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Show 532 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF Other tribes have the same divisions into distinct bands, and many are hence led into the belief that each band is a tribe. The Siouxs range over a territory upward of a thousand miles in extent from north to south, and their country embraces some of the most beautiful spots in the world, as well for natural scenery as for extreme productiveness of soil. The Crows have but one band proper, although they are generally divided into two villages, as being a more convenient arrangement to afford pasture for their iinmense herds of horses, and also to hunt the buffalo. But these two villages are seldom more than three hundred miles apart, generally much nearer; they come together at least once a year, and have frequent accidental coalitions in the course of their wanderings. They speak the Grovan language, from which nation they are an offshoot. The Pawnees are probably the most degraded, in point of morals, of all theW estern tribes; they are held in such contempt by the other tribes that none will make treaties with them. They are a populous nation, and are inveterate against the whites, killing them wherever met. A treaty concluded with that nation at night would be violated the next morning. Those who engage in warfare with the Western Indians will remember that they take no prisoners except women and children. It has generally been believed that the Siouxs never kill white men, but this is a mistake ; they have always killed them. I have seen white men's scalps in their hands, and many still fresh hanging in the smoke of their lodges. The Western Indians have no hummocks or everglades to fight among, but they have their boundless prairies to weary an army in, and the fastnesses of the - JAMEH P. BECKWOURTH. 533 Hocky Mountains to retreat to. Sho~ld a maj?rity of those powerful nations coalesce in defense a?ainst one common enemy, it would be the worst Indian w~rthe most costly in blood and treasure that the na:I~nal government has ever entered int_o. The coahtwn tribes could bring two hundred and fifty thousand warriors against any hostile fore~, and! k~ww I am greatly within the limits of truth In ass1grnng that number to them. If it is the policy of government to. ~tterly extermi~ nate the Indian race, the most expeditiOus manner o± effectino- this ouo·ht to be the one adopted. The in- b b traduction of whisky among the Hed Men, under the connivance of government agents, leads to the demoralization and consequent extermination, by more po:verful races of thousands of Indians annually. Still, this infern~l agent is not effectual; the Indians diminish in numbers, but with comparative slowness. The most direct and speedy mode of clearing the land of them :would be by the simple means of starvation-by depriving them of their hereditary sustenance, the buffalo. To effect this, send an army of hunters among them, to root out and destToy, in every possible manner, the animal in question. rrhey can shoot theni, poison them, dig pit-falls foT them, and resort to ~umberless other contrivances to efface the devoted animal, which serves, it would seem, by the wealth of his caTcass, to preserve the Indian, and thus impede the expanding development of civilization. To fight the Indians vi et armis, the government could employ no such effectual means as to take into its service five hundred mountaineers for the space of one year, and any one tribe of Indians that they shouid fall foul of could never survive the contest. |