CHAPTER V.
NOTES ON CERTAIN WESTERN TRIBES. I
The Snakes and Utes - Poverty and degradation - Enslavement of children by Spanish - Cannibalism - The wealthy Nez Perces - The decent Cayuses and the Camas root - The interesting Flatheads - Other tribes - Further account of the Flatheads and their country - Neighboring tribes.
HE Utes, a tribe of the Snakes, burn their relatives' bodies, with the best horses that the dead man owned. The body is placed, with the horses, after cutting their throats, upon a big pile of dry wood. When the smoke rises in eddies, they think the soul of the Indian takes its flight to the land of spirits, borne by his faithful steeds; and to excite them to soar more swiftly, they all together give utterance to frightful howls.
The Sampeetches, Pah-Utes and Yam-pah-Utes are the nearest neighbors to the Snakes. There is not, very likely, in all the universe, a more miserable, more degraded and poorer people. The French commonly call them les Dignesde-pitie, or those who deserve to be pitied, and the name suits them admirably. The land they inhabit is a veritable waste. They lodge in crevices of the rocks, or in holes dug in the earth; they have no clothing; their only weapons are a bow, arrows and a pointed stick; they range the barren plains in search of ants and grasshoppers, on which they feed, and they think it a feast when they come upon a few tasteless roots or nauseous grains.
Respectable and credible persons have assured me that they eat the corpses of their kindred, and sometimes even their own children. Their number is unknown, for they are seldom seen more than two, three or four together.
1 From Father De Smet's account of his journey to the Flatheads in i84o. Translated from Voyages aux Montagnes Rocheuses, PP. 31-35.