Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1912 — INDIANS TRAINED DOWN FINE [ARTICLE]

INDIANS TRAINED DOWN FINE

How Nez Perce Runners Were Hardened and Prepared for Coming Contests. The men of the Nez Perce tribe who were set apart by their physical qualifications to train for runners used to commence their training in the latter part of October, at which time they began to take early morning baths in cold mountain streams, says the Red Man. These baths were kept up through the whole winter season until spring. '• Next on the schedule to be followed by those training are the warm baths, taken in a hole in the ground where the water is heated by hot stones, mixed with cold baths described above. If the warm bath is not taken the sweat bath is substituted, and is prepared as follows: First a skeleton of a small hut is made from willow boughs; this Is covered with twigs and dirt, a small opening being left In front for a door, over which blankets are hung. Near this door a small round hole Is dug and filled with red hot stones. After all the- trainers have had a plunge in the cold water they enter this little sweat house and close the door. Then one of the number pours warm water on the red hot stones, causing the steam to rise and surround the occupants of the tightly closed room. _ After a while the victims emerge and take another plunge into the cold water. This process they keep up until the stones are cold and useless for the manufacture of steam. After a light dinner, consisting of merely a little soup, the same program Is repeated; and this is done daily tor at least three months of the year, sweat baths being indulged in in the early morning and late evening—usually after sunset The way in which a young buck’s endurance was tested was like this: An old warrior selects a tree with a limb offering a tempting opportunity 7 to swing on It by one’s hands. When the night comes for the testing the old buck cans the young brave to jump out from his hot bath bole, to leap and cattix a limb with bombhands and to ding to it untn he is ordered to “let go.” If be drops unconscious before the signal is given,

it Is a sign that the training has.no* been sufficient and he la ordered to return to his dally routine until such time as he can cling to the limb for the desired number of minutes. After this testing the programme for those in training is extended by the addition of short runs every morning and eve* nlng for a distance of five or six miles. As the youths begin to show endurance this distance is gradually length* ened. ' ' ' Then comes another testing: A small hill, so many spaces high, to chosen, up which they are require to run on jumping out of the hot bath If the persontested does not rear the top and back again he Is considered’ not yet in proper condition. Sometimes the candidate runs half way up . the hill, then falls* and rolls'down the slope unconscious. " Such training gives credible strength, agility and power of endurance. As an example out needs only to cite Lawyer, who was kihed near de Sac, Idaho. Compared with his white brothers he appeared to be about forty at the time of his death, but in reality he was past seventy years of age. Itis.said that at one time, before the Nez Perce war, he chased a black bear for over 60 miles over mountains and across canyons. He might have succeeded in catching bruin, but it grew too dark for the chase, so he calmly trotted back home again.