| OCR Text |
Show 62 GOMMIMIONER OF INDIAN AFFaraS. at last have been inaured against further encroschmmta. In Montana Rocky Boy's Band, a brsnch of the Chippewa, which for 60 years were nothim more than wander-ing mendicanta, have received a permanent home, and ~ommi s s i&Sr ells is enabling them to work out a syatem for their selfsuooort. Even more recentlv have stens been taken to establish the status of the ~ i i r i d a& minoles, a task long neglected because of the peculiar conditions existing in the peninsula. The story of the Papago is one of the most inspiring in the annals of the original American. The tribe, which now numbers about 6,000, has lived for hundreds of years in what is now southern Arizona, one of the most uninhabitable regions of the United States. They have made a substantial contribution to the sgrieulture of the world by otiginating and developing the Papago bean, also known ae the t e r n bean, avegetable of no little food value that is almost as hardy as cactus. This bean, through the Departnent of .kgrieultnre, has been sent to almost every arid region in the world. So desperate was their fight with nature that the Papago had no time for hostilitiee againat the whites and thus escaped the notoriety that was first a hindrance and later a material help to the more warlike tribes. Living on Government land, with no definite reservation, they were crowded farther and farther into the desert until their last stand rws made in a barren tract through which there was not a single per-manent running stream. It - while they were being still further pressed that Commimioner Selfa took up the cudgel in their behlt. "There were 6,000 of these people living in a land where a white man would have stawed to death in a season," he said in describing hi. first trip to the Papago country. There was not a atream anywhere, but they were the original irrigationists and had learned to run lateral ditches, sometimes covering 2,000 acres to a single pond, where they impounded the water of infrequent rains and used it for their stack and to cultivate a few acres. "They fenced these water holes with withes and poles, without the use of nsila or any metal. They dug wells in same places, drilling now and then thmugh the solid rock with nothing but stone implements." .When it was first proposed to set aside a tract of land for the Papgo there was great oppmition in the Southwest, which culminated in shearing before the Secretsry of the Interior. Attorneys for the white men were well fortified with precedents and arguments, but they had never slept in the Papago villages nor ridden over the trackless miles in the Indian country as Cato Sells h d done. So facts won, and Mident Wifaon issued an Executive order providing a permanent home for these deserving desert people. In the meantime. through the aid of the Indian OEce, the Papago had dug deeper wells and installed pumps. Tanks are replacing the wssteful water holes, and the breed and value of their live-stock herds are improving. The Government has also established schools which are well attended. The story of Rocky Boy's Band, now numbering about 350, may be more sordid but it promises to end just as happily. hfom than GO years ago s. band of Chippewa left Wisconsin to hunt buffalo in Xontana. then a verv wild countw. Yeara o m d and the Chippewa inxinnesota and Wisconsin receivedland, but thia baud continued to wander, its hunting mounds becoming more and more restricted, until they becwne little better than nomads, seeking odd-ts3ka and depending largely on the bounty of the whites. In time one of their number named Rocky Boy developed qualities of leadership and the Indians became known as Rocky Boy's Band. Congreas usually has made small annual appropriations for them, but nothing was done to make them self-supporting and self-respecting until the last three yeara. XI. Sells at last prevailed on C!ongres to give them thrLe township3 in the Fort .i~ainiboine 3filitary Reserve, and there they are now esMlishing themselves. |
