Show Out Door in the West Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain I Edited by J. H. Professor of Nature Study in the University of I ANIMALS AND PLANTS USED BY THE TRIBES OF UTAH AND The of the Ralph V. Chamberlain of in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of The home of the Indians was formerly all of the generally desert territory bordering the Great Salt Lake on the south and extending westward into eastern To the passing traveler this whole before certain favored portions were reclaimed by ir appeared so utterly desolate and uninviting that he must have wondered that any human being should be found there excepting from direst Yet to the this still as it long has home r and native and he loves it with a love as ardent L as ever burned in the breast of a Away from it he and no thought to him is so harrowing as that the government may yet force him away to some v hated no suffering so deep as that he bears L when he sees his last remaining foothold steadily en- upon by stockman and He knows well the haunt and habits of its living the familiar note of its every bird has become woven into his very while from grandparents he knows the I quality of root and leaf and seed of its among which he finds food for every season and for every ill f a Nature's severe parsimony in this land forced him to know and to use to the utmost such resources as she had Geography of the Great The region is broken by a series of mountain ranges running in a generally north and south direction and V- rising for the most part from one to six thousand feet above the Between the ranges are level val-leys floored with alluvial sand and washed and accumulated through many ages from the moun- and charged with the salts forming so V marked a characteristic of the In the lower central portions of each valley there is typically an alkaline flat or playa where in the winter season water collects in a shallow sheet and converts the soil into a soft clay-like mud that is and In the summer time the flat is dry hard and often shows white and glistening from an incrustation of the alkaline The mountains are furrowed with many gulches and narrow which here and there in their courses widen into meadow-like basins which are locally termed The annual rainfall in the valleys is very e precipitation increasing slowly with the altitude up the The air is naturally excessively dry the moisture content according to but 45 per cent of that necessary for as against 69 per cent in the region between the Mississippi river and the Appalachian and the power evaporation 80 as against 22 inches over Lake From the lower ranges the snow that falls generally evaporates without melting melts without the formation of definite The heavier snows of the higher ranges feed scattered springs and the small streams running down the canyons and out a varying distance into the where often after becoming heavily charged with they into the parched soil and are Many of the springs at the bases of the ranges are brackish or salt and some are Vegetation of This The vegetation of this arid while generally is more abundant than most would and there is no part even of the valleys in the driest times wholly devoid of excepting some of the playas most charged with and especially the Great Salt Lake In these places scattered clumps of the several occur about the The vegetation of the valleys and slopes as well as of the hills and of much of the mountain sides presents a uniformity of appearance due an immense profusion of individuals of but few Those most constant and conspicuous are shrubby and plants which occur almost to the exclusion of other No trees are found among Grasses grow in but these die out with the advancing season everywhere excepting in favored recesses and parks of the such as are so conspicuous in parts of the plain region east of the do not excepting certain salt forms almost worthless for pasturage and confined to the alkaline meadow As a protection against the intense dryness of the the characteristic plants above mentioned have mostly leaves with tough cuticle and often a dense covering of The prevalent color of the vegetation is a wearisome gray or dull Only at long intervals is this monotony of color relieved by the bright green of the richer vegetation of the oases about springs and along Salt Bushes and It is impossible for plants of the higher orders to thrive in the strongly alkaline soil in the lower portions of the The plants growing here belong for the most part especially to-the of which one of the best known and most widely distributed is the common Of similar habit and abundance is Along with among ther abundant plants of the same occur Sueda and especially the peculiar glasswort or which in marshy saline ground flourishes over areas about the Great Salt Lake and with its brightly fleshy a pleasing feature the Farther back from the playas are found the the white the familiar and excessively the larger several species of and Intermingling to some extent with the last mentioned and beyond the alkaline soil of their preference wholly is the ever common This form almost completely usurps the better soil of the valleys and plains and extends far up on the mountain With the over the gravelly are also found and In the swales and other places favored by the