I don't think anyone mentioned this reference, but from Volume One of
the Letters, to his mother from Carson City in 1862...

But you said in your last, "Do tell me all about the lordly sons of
the forest, and the graceful and beautiful sq-squaws, (what an
unpleasant word,) sweeping over the prairies on their fiery steeds,
or chasing the timid deer, or reposing in the shade of some grand old
tree, lulled by the soft music of murmuring brooks and warbling
birds-do."

Gently, now,-gent-ly, Madam.  You can't mean the Pi-Utes, or the
Washoes, or the Shoshones, do you?  Because if you do, you are
barking up the wrong tree, you know; or in other words, you've got
the wrong sow by the ear, Madam.  For among those tribes there are no
lordly sons of the forest, for the ferocious reason that there are no
forests of any consequence here.  At any rate, I am confident that
those fellows are never designated by that name in this Territory.
Generally speaking, we call them sons of the devil, when we can't
think of anything worse.  And they don't sweep over the prairies on
their fiery steeds,-these Washoes, and Pi-Utes and Shoshones,
don't,-because they haven't got any, you know.  And there are no
prairies, Ma, because sage-brush deserts don't come under that head,
in this portion of Paradise Lost.  Nor they don't chase the timid
deer; nor they don't repose in the shade of some grand old tree; nor
they don't get lulled by the soft music of murmuring brooks and
warbling birds.  None of them.  Because, when the timid deer come
prospecting around here, and find that hay is worth one hundred and
fifty dollars a ton, and sage-brush isn't good to eat, they just turn
their bob-tails towards the rising sun and skedaddle, my dear.  And
all that about these Pi-Utes sunning themselves in the shade of the
grand old trees, is a grand old humbug, you know-on account of the
scarcity of the raw material.  Also the item about the warbling
birds.  Because there are no warbling birds here, except magpies and
turkey-buzzards.  And they don't warble any to signify, because, if
they fooled their time away with that sort of nonsense they would
starve to death, suddenly...

But if you want a full and correct account of these lovely
Indians-not gleaned from Cooper's novels, Madam, but the result of
personal observation-a strictly reliable account, which you could bet
on with as much confidence as you could on four aces, you will find
that on that subject I am a Fund of useful information to which the
whole duty of man isn't a circumstance.  For instance: imagine this
warrior Hoop-de-doodle-do, head chief of the Washoes.  He is five
feet seven inches high; has a very broad face, whose coat of red
paint is getting spotty and dim in consequence of accumulating dirt
and grease; his hair is black and straight, and dangles about his
shoulders; his battered stove-pipe hat is trimmed all over with bits
of gaudy ribbon and tarnished artificial flowers, and he wears it
sometimes over his eyes, with an exceedingly gallus air, and
sometimes on the back of his head; on his feet he wears one boot and
one shoe-very ancient; his imperial robe, which almost drags the
ground, is composed of a vast number of light-gray rabbit-skins sewed
together; but the crowning glory of his costume, (which he sports on
great occasions in corduroy pants, and dispensing with the robe,) is
a set of ladies' patent extension steel-spring hoops, presented to
him by Gov. Nye-and when he gets that arrangement on, he looks like a
very long and very bob-tailed bird in a cage that isn't big enough
for him.  Now, Ma, you know what the warrior Hoop-de-doodle-do looks
like-and if you desire to know what he smells like, let him stand by
the stove a moment, but have your hartshorn handy, for I tell you he
could give the stink-pots of Sebastopol four in the game and skunk
them.  Follow him, too, when he goes out, and burn gun powder in his
footsteps; because wherever he walks he sheds vermin of such
prodigious size that the smallest specimen could swallow a grain of
wheat without straining at it, and still feel hungry.  You must not
suppose that the warrior drops these vermin from choice, though.  By
no means, Madam-for he knows something about them which you don't;
viz, that they are good to eat.  There now.  Can you find anything
like that in Cooper?  Perhaps not.  Yet I could go before a
magistrate and testify that the portrait is correct in every
particular.  Old Hoop himself would say it was "heap good."

(Letters, Vol. 1, pp. 175-177)

I quoted it in a paper once. I hope I'm not stretching the boundaries
of fair use online.

Alex Effgen
Boston University