the country east
of the Alleghanies, as well as those dwelling in the Mississippi Valley,
showed but little variation of civilization. In the West, however, it
was widely different. It is true that there were on the plains many
great tribes, such as the Sioux, the Pawnees, the Utahs, the Apaches,
and others too numerous to specify, whose general status in the roll of
civilization was of very slightly varying average; but there were also
tribes which touched the highest and lowest points of Amerind culture.
As an example of the latter, mention need be made only of the Pi-Utes,
or "Digger" Indians, a tribe as degraded as the Australian aborigines
themselves.

The Pi-Utes were the most abject and wretched of all American Indians;
they lived chiefly on roots--whence their common name among the
whites--and sometimes on offal. Yet even among these degraded people
there existed, even up to a comparatively late period, a spirit of
tribal devotion, at least if the story be true that is related of them,
and which, as it deals with women, is here reproduced without
pronouncement upon its entire credibility. It is--or was--said that, as
the products of the chase were of great importance to this people, it
was necessary that they should be armed with the most effective weapons
in their reach, and so they contrived a peculiarly deadly poison with
which to tip their small arrows. This poison was so noxious that its
distillation from the plant which furnished it a plant of which the
secret was known only to the "Diggers"--always resulted in the death of
the person preparing the decoction. It would naturally be thought that
the position of the individual who was to prepare the yearly stock of
poison for the tribe was one that would be shunned; but, on the
contrary, there was an annual contest between the oldest squaws for the
honor of becoming the sacrifice for the welfare of the tribe, and the
successful competitor proudly gave her life that the rest might live.

For this story, though cited from good authority, one may well decline
to vouch; but it is probably not untrue, since it is essentially of the
Indian spirit. Be this as it may, the Pi-Utes unquestionably represented
the most degraded aspect of Indian existence and nature. On the other
hand, there were the Yumas--often called the Apaches--and the Maricopas,
both agricultural tribes and most probably at one time dwellers in adobe
houses. They understood the principles of irrig