The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1916-07 - 1916-08

              the Word carrier
of Santee Normal Training school.
VOLUME  XLV
HELPING- THE  RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER 4
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
JULY-AUGUST, 1916
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR
"The Father of the Sioux"
Tbe Passing of Dr. Alfred Longlev Riggs
By A. C. Warner
It is said that when the body of Robert
Browning was borne through the streets
of London ,Burne Jones turned to a friend
and exclaimed, "0 for the blare of a
mighty trumpet." These words came to
my mind as I stood beside an open grave '
in a mission cemetery on a hill slope in
Nebraska overlooking the Missouri River.
Here, behind the carriage that bore the
dead, came the mourning friends; and
yonder, following the flag, came the long
procession of students from the Indian
school whose founder and head was gone.
And as those two lines met at the grave,
down the road as far as one could see,
the column of people followed solemnly
on foot to honor him who for forty-six
years had lived at that Mission giving
himself without stint for a backward
race, in a loving ministry "crimsoned
with sacrifice."
As one looked he rejoiced that as far
as possible the trappings of mourning
were absent, for here, surely, was a
grave which was not to be a place for
despairing tears, but rather a sanctuary,
to which from henceforth the students
of that school should come evermore
to drink inspiration, and to consecrate
themselves to lives of like devotion and
service for their own people. Here was
a grave where death is swallowed up
in victory.
At the services that, marked the close of
the earthly life of Alfred Longley Riggs one got i
a new sense of the meaning of the fruitfulness i
of missions, and of the significance of such a
missionary-life.    Dr. Riggs has left his own
confession of the struggle it involved to take
up the work among the Indians.    He had been
born among the Sioux, iu the log house in which
his missionary parents then lived, and he wrote :
"My first serious impression of life was that I was living
under a great weight of something; and as I began^to discern
more clearly, 1 found this weight to be the all-surrounding,
overwhelming presence of heathenism, and all the instincts of
my birth, and all the culture ot a Christian home set me at
antagonism to it at every point. The filthy savages, indecently clad, lazily lounging about the stove of our siiting-room.
or flattening their dirty noses on the window panes, caused
such a disgust for everything Indian that it took the better
thought of many years to overcome the repugnance thus a-
roused."    But he added:
"If we have known more of the discouragements of the
work, we also know more of its hopefulness. We know tfie
teal savage, but we now know, and fully believe in, his real
humanity and salvability by the power of the cross."
And now at his burial we saw the vindication
of Dr. Riggs' faith, the fruitage of that almost
half a century of higher Christian education.
To his grave, from near and far over the Dakotas came teachers, preachers, Christian leaders;
stalwart men, clean in body and spirit, bearing
witness by their presence and their words to
the work of him who had taught them manhood
in Christ Jesus. Here one saw the transforma
tion that has come about within the lifetime of
one man. He has been called with truth, "The
Father of the Sioux."
When Dr. Riggs was born, seventy-eight
years ago, in the wilds of Minnesota, the Indians gave him the name of Zitkadan Washtay
(Good Bird), and by that name they have lovingly called him in all these years since. He
died April 1.5, on the train, peacefully falling
asleep while en route home from California,
where he had spent his winters for several
years. His wife and son Fred were with him.
When the body reached Santee, just at dusk a
few days later, the Indians of the Reservation
met it with profound grief, that found voice, |
not in the old time wailing, but in Christian'
hymns, which they sang as the casket was carried through their ranks into the home.
A memorial service was held on the Friday
following, but owing to the inclement weather
Rev. A. L. Riggs, D. D.
Founder of Santee Normal Training School
the funeral itself was delayed until the day
after Easter. At the memorial service the
chapel was crowded to its utmost capacity. Addresses were delivered in English by Rev. L.
0. Baird, D. D.. District Secretary of the A.
M. A., and by Rev. W. B. Pinkerton of the
Rosebud Mission ; and in the Dakota tongue by
Rev. Albert Prazier and Rev. Elias Gilbert.
In the great audience at the funeral, out of
doors, sat the family and mission teachers and
helpers, the student body, whites from the
Agency and Reservation, from Springfield and
Yankton and elsew7here ; and all about them the
multitude of men aud women of the dusky Dakotas, who had looked to this man as their
friend and leader and teacher through all these
years. Dr. Frank V. Stevens came to represent the American Missionary Association, and
on its behalf to lay a wreath upon the casket
and to pay tribute to ' 'one of its most valuable
and appreciated missionaries." Rev. Jesse
Williamson represented the third generation
of that family whose name, with tnat of the
Ponds and Riggses, is written on the hero roll
of missions among the red men. And there
was his veteran father, Dr. John P. Williamson, now in his 81st year, but still actively
working at his post, the boyhood companion,
the lifelong friend and co-worker with Dr.
Riggs; and the brothers, Albert and Francis
Frazier, mourning their friend and "father"
and speaking with eloquent tongue of his service to their race; and the aged Elias Gilbert,
who had played as a child with ''Good Bird"
in the days of long ago.
And there was Rev. John Eastman, who as
a young man, with four others, had come in
midwinter in 1870 all the way from Flandreau
on foot, wrapped in blankets, sleeping at night.
in the snow, