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Show THE GREAT BASIN- OF UTAH. 45 bands, both of the Snakes and Utahs, are nearly always in a state of starvation, and are compelled to resort to small animals, roots, grass- seed, and insects for subsistence. The general government has opened farms for these Indians in the valleys of the Spanish Fork and San Pete. The Pali- vants occupy the Corn Creek, Paravan, and Beaver Valleys, and the valley of Sevier. On Corn Creek they have a farm under the supervision of the general government. It was a portion of this tribe that is reported to have massacred Captain Gunnison and a number of his party in 1858; though Mr. J. Forney, Superintendent of Indians in Utah, in his report of September 29, 1859, fixes the stigma of thi& horrible outrage on the Mormons. The Py- edes live adjoining the Pah- vants, down to the Santa Clara, and are represented as the most timid and dejected of all the Utah bands. They barter their children to the Utes proper for a few trinkets or bits of clothing, by whom they are again sold to the Navajos for blankets, etc. They indulge in a rude kind of agriculture, which they probably derived from the old Spanish Jesuits. Their productions are corn, beans, and squashes. The Mountain Meadow massacre is ascribed by the Mormons to them; but, as Dr. Hurt justly remarks, " any one at all ac-quainted with them must perceive at once how ut-terly absurd and impossible it is for such a report to be true." The jSho- sho- nes Dr. Hurt divides into Snakes, Ban-nacks, To- si- witches, Go- sha- utes, and Cum- um- pahs, though he afterward classes the last two divisions |
