Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/265

Rh each out of this commonalty. This baronial ownership of territory it is proposed largely to reduce. The space which is by common agreement thought both equitable and practically expedient to assign to each Indian for fixed occupancy and improvement by his own forced or voluntary labor, is one hundred and sixty acres, — leaving the remaining undivided part of each Reservation as a common stock for investment for the whole tribe. If this scheme should take effect, with assured and recorded legal guarantees, it would prove the first real recognition ever made of land-tenure for our aborigines.

This estimate that has been made of the number of acres of wild forest-space required for the range of each single savage, even if allowed to include provision for his squaw and his pappooses, would not even then in all portions of the continent suffice for the maintenance of those dependent in a wasteful way upon it, for all the seasons of the year. In most parts of this country the Indians have always been compelled or prompted to lead a more or less nomadic life. When they are induced to move from one region where game has become scarce in order to seek it in another, they must be able to find such another equally wild region in reserve for them. The deer, the elk, the moose, the bear, and many small animals were their favorite food. The wolf and the cougar were oftener let alone than molested. Maize was necessarily relied upon by natives not living within the range of the buffalo, for winter's use, and as a very small store of it was easily carried on their tramps. It was at best but dry and hard though nutritious food. Parched and pounded, a handful of grains of it mixed with water, either with or without the help of further cooking, would, as we have noticed, sustain an Indian for a long journey. There is a favorite dish prepared by old-fashioned New England households, of boiled green corn and beans, known by the name of “Succotash” as coming to us from the