| Show A story of toode indians before and after the coming III of the pioneers rs myri myrl H porter there is no phase of western history more colorful or wrought with danger and bloodshed than that of the indians and the trouble encountered with them by the mor mon p onders this is indeed true of the indians of tooele thoele county the stories of the experiences of the p onders and indians of this locality would satisfy the most ad venturous with tales of danger and daring tooele thoele county indian history dates back farther than historians have been able to trace tooele thoele county presumably took its name from an ind an chief tuilla builla who dwelt here many years before any history was written the indians that inhabited this valley were known as the Go shutes renegades of the shoshone tribe they were primitive dangerous and very hos tile seldom breaking out into open warfare as did the utes or corn com anches they rather resorted to stealth and uncivilized cunning this band of indians roamed practically all over the entire coun ty it has been roughly estimated that there was over 2000 of them lit this v cikity at the advent of the pioneers they were neither ambitious nor thrifty but lived a sort of hand to mouth existence their clothing was of the most primitive type consisting mostly of buffalo skins with the hair left on rabbit skins and antelope hides all poorly fash honed and crudely made there was no style or glamour to their wearing apparel such as that of the new england indians of ear ly american history no brilliant colors nor feathered head gear no bark canoes nor fancy wigwams the r food was also of the poor est kind to us their diet appears meagre and repulsive for these indians subsisted on the wild meat of buffalo bear and antelope wild berries and sunflower seeds the latter was pounded into a meal like product and made into flat cakes crickets and grasshoppers were also dried and eaten they al so relished groundhogs and aels they dried aried some of the meat by cutting it in long strips and drying it to store food they dug holes in the ground lined the holes with cedar bark and put their food in and covered it over in pit like f fash ash ion the red gravels just west of tooele thoele city was a favorite hid ing place for their food it was thus that the indians were living when the pioneers first came to tooele thoele the white man s way of living must have seemed strange to these people having never cul nor seen the soil under cul ti they could not know that the white man had other means of making livelihood different than theirs they feared and were cor ii in their fears that the white man would soon kill off all the wild game and force them into sub mission and extinction by tion stealing became one of the main tactics they used against the pio nothing could be left un guarded they seemed to take a great delight in driving oft off the cattle and horses it was estimate ed by the state that the tooele thoele county pioneers lost over in cattle and horses through these indians from september 1849 t to 0 september 1851 and in 1852 the pioneers moved the original set from its location at the head of tooele thoele to its present loca tion and began to build the mud wall described in the last issue of this paper the indians were not satisfied in merely driving the cattle and hor ses away but in many cases shot them with poisoned arrows to be found later by their owners the way the ind ans po they arrows is most interesting arid and worth relating in the summer when the rattlesnakes were most plentiful and most poisonous they take a piece of freshly kil led wild animal liver then take a long forked stick and tantalize the snake until it became very mad then they shoved the piece of liver near the snake and let him bite it until the poison in the snake would be exhausted into the liver the he liver was then let dry then pulverized between two stones un til it was a fine powder like sub stance this poison powder was then stored in small buckskin sacks until needed the arrow heads were dipped into the slightly mois bened powder thus the arrow be came a deadly poisonous weapon i interesting stories of indian at f ro cities against the pioneers pony express riders as well as other indian difficulties will be related here from time to time |
