Enter a name, company, place or keywords to search across this item. Then click "Search" (or hit Enter).
Volume 3 (1858-1859) (592 pages)
Go to the Archive Home
Go to Thumbnail View of this Item
Go to Single Page View of this Item
Download the Page Image
Copy the Page Text to the Clipboard
Don't highlight the search terms on the Image
Show the Page Image
Show the Image Page Text
Reset View and Center Image
Zoom Out
Zoom In
Rotate Left
Rotate Right
Toggle Full Page View
Flip Image Horizontally
More Information About this Image
Get a Citation for Page or Image - Copy to the Clipboard
Go to the Previous Page (or Left Arrow key)
Go to the Next Page (or Right Arrow key)
Page: of 592
REMINISCENCES OF MENDOCINO.
[Continued from page 160.]
These half-breeds seem intended by
nature for a life in the wilderness. They
are expert hunters and horsemen; they
combine the energy of the American
back-woodsman with the intuitive sagacity and stoical endurance of the Indian ;
they are very Nimrods by nature. As
good specimens of this race I may mention the brothers Greenwood, sons of an
Englishman by an Indian mother; they
are young men of stalwart figure, and
their manner is pleasing in its frankness,
One of them served as guide to Godefroy’s party; he was proud of his rank
as a free American citizen.
I found a kind of acquaintance at the
Reservation in a young Indian from Clear
Lake, who for a long while observed my
wild guide with looks of curiosity, and
then invited me to his wigwam to show
me his young wife. He was employed
as an aid to the blacksmith, and seemed
not a little proud of his position as one of
the employees of the station. As I was
saddling my horse to depart he presented
me with a fine nosegay of choice wild
flowers.
The officers of the Reservation govern
the Indians in a lenient manner. The
able-bodied men are occupied by turns in
labor for the benefit of the establishment.
When not employed in agriculture, fishing, or as herdsmen, they have reasonable liberty to indulge in their roving
habits, and to dispose of their time as
they please. The old and infirm, as well
as the women, are exempt from labor;
but they enjoy no similar privilege on the
part of their own younger generation,
being saddled with all the household
drudgery.
The labor imposed on the Indians is
light. Their number is so great, that
many of them may be employed upon an
undertaking which, in other parts of the
world, would be accomplished by a few
hands; and the work is greatly facilitated by a proper distribution and intelligent direction of the forces. Their exertions for the Reservation are incomparably less than those they had to undergo
in their savage state, when, besides defending their lives against the attacks
of enemies, they had to subsist on the
scany and uncertain resources of the wilderness.
Their physical conformation fits them
for labor. They are strong and active;
an Indian easily carries a hundred weight
for twenty miles over a rough mountain
path, or a dead elk for miles into camp;
and some of them are so fleet of foot that
they can run down a deer on the plains.
The chiefs sometimes dispatch Indians
on messages to incredible distances ; it is
said that on such occasions they eat or
chew certain narcotic plants, which have
the effect of conquering fatigue and allaying hunger. Their power of enduring
fatigue without food is in curious contrast with their listlessness and voracity
when they have nothing to do and plenty
to eat. They sometimes pass several days
alternately eating and sleeping, until the
venison gives out and hunger compels
them to new exertions. To serve as
guides to hunting parties is therefore to
them a pleasure, and in occupations suited to their own inclinations they become
eminently useful to the Reservation.
Their deference towards the whites is
not abject, and it is therefore easily seen
that the manner of governing them on
the Reservation is not despotic. It is
sometimes amusing to observe the con-