 

 ment of their very durable coloring an unusual degree of taste is dis- 

 played. The hand-made blankets are very heavy, perfectly water- 

 proof, and the finest work very beautiful, bringing, iu some instances, 

 as high a price as $500. 



The languages of the North American Indians have, perhaps, scarcely 

 reached a higher degree of perfection than existed at the discovery of 

 America; or, if they ever improved, they have retrograded to the same 

 state of imperfection, for it has become a proverbial idea that the In- 

 dian makes no advances, no improvements, no new discoveries, but 

 follows continually in the footsteps of his forefathers. It will be 

 seen, then, that the savage mode of expression is at present very 

 little in advance of the primary forms of language. The human 

 speech is supposed to have commenced in the formation of nouns, con- 

 sisting merely in the naming of external objects, and as man's wants 

 increased and his mind was developed, adjectives next came into use, 

 and so on down to the least important part of speech. The language 

 of the Utes stands on a footing of equality with that of other Indian 

 tribes, and being simply a spoken language, it is difficult.to represent the 



