Estimate of supplies needed was for meat only one fourth of quantity required and for flour only one third has been purchased, less than one fifth rations, or less than five ounces per day for each person.
On such an allowance, having nothing else, how could they avoid starving? At present there is an abundance of berries, but they will soon be gone, and then there will be nothing but meat and flour. It should be borne in mind that at no time since I assumed charge of this agency has there been a single pound of rice, beans, hominy, oatmeal, or anything of that kind to give to the Indians. Do you wonder that it is reported that they are starving? In May and June there were times when they stripped the trees and ate the inner bark to keep their souls and bodies together. Just now they are not suffering, but in a very short time the berries will be gone and supplies will run low and the carpenter will again be kept busy making burial boxes unless something can be done in the way of getting them additional food. The Indians vital forces are so weakened by the famine of the past three years that the winter now approaching will find them unable to endure its severity, and still more dreadful suffering and death will occur. The Piegans are slowly starving to death, but in order to convince the government than an unnatural and inhuman state of things exists, it would seem necessary that these Indians should break out in open revolt and all die at once. The Indians have discussed in council whether to take the field and be killed quickly rather than to die slowly by degrees of starvation. The Texas cattlemen wonder at their forbearance and say they would not blame the Indians if they broke out and started a war, but refuse to sell any beef."
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau
pg.41-42
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