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Show REPORT OF THE C0,ZIIfISSIONER OF IXDIAX AFFAIRS. XXXV perseverance than the Cheyennes. Owing to the drought, however, but 9,540 bushels of corn have been raised from 1,180 acres. A great drawback to energetic farming among both tribes is the uncertain status of their land title. Until the tract which they now occupy is eontirmed to them by act of Congress, they will be slow to settle down and make per-manent improvements thereon. The two boarding-schools have been attended by 305 pupils, a good showing for Indians who are still wear-ing their blankets and living in tepees. All of the 1,237 Wichitas and affiliated bands belonging to the Kiowa. Agency, except the Caddoes and Delawares, corltinue to advance in in-dustry and thrift-. They wear citizens' drass, live in houses, cultivate on the average one and fonr.fifths acres each, and, at times, require but small issues of rations. SelE-support might have been attained by this time except for their proximity to and association with the wild Kiowas and Comanches. So long as these tribes must, for the sake of peace, be fed by the government in comparative idleness, their industrious neigh-bors will feel that they have a just claim to at least partial subsistence from government stores. The iissue of any bnt beef rations to the Cad-does and Delaware,~ha s been stopped. They hare solost their ambition a8 to have actually retrograded instead of advanced for some years pwt, and it is hoped that with the neceseity for exertion will return the energy and enterprise which a few years ago placed them in the front ralilr of the affiliated bands. In the nem boarding-school building 127 children have been taugl~t-about one-third of the children of school age be,long-inz to the tribe. Self-support b ~f-a rming cannot reasonably be expected of this gener-ation of Indians in a countrr so liable to drought as that now occupied by the Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arap:thoes. The actual loss of the crop once in t,hree or four years will seriously affect the prog-ress of a people who are both improvident and easily discouraged, and a new i~idustryw hich r i l l promise a reasonably sure return for the labor expended mnst be introdnced. The Indians are therefore tnming their attention more and more to stock-raising, and 1,100 head of cattle have been bought for them dnring the year. Thus far the temptation to use them to supplement the insufficient government ration has been resisted, and it is hoped that the same pride and satisfaction which the Indian now takes in his herd of ponies will, brfore long, be allled out by the omership of a herd of cattle. PO1CCAS. The prosperoas condition of the Poncas in the Ir~dian Territory, re-ferred to in the last annnal rel~ort of this office, continues. The agent reports that since the 1st of Jannary last over seventF families have moved into honses, the total number occupied being seve~itynine. Meddlesome persons are still endeavoring to induce the Poncas to abandon their present locatioli and return to Dakota, hut the leading |
