Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1888 — ABORIGINES AT HOME. [ARTICLE]

ABORIGINES AT HOME.

THE SAC AND FOX INDIAN TRIBES AT TAMA CITY, lOWA. A Tenderfoot Visits Their Primitive Home and Graphically Describes What He Saw— Ti e Red Man’s Tepes—No A<lvau< eincnt Made in Fifty Years. [Marshalltown Titnoa-Republican.] Indian Agent Enos Ghssn was kind enough to invite your reporter to accompany him on a visit to the Indian camp some thres miles from Tama City, lowa, thinking, no doubt, the tendi rfoot would see something new, and he did. This is not a reservation. Ths Sac and Fox tribes'own some 1,430 acres, bought by the Government for them some years ago, the title deeds being held by ths Governor of lowa in trust for them.

As farmers, they raise corn and garden truck with lair success, and have some 50) head of ponies that have to shift for themselvei. summer and winter, no feed or shelter beyond what nature supplies being furnished them by their owners, No cattle are on the farm—some say it s against their religion—and two hogs make up their live stock. At present they are occupying their summer residences, which consist of shtds without chimneys, and the inside is generally one room. They still e-t as their forefa.hers did when hungry, and the table is the lap of mother eaitn, coverad with a matting made by the women from the rushes on the river banks. Stores are unknown, schools they won t have, and clothes are the combination seen when they v.s:t town. When co d weather comes on, they move into the "tepees,’’ a circulir thatched hut, say six feet high, with an opening for the smoke to go out at the top, and a hole to crawl into. In ocher words, they live as they did 100 years ago, perhaps with a few inoie comforts in the way of clothing and food. As we rode up, some three games of poker were going on, no “penny-ante” business, but a game ror keeps, a doilar-raise common, and the limit was off. We heard the continuous pounding of a drum from one cabin, and an inquiry showed we were fortunate enough to bo on hand to witness an "adoption”—that is, a certain family was to adept a healthy spring buck of twenty-five years of age. Across the bottom came the chiefs, who were invited to the number of twenty or more; one old fellow that would weigh 250, “fatter’n a fool,” a linen duster, some one-legged pants, and that’s all; others were covered with red blankets, that as they walked showed they had forgotten to dress for company. Then the drummer had called two assistant musicians. A stick some three feet eight was stuck in the ground; this was covered with streamers, like a May pole, and the “Queen of the Muy’’ the adopted one, the prodigal, as it were, tooK his po dtion near it. Un the ground was tome matting, with baker's biscuits, green corn, and other truck, and at a given signal, down on theground, around the tablet’?), they sat, and the feast commenced, let the devil take the hindmost. The squaws and hungry papooses keep a respectful distance, waiting for something to turn up, that is the bucks. They make short work of it, and then the women and children gathered up the fragments and carried them off inside of them. Old Kick-’em Stiff, a youth of 71, with his head shaved ala Chinaman, face painted, clothes removed to his hips, then commenced a slow walk around the May pole with a drum accompaniment ; very soon he began a double shuffle the sweet singers gave us, Dundee, or something like. Faster and faster he went, until his breath gave out, he gave a backward kick, the music stopped and then h s oration commenced. Our inteipreter said he was hu ting the Sioux. At any rate he had a big time making believe he was doing something, and all of a sudden he stopped, and gave his battle ax to Stricken D er, a 50-year-old chap, with his head tied up in a black rag, b cause he was scaiped once upon a time. He put the battle ax between his legs, played horse, kicked up, bucktd, aid went down. Interp;eter sail “horse threw him.” At any rate we all had a good laugh, Indians included. Then he gave us a free trade speeob, as nearly as your scribe remembers, and handing the battle ax to the next performer, he walked around < nee, did Hashing, said nothing, but gave it to the end man, who asked some old chestnuts, which we gave up, and then ths adopted one, covered with blankets, ribbons of all colors, stepped out, took the calico from the May pole, gave each chief a red rag, and the show was over. This visit has knocked all of the Fenimore Cooper business out of the writer. He saw a little fat papoose, with a stomach on him like a four-weeks-old pig after drinking two gallons of buttermilk, get fighting mad and cry as natural as any white baby ever did. He heard these dignified noble red men laugh at and guy a bashful speaker equal to any students’ debating society. One of ihe speakers, the fellow that played horse, was a perfect clown, and kept chiefs, squaws, and papooses in a continual roar of laughter. They treat their women as they always have —like brutes. They live'to eat, making no provision for their horses or themselves for the winter months, any more than they did fifty years ago. They are inveterate gamblers. Ont thing that perhaps some white folks cau get a pointer from, is that when the noble red man comes home drunk, the squaws tie him hand and loot till he sobers off. Perhaps the most comical sight was an ol 1 efliief, half naked, painted, dancing his war dance, with bells on his ankles, killin • and scalping bis imaginary enemies, all this in the mo it approved style, and wearing spectacles. This can be said to their credit, that they remember little debts of honor. Deputy Postmaster Austin says it is safe to trust them for a postage stamp. Agent Gheen says they appreciate kindness, and his successful work with them is on that plan. Thirty minutes brought us back to town, and it hardly seemed possible that within three miles of us lived 403 human beings that had not advanced perceptibly, socially, morally, intellectually or financially, in fifty years.