The Shoshonies Are A Branch Of The Once Powerful And Prosperous
Tribe Of The Snakes, Who Possessed A Glorious Hunting Country
About The Upper Forks Of The Missouri, Abounding In Beaver And
Buffalo.
Their hunting ground was occasionally invaded by the
Blackfeet, but the Snakes battled bravely for their domains, and
a long and bloody feud existed, with variable success.
At length
the Hudson's Bay Company, extending their trade into the
interior, had dealings with the Blackfeet, who were nearest to
them, and supplied them with fire-arms. The Snakes, who
occasionally traded with the Spaniards, endeavored, but in vain,
to obtain similar weapons; the Spanish traders wisely refused to
arm them so formidably. The Blackfeet had now a vast advantage,
and soon dispossessed the poor Snakes of their favorite hunting
grounds, their land of plenty, and drove them from place to
place, until they were fain to take refuge in the wildest and
most desolate recesses of the Rocky Mountains. Even here they are
subject to occasional visits from their implacable foes, as long
as they have horses, or any other property to tempt the
plunderer. Thus by degrees the Snakes have become a scattered,
broken-spirited, impoverished people; keeping about lonely rivers
and mountain streams, and subsisting chiefly upon fish. Such of
them as still possess horses, and occasionally figure as hunters,
are called Shoshonies; but there is another class, the most
abject and forlorn, who are called Shuckers, or more commonly
Diggers and Root Eaters. These are a shy, secret, solitary race,
who keep in the most retired parts of the mountains, lurking like
gnomes in caverns and clefts of the rocks, and subsisting in a
great measure on the roots of the earth. Sometimes, in passing
through a solitary mountain valley, the traveller comes perchance
upon the bleeding carcass of a deer or buffalo that has just been
slain. He looks round in vain for the hunter; the whole landscape
is lifeless and deserted: at length he perceives a thread of
smoke, curling up from among the crags and cliffs, and scrambling
to the place, finds some forlorn and skulking brood of Diggers,
terrified at being discovered.
The Shoshonies, however, who, as has been observed, have still
"horse to ride and weapon to wear," are somewhat bolder in their
spirit, and more open and wide in their wanderings. In the
autumn, when salmon disappear from the rivers, and hunger begins
to pinch, they even venture down into their ancient hunting
grounds, to make a foray among the buffaloes. In this perilous
enterprise they are occasionally joined by the Flatheads, the
persecutions of the Blackfeet having produced a close alliance
and cooperation between these luckless and maltreated tribes.
Still, notwithstanding their united force, every step they take
within the debatable ground is taken in fear and trembling, and
with the utmost precaution: and an Indian trader assures us that
he has seen at least five hundred of them, armed and equipped for
action, and keeping watch upon the hill tops, while about fifty
were hunting in the prairie.
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