Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн
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One concern, strange to say, was cannibalism. Most whites suspected that the savages were cannibals, but in this case it was the Paiute who was concerned about the cannibalistic whites. As early as the spring of 1847 Captain Truckee and the Paiutes learned of the fate of the Donner Party in which the desperate snowbound group of whites turned to eating themselves as well as their Indian guides. The Paiutes became convinced that the whites not only killed people but ate them.82
As a child Sarah Winnemucca’s mother, Tuboitony, told her that the whites were killing and eating people. When some whites were spotted her aunt told her mother, “Let us bury our girls [Sarah and her cousin], or we shall all be killed and eaten up.”83 As an adult Sarah remembered that her father, Old Winnemucca, had called the whites “owls,” conjuring up the image of the Cannibal Owl, a Paiute boogeyman who, according to ancient tales, carried away misbehaving children and ate them.84
The Owens Valley Paiutes knew about Panatűbiji’, the Indian who experienced the cannibalistic acts of one of the first white men to enter the Valley. The stranger took Panatűbij’ to the body of a corpse, proceeded to cut off both legs, and returned to the camp near Soldiers’ Pass where he brewed up a stew pot. At dark the white man satisfied his hunger by eating the human stew. As for his Indian hosts, they refused the stew and left the camp to hide in the caves of the mountains.85 So, as can be seen, in the history of Indian–white relations it was not always clear who was and was not the savage cannibal!