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Show 37 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS. the Mormon settlements, some few carrying enough blankets on their backs to buy a mare pony. An Indian that could load a little Mexican donkey with blankets was considered a good trader. It was not many years until these Navajoes had large bands of horses and sheep. They are again quite rich and prosperous. YAQUIS. A few words about the Yaquis might be interesting also. They inhabit the Rio Yaqui in Sonoro. They are an agricultural people and were occupying this same country at the time of the Conquest and were peaceable and quite numerous. After the government under Spain was well estab-lished they offered to make a grant of the Yaqui country to the inhabitants. The Indians declined the offer, say-ing the country was and always had been theirs and that they did not ask it to be granted to them. This was rather an insult to the arrogant Spaniard. The offer has been repeated from time to time, but the Indians have always declined the grant on the same old grounds. So the Yaqui country stands on the maps of Mexico as government lands. Efforts have been made several times to oust these Indians from their lands. Grants have been given from time to time as was the Brannan grant, but the Indians have never given up their idea of prior rights. There are a great many of the best citizens of Mex-ico in sympathy with the Yaquis. TARUMARIES. This tribe inhabits the mountain country in the western part of the state of Chihuahua. There are many |