| Show SUFFERING ON THE BIG FLAT FLATA THOUSAND A YEARS AGO We have just gone through a sudden drop in inthe inthe inthe the temperature temperature- a snow storm of more than usual depth and rid then the dropping of the mercury to 25 degrees below zero on Saturday night and 14 to 16 Mon Monday morning g Bitterly cold cola Very hard to bear with all the conveniences we have wood coal and wooden houses i Think what such a spell must have been back F in prehistoric times times times- any thing intermediate up to toa toa a thousand years ago merely as a statement to be said meaning any time in the past before a white person contacted the in this area For house skins stretched over willow poles open at the top to let the smoke out a flap of skin for a door Inmates huddled over over a tiny fire fire fire- the white make fire and back from it it man a big away wY t r Indian make e a little fire and get close to it X t A family huddled in there with more or lessl less smoke constantly in th the he e room irritating the he eyes es l no wonder trachoma is IS virulent among and semi- semi dark in there then out from that dim light to 4 the vivid blinding dazzling snow with eyes alJ already al al- J ready inflamed surely 1 not enough to eat eat eat- jerky jerk Yr J of sorts maybe some me meat and far oftener not as asto i to a balanced diet forget forgot it it- it it was near w tion or as my Indian informant says Come out of 7 fhe winter mighty thin Beckwith I k j W Will Ill Reuben Black told me many years year ago that fh dt in in the far distant past he and another young I J jellow rode in dead of oi winter down b by Y the Butte Butte and saw an an Indian teepee in the snow off a at t way They visited it The poor Indians l were sit- sit ling ing around a tiny fire tiny in our sense and were eating parched wild sunflower seeds A woman I was parching them that that is shaking a flat flatt mud tray over the coals deftly flipping the seeds seeds' t 1 oyer over so that each got parched and when a ul was done passing it over to the group c Think of that for fora a good husky filling well- well balanced meal ten to twenty And chances are nine out of ten there was no larder no pantry no reserve to draw on all meted meted met met- ed out with meticulous care A long time before the time of tg green reen grass growing time when nature would again smile on the brown skinned skinned skin skin- fir 1 ned brother So everything had to be used spar spar- No waste waster for waste meant starvation Maybe a q jackrabbit jackrabbit- maybe a coyote if the hunter-father hunter were lucky Probably not lucky j Think of what suffering we feel at a time like r this cold cold cold- but hardly that cold hungry hungry- but not r J Neighbors miles away Probably no if 1 better off themselves In the early fall the Indian woman had beat 1 the tops of seed bearing grasses and winnowed a ay y scanty supply that would be made into mush flar flavored flavored fla fla- r with a gherkin of picked at maturity No canned goods no store to go to o or r Relief r Society to tell wants to Yes imagine what s such ch a storm as this with all the advantages we have was to the How much better a frame house even if thin i is s than thana thanH H a I of skins no no better than a t tent eat And how much better our shoes than worn pats pars of buckskin buckskin buckskin buck buck- skin soggy wet miserable And we with man many y quilts and blankets they with merely a maru maru- maru if that f fortunate or a cape of rabbit skin rope roper twisted and sewed t to o a rude cone form Last winter one of ease ease ease- this winter starting out as if to make up for it A humdinger a lol 1 in plain words a cuss What was it to the ancient man on this bI big flat |
