Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: Helping the Indian [Walker Lake Reservation, Nevada] Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 5 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-09-03 13:56:47 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:18:11 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:18:11

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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HELPING THE INDIAN RESULT OF PATERNALISM AS SHOWN AT THE WALKER LAKE RESERVATION By A. J. Weis appeals to the camera man; the pathetic side arrests the philanthropical, but a glimpse of the Reservation Indian on his native hunting ground, Pe picturesque side of Indian life and cared for by a paternal Government ° is disappointing. We dropped off the Nevada and California Railroad recently at the little station of Schurz, on the Walker River Reservation in Esmeralda County, Nevada. The arable lands covered by the Reservation have been alloted to the Paiutes, giving each one twenty acres, and protecting the gift for twenty-five years by a provision of law which forbids sale or lease. In addition the heads of families were given $300 each with which to set up as farmers. The land is level, lying along the river, supplied with cottonwood and willows, and is under an irrigation canal. A Head Farmer oversees their work, teaches them the use of farm tools and machinery, and a small police force, chosen from among the Indians is equipped and paid for patroling the reservation. A post trader supplies corduroy and calico, polka dot vests and brass buttoned coats, with perfumery for the mahalas, and _ stick candy for the papooses. This is roughly the equipment of five hundred Indians for beginning civilized life. Shelter they provide for themselves, but it is not elaborate nor ornamental. A few have frame houses of two or three rooms; a larger number have huts of cottonwood logs, or shacks of brush, canvas and boards from dry goods and grocer’s boxes, the one room, windowless and chimneyless. The Indian provides for to-day—to-morrow is not in his plans. He builds a summer hut with no concern for winter rains. If he dines well to-day he does not worry because he may go hungry to-morrow. The superannuated, the infirm and the blind are provided with rations, blankets, overcoats and other clothes, and the tribe was given a few heifers some years ago which were protected from sale or slaughter by penalty, and the increase now number about nine hundred head. Of fifteen cows in the herd, only one is reported as being milked regularly. Half a dozen men on the reservation can be called industrious. A good deal of hay is raised, and freight to the adjoining towns is paid by the Government. The yearly sales amount to about $6,000.00. Wheat is also raised in small patches and harvest time on the Walker River could beat Ruth the gleaner, for picturesque effect if it lacks the romance involved in the Hebrew maiden setting her cap for Boaz. The Paiute mahala straps a basket of her own making on her broad back, and knife in hand clips a handful of heads from the standing grain, tosses them over her shoulder and repeats the movement until the basket is full. She carries it then to the threshing floor, and when the field is’ reaped, leads horses to and fro over the pile, treading out the grain on the hard adobe. The grain is winnowed by being tossed in the air until the chaff and dust are blown away. The mahala is the worker and beast of burden, as of old. As the train drew up at the front of the post trader’s, a squat Indian woman moved up the track with a sack of flour strapped across her hips, and above it between her shoulders was fastened a good sized wooden box half full of canned goods and groceries. In