These dogs, it must be allowed, were of more use than the beggary curs of cities. TheIndian children used them in hunting the small game of the neighborhood, such asrabbits and prairie dogs; in which mongrel kind of chase they acquitted themselves withsome credit.
Sometimes the Diggers aspire to nobler game, and succeed in entrapping the antelope,the fleetest animal of the prairies. The process by which this is effected is somewhatsingular. When the snow has disappeared, says Captain Bonneville, and the groundbecome soft, the women go into the thickest fields of wormwood, and pulling it up ingreat quantities, construct with it a hedge, about three feet high, inclosing about ahundred acres. A single opening is left for the admission of the game. This done, thewomen conceal themselves behind the wormwood, and wait patiently for the coming ofthe antelopes; which sometimes enter this spacious trap in considerable numbers. Assoon as they are in, the women give the signal, and the men hasten to play their part.
But one of them enters the pen at a time; and, after chasing the terrified animals roundthe inclosure, is relieved by one of his companions. In this way the hunters take theirturns, relieving each other, and keeping up a continued pursuit by relays, withoutfatigue to themselves. The poor antelopes, in the end, are so wearied down, that thewhole party of men enter and dispatch them with clubs; not one escaping that hasentered the inclosure. The most curious circumstance in this chase is, that an animal sofleet and agile as the antelope, and straining for its life, should range round and roundthis fated inclosure, without attempting to overleap the low barrier which surrounds it.
Such, however, is said to be the fact; and such their only mode of hunting the antelope.
Notwithstanding the absence of all comfort and convenience in their habitations, andthe general squalidness of their appearance, the Shoshokoes do not appear to bedestitute of ingenuity. They manufacture good ropes, and even a tolerably fine thread,from a sort of weed found in their neighborhood; and construct bowls and jugs out of akind of basket-work formed from small strips of wood plaited: these, by the aid of a littlewax, they render perfectly water tight. Beside the roots on which they mainly depend forsubsistence, they collect great quantities of seed, of various kinds, beaten with onehand out of the tops of the plants into wooden bowls held for that purpose. The seedthus collected is winnowed and parched, and ground between two stones into a kind ofmeal or flour; which, when mixed with water, forms a very palatable paste or gruel.
Some of these people, more provident and industrious than the rest, lay up a stock ofdried salmon, and other fish, for winter: with these, they were ready to traffic with thetravellers for any objects of utility in Indian life; giving a large quantity in exchange for anawl, a knife, or a fish-hook. Others were in the most abject state of want and starvation;and would even gather up the fish-bones which the travellers threw away after a repast,warm them over again at the fire, and pick them with the greatest avidity.
The farther Captain Bonneville advanced into the country of these Root Diggers, themore evidence he perceived of their rude and forlorn condition. "They were destitute,"says he, "of the necessary covering to protect them from the weather; and seemed tobe in the most unsophisticated ignorance of any other propriety or advantage in the useof clothing. One old dame had absolutely nothing on her person but a thread round herneck, from which was pendant a solitary bead."What stage of human destitution, however, is too destitute for vanity! Though thesenaked and forlorn-looking beings had neither toilet to arrange, nor beauty tocontemplate, their greatest passion was for a mirror. It was a "great medicine," in theireyes. The sight of one was sufficient, at any time, to throw them into a paroxysm ofeagerness and delight; and they were ready to give anything they had for the smallestfragment in which they might behold their squalid features. With this simple instance ofvanity, in its primitive but vigorous state, we shall close our remarks on the RootDiggers. [Return to Contents].
