Perhaps the most characteristic vegetation of the Great Basin—that is, if it deserve the name of a vegetation—is the wild sage, or artemisia. With this plant vast plains are covered, as far as the eye can reach; not presenting a hue of green, as the grass prairies do, but a uniform aspect of grayish white, as monotonous as if the earth were without a leaf to cover it. Instead of relieving the eye of the traveller, the artemisia rather adds to the dreariness of a desert landscape,—for its presence promises food neither to man nor horse, not water for them to drink, but indicates the absence of both. Upon the hill-sides also is it seen, along the sloping declivities of the sierras, marbling the dark volcanic rocks with its hoary frondage.
More than one species of this wild sage occurs throughout the American desert: there are four or five kinds, differing very considerably from each other, and known to the trappers by such names as “worm wood,” “grease-bush,” “stink-plant,” and “rabbit-bush.” Some of the species attain to a considerable height,—their tops often rising above the head of the traveller on horseback,—while another kind scarce reaches the knee of the pedestrian.
In some places the plains are so thickly covered with this vegetation, that it is difficult for either man or horse to make way through them,—the gnarled and crooked branches twisting into each other and forming an impenetrable wattle. At other places, and especially where the larger species grow, the plants stand apart like apple-trees in an orchard, and bear a considerable resemblance to shrubs or small trees.
Both man and horse refuse the artemisia as food; and so, too, the less fastidious mule. Even a donkey will not eat it. There are animals, however,—both birds and beasts, as will be seen hereafter,—that relish the sage-plant; and not only eat of it, but subsist almost exclusively on its stalks, leaves, and berries.
The denizens of the Great Basin desert—I mean its human denizens—are comprehended in two great families of the aboriginal race,—the Utahs and Snakes, or Shoshonees. Of the white inhabitants—the Mormons and trap-settlers—we have nothing to say here. Nor yet much respecting the above-mentioned Indians, the Utahs and Snakes. It will be enough for our purpose to make known that these two tribes are distinct from each other,—that there are many communities or sub-tribes of both,—that each claims ownership of a large tract of the central region, lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada; and that their limits are not coterminal with those of the Great Basin: since the range of the Snakes extends into Oregon upon the north, while that of the Utahs runs down into the valley of the Rio del Norte upon the south. Furthermore, that both are in possession of the horse,—the Utahs owning large numbers,—that both are of roving and predatory habits, and quite as wicked and warlike as the generality of their red brethren.
They are also as well to do in the world as most Indians; but there are many degrees in their “civilization,” or rather in the comforts of their life, depending upon the situation in which they may be placed. When dwelling upon a good “salmon-stream,” or among the rocky mountain “parks,” that abound in game, they manage to pass a portion of the year in luxuriant abundance. In other places, however, and at other times, their existence is irksome enough,—often bordering upon actual starvation.
It may be further observed, that the Utahs and Snakes usually occupy the larger and more fertile oases of the desert,—wherever a tract is found of sufficient size to subsist a community. With this observation I shall dismiss both these tribes; for it is not of them that our present sketch is intended to treat.
This is specially designed for a far odder people than either,—for the Yamparicos, or “Root-Diggers;” and having described their country, I shall now proceed to give some account of themselves.
It may be necessary here to remark that the name “Diggers,” has of late been very improperly applied,—not only by the settlers of California, but by some of the exploring officers of the United States government. Every tribe or community throughout the desert, found existing in a state of special wretchedness, has been so styled; and a learned ethnologist (!), writing in the “Examiner,” newspaper, gravely explains the name, by deriving it from the gold-diggers of California! This “conceit” of the London editor is a palpable absurdity,—since the Digger Indians were so designated, long before the first gold-digger of California put spade into its soil. The name is of “trapper” origin; bestowed upon these people from the observation of one of their most common practices,—viz., the digging for roots, which form an essential portion of their subsistence. The term “yamparico,” is from a Spanish source, and has a very similar meaning to that of “Root-digger.” It is literally “Yampa-rooter,” or “Yampa-root eater,” the root of the “yampah” (anethum graviolens) being their favorite food. The true “Diggers” are not found in California west of the Sierra Nevada; though certain tribes of ill-used Indians in that quarter are called by the name. The great deserts extending between the Nevada and the Rocky Mountains are their locality; and their limits are more or less cotemporaneous with those of the Shoshonees or Snakes, and the Utahs,—of both of which tribes they are supposed to be a sort of outcast kindred. This hypothesis, however, rests only on a slight foundation: that of some resemblance in habits and language, which are very uncertain criteria where two people dwell within the same boundaries,—as, for instance, the whites and blacks in Virginia. In fact, the language of the Diggers can scarce be called a language at all: being a sort of gibberish like the growling of a dog, eked out by a copious vocabulary of signs: and perhaps, here and there, by an odd word from the Shoshonee or Utah,—not unlikely, introduced by the association of the Diggers with these last-mentioned tribes.
In the western and southern division of the Great Basin, the Digger exists under the name of Paiute, or more properly, Pah-Utah,—so-called from his supposed relationship with the tribe of the Utahs. In some respects the Pah-Utahs differ from the Shoshokee, or Snake-Diggers; though in most of their characteristic habits they are very similar to each other. There might be no anomaly committed by considering them as one people; for in personal appearance and habits of life the Pah-Utah, and the “Shoshokee”—this last is the national appellation of the yampah-eater,—are as like each other as eggs. We shall here speak however, principally of the Shoshokees: leaving it to be understood, that their neighbors the “Paiutes” will equally answer the description.