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Show HEDLICKA] TUBERCULOSIS AMONG CERTAIN INDIAN TRIBES 13 In diet the Sioux are chiefly meat eaters, the principal kind of meat consumed being beef. They cook this fresh or cut it into strips and dry it on cords stretched outside their dwellings. Other common articles of diet are badly made wheat bread and large quantities of coffee. When they have money they purchase crackers and canned foods. They eat very irregularly, both as to time and quantity. During feasts and when visitors are present they not infrequently use the same wooden spoon or other utensil, one after another, and eat from the same dish, the bones and other remnants being freely strewn over the floor. In many of the dwellings it was seen that the denizens lack in both quantity and quality of food on account of their poverty. This affects the adults, especially the aged, more than the children. Numerous cases were seen where the whole meal consisted of a few crackers and black coffee. In several instances cattle which had died of disease had been consumed, both flesh and viscera. According to the resident physician, Doctor Walker, the Oglala eat not only cattle but even horses and dogs that die of disease. The people are not emaciated; in fact, many look well nourished. Yet there is no doubt that many do not receive, except on rare occasions, all the nourishment they require. This doubtless induces indolence and disease. It would also strongly promote the spread of alcoholism, but fortunately there are very few chances for obtaining liquor on or near the reservation. Few of the Oglala men have any steady occupation. They do very little farming. During the summer they cut some hay in the valleys, which brings fair prices. Cattle and horses are being distributed by the Government to the different families, and stock raising is being encouraged with some success. With certain families it already constitutes an important item of sustenance. This occupation affords the men, and also some of the boys and girls, much needed exercise of the best kind. A small percentage of the men are employed about the agency and school, while others go off the reservation to theaters and circuses, or for other employment. The women are occupied almost exclusively with housework. Notwithstanding these opportunities for working, many men in the tribe were seen by the writer to be idle. Of these, many were traveling in their wagons in a seminomadic fashion, bent mostly on visiting; this is not, of course, a desirable condition from the sanitary point of view. The people of this tribe are quite shrewd, tractable, and glad to be instructed, though the instruction given does not always have practical results. Their most striking peculiarities are the above- mentioned tendency to a seminomadic life and the disinelination to steady manual work. They are very ignorant of all matters regarding hygiene. One of the most reprehensible customs among them is the |