Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1898 — A Ute Funeral. [ARTICLE]

A Ute Funeral.

All night long the ceaseless, muffled beating of the medicine tom-tom had come to us across the hot, barren, alkali flats; all night long the dismal walling of the bereaved squaws and the lonesome howl of the masterless dog, crying like lost spirits, had come to us out of the darkness, plaintive and weird; all night long we had rolled and tossed on our blankets, spread upon the broad breast of mother earth, underneath the silent, watchful stars; and now, as the first pink blush of breaking •mom began to revolve out of infinity into a new-born day, we rose, unrefreshed and weary. A blood-red sun thrust his scorching rays across the rugged peaks of the Book plateau; heat, already increasing, came steaming from the parched earth; all nature seemed aflame, and, as our tired, aching eyes sought what rest there could be found in the dingy green of the few scrub cedars that marked the single variation to the otherwise unbroken glare of whiteness, a strange, sad procession emerged from them and wended its way toward us. As it approached we could see the cortege plainly. There were the patient, sadeyed women, their faces blackened by charcoal, their hair disheveled, their garments rent and covered with ashes; there were the favorite dog and horse of the dead warrior, the latter fully equipped as though ready for a journey—and so he was; there was the corpse itself, all bedecked and enshrouded, to Its last earthly resting place. . The women still walled, the dogs still howled, the heat still grew fiercer, and we followed the little band.—Lippincott’s.