drainage the rabbit brush is a common The smaller rabbit brush or abounds almost everywhere and often forms a conspicuous feature over large Among the occur here and there brilliantly flowered during the early such herbaceous forms as the common sweet various and several species of the gaudily flowered and other with later in the in most the beautiful sego In Mountains and The lower like the are chiefly destitute of trees and are overgrown with bush and shrub of kinds occurring on the foothills or with because of the more exposed more scattered ad On the higher woods occur in often wide At lower the cedar is everywhere as at higher is the The nut of so much import-ace formerly to the Indians is abundant in certain of which should be mentioned especially the Creek The mountain also inch used in earlier times by the is h the canyons containing streams of water occurs wealth of plants not found trees and shrubs growing along the stream margins ire varius species of the quaking the the the service berry or june e ild or choke the the the the sumac or and ild In the richer soil of canyons and foot-J the scrub oak grows in dense As an growth over side of the canyons the box and are while various species of and other plants often grow o Game Not large game was not rela- T the coul not be primarily a hunting They seem to have placed no regular dependence upon forms larger than the hare or although when opportunity was propitious they sometimes undertook the securing or antelope and At one side of Mill Creek which is in the Wahsatch mountains and opens the Salt Lake there is a mountain valley broad and open at its upper narrows toward the canyon into a vertically-sided gorge which terminates abruptly at a precipice of great Occasionally the resorted to this richer region beyond their proper and at opportune times surrounding deer and antelope would drive them down the valley to the where the terrified finding retreat leaped over the precipice to their From this the Mill Creek canyon is known to the as which means rock or Some of the older men also tell of a great artificially constructed in the Cedar mountains and formerly kept in repair from year to This was a great run of the sides of which were walls or fences formed of logs and At the time of a drive all available men and women would make a wide semicircle about antelope or other game that might be in the region shouting and continually closing would drive the animals to the narrow apex of the run or where hidden hunters easily killed the bewildered Products from While bear and other large game formed scarcely more an occasional source of sustenance among the the jack exceedingly abundant throughout the was highly important to them and was regularly a chief dependence in fall and winter for raiment and After a hunt the meat was dried and while the skins were dressed and largely twisted into fur These fur ropes were then bound together to form blankets or articles of clothing which were very warm and It was the custom to hold great rabbit hunts or drives avery In these drives the entire tribe engaged and were sometimes joined by neighboring The common procedure was to construct of greasewood or other convenient material a great V-shaped run similar to the one described in the preceding but of course with lower and tighter At the apex was a hole leading into an underground passage covered or roofed with a The hare were surrounded and driven into the enclosure by the co-operation of men women and As the hares reached the they would run into the covered apex of the enclosure from which they were taken by men stationed Sometimes the hares were merely for the of bewildered and driven into the heap they were readily killed by means of In the spring and early summer the ground squirrel or everywhere was trapped or originally with bow and It is still sought as as which it is much Certain of the larger desert lizards an snakes were for merly but these forms are no longer sought for this declared to be good 1 An abundance of food was furnished at time by the I black several species of locusts and the The cr diets often occurred in vast swarms or They were not only eaten in but were dried and preserved for winter use in baskets or other re- i covered in A favorite method of cook ing was to place them in pits lined with liot stones in they were covered and left until thoroughly This dish is really very palatable and is compared by the Indians to the which they accordingly term the or were likewise eaten and were similarly pre pared and preserved for winter The cicada was eaten both fresh and after Indian children may still often be seen catching these deftly removing head and and eating the bodies at once with evident t It was upon the products of the plant kingdom that the placed their chief dependence for V a fact that in the trapper and pioneer to their being included under the odious omnibus tion of Living close to nature and impelled by strict they knew the plants of their region with a thoroughness truly From root to fruit they knew the plants in form and texture and taste according to season and portion of a plant could serve in any degree for food had found and whatever would poison or f 1 injure they had learned to From they obtained most of their which were as well as the for making most of their house- 1 nold and otner The education of the v children in a knowledge of these and other matters important to them in their original state was looked after with great care by the as among the older men and because of their longer experience and consequent more extensive being looked up to as the natural teachers A and the but since the change in mode of life consequent upon the coming of the white race this education is much As a the knowledge concerning plants and their properties possessed by the younger generations is much inferior to that of the older men and women fast passing The ate the leaves and stems of many plants as after boiling them in water according to i the usual Some members of the and containing acrid or otherwise ful oils' or other principles were sometimes taken through a preliminary course of repealed washings to i i remove the objectionable taste as far as after which they were cooked and eaten as The leaves and petioles of the arrowroot furnished one of the most used and dependable foods of this This is a and abundant member of the flora throughout the The hastate leaves of this mostly radical and forming a are eight or nine inches with still longer and the flowers are showy heads like those of the is an umbellate widely distributed and abundant like the preceding It is an early spring plant with tufted leaves of form and with umbels of yellow flowers The leaves of this plant in season furnished a standard and favorite Among many other plants of which the leaves were eaten may be mentioned native and the entire plants of the latter form being The entire plant of the cancer a pale leafless parasite growing upon the roots of the sage-brush and several species of was also The stems of the plumed thistle provided as did also in quantity the lower tender and root-stocks of the A plant of primary importance to the because it furnished one of their most valued but which was also the source of a certain amount of is Only the youngest just as they were breaking through the were used as the ill-tasting older growths being rejected as Of the plants that food to the in the form of tubers and none is popularly so well known as the beautiful which is the state flower of The bulbs of this lily were formerly gathered as Not only were they eaten in but they were preserved in quantity for winter use by being dried and placed in pits like those described From these pits they were taken as They were most commonly cooked with meat in When the Mormon first arrived in Utah and the struggle for food was so severe with they learned from the Indians the value of this and the digging of the bulbs in the spring did much in many families to stave off Another lily furnishing an edible bulb is a yellow-flowered form blooming in the mountains in early It was much less than the The furnished a more important food of this class and in some sections where more available was extensively used- The bulbs of the wild onions and those of the common spring beauty were also eaten in but are said not to have preserved for winter A Wild One of the most highly prized of all food plants among the was Carum which occurs in abundance in favorable places in the higher It grows to a height of four feet and bears rather few compound The roots are f and It is these that are They j sweet and pleasant to the taste and are nutritious S from the presence of an abundance of starchy Indians are very fond of it and still frequently gather The usual method of cooking the roots was roast them in pits lined with hot stones in which they commonly covered and left Sometimes they were These roots were cached in large quantities for winter An industry of the and related tribes very frequently noticed by early travelers was the gathering or the seeds of grasses and of various other a source of food of fundamental While many kinds of plants furnished seeds that were by far the greater proportion came from the grasses and members of the Pew grasses occurring at all abundantly did not furnish them as those mentioned in due order in the later lists will The Salt Various previously mentioned as forming such a predominant and characteristic element of the flora over the valleys and flats furnished a great quantity of nutritious seeds and in some localities a species of and in and in wet places appear to have been the chief source of Plants of these genera are so often seen growing thickly over wide areas that they would seem in places to have furnished a food supply limited only by the capacity and inclination of the Indians to vest Especially is abundant in the alkaline valleys throughout the occurring in enormous profusion in the more favorable places so as to have been much depended Another species also furnishing seeds is The or previously is a W. leafless herbaceous plant with fleshy jointed It has been compared in appearance to branching to living groves of which the resemblance is accentuated by its presenting colors in many shades of red and yellow The plant occurs over extensive areas in marshy ground about the shores of the Great Salt Lake and elsewhere throughout the often thickly covering the ground for no other plant is The seeds of this plant made into a meal and cooked are said to have furnished an article tasting like sweet and one f which the Indians were very |