Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1895 — THE BANNOCK INDIANS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE BANNOCK INDIANS

CHARACTER OF A FIERCE TRIBE OF RED MEN. Naaterona, but Cruel Fighter*— Expert Horsemen Are Given to Rambling—Wyoming's Game Laws Conflict with United States Treaty. Bad Young Bucks. The Indian disturbances now taking *tace in the West were stirred up by tke Bannocks, a tribe living with the

Shoshones on the Fort Hall reservation. There are about 500 of them and the tribe is decreasing every year. The Bannocks are finer people, physically, than the Shoshones. They are bigger, more lusty, and in their veins runs the blood of the hunter and the warrior. The Bannocks are wiry and muscular, tall and straight, warlike and untamed. The braves disdain

bamhock brave, manual labor of any kind. They look upon it as disgraceful, and carry their antipathy to toll further than the warriors of any other tribe except the Standing Rock

Sioux. Schools and civilized pursuits are alike scorned by them. Then consider themselves superior in ‘■■•ety way to all other tribes and to whue men. In warfare they are keen. Heartlessness and cruelty are their prime characteristics. To kill all aged persons who have become burdensome is a custom with these Indians. As hunters of big game the fame of the Bannocks is great; but even in their hunting the innate cruelty of the braves is shown. Instead of shooting their prey through the heart—taking the risk of missing their aim—the Bannock sends his bullet into the entrails of his quarry, and then lies In wait for another ■victim. The first is easily tracked by the trail it leaves, as staggering and suffering from its wound the animal blindly tries to escape. The Bannocks are expert horsemen. They are allied by numerous intermarriages with the Shoshone Indians, and the braves are generally distinguished in this way: If the Indian is gaudily flressed, a hater of work and ready for trouble or to make trouble at any time, then he is a Bannock. If he is quiet, takes kindly to labor, and tries to dress ‘and live like the whites, then he is a Shoshone. There Is not much love lost between the two tribes. The Bannocks are ruled to a great extent by their “medicine men,” whose words are law.

▲bout two years ago the government gave the Bannocks and Shoshones 200 cattle. | The Bannocks promptly killed ■nd ate their share in the first winter. *Bw Shoshones kept tlie greater part W their gift and they now have some too head. The young Bannock “bloods” are Jrtrn gamblers and thieves. They are •ver ready to kill iny white man who them in their predatory habits, and when intoxicated, which is often, make great threats, of going on the warpath. In short, it can be said that the Bannorks are bad Indiana and even their physical bravery cannot redeem their finite. They are loose in morals and unscrupulous. Efforts have been made to get them to attend the schools at the different stations, and while they did, an that they learned was soon forgotten, and the Bannocks, braves and ■quaws, soon relapsed into their born state of savagery, with thoughts of nothing but the gratification -of their appetites. There appear to have been originalta two geographically distinct bandt or divisions of the Bannocks, and t> this fact, which has not been understood generally, is due much of the confusion that has existed regarding them. The main home of the Bannocks appears to have been in Southeastern Maha, whence they ranged into Westsen Wyoming. The country actually stained by the chief of the Southern

bands in treaty lay homes of the Wihlnaaht Shoshoni of Western Idaho and the Washakl Shoshoni of Western Wyoming. found in thia region la 1859, and thsfl claimed to have alwayfl lived are the only Bannocks now known. The second band found .in Myed somewhat further norfk have either

perished or become incorporated with the remnant of the first tribe. The recent trouble, concerning which highly sensational and positively untrue reports were sent broadcast throughout the country, was because of the recently enacted game laws of Wyoming. In 1868 the United States entered into a treaty with the Bannock Indians, according the latter the privilege of hunting anywhere on unsettled landa Recently, however, Wy-

oming enacted restrictive game laws that conflicted with the Bannock treaty, and the reds considered their rights usurped. They declared that the treaty with the United States was superior to the laws of the State of Wyoming, and they kept on hunting and slaughtering game as had been the custom from time ImmemorUl. The authorities of Wyoming caused the arrest of a number of the redskins, but these escaped. More arrests followed, and when these prisoners attempted to escape, they were shot This incensed the Bannocks, and the imaginative correspondents had it that thqy arose in open rebellion, which culminated in their taking to the mountains where they could better defend themselves against the attacks of the whites. Conservative men declare that the Bannocks have just cause for provocation because of the enforcement of the Wyoming law that takes from them the rights granted by the treaty of 1868.

JIM BALLARD, Chief of the Bannocks.

A BANNOCK BAND ON THE WARPATH. (New York World.)

A BANNOCK FAMILY GROUP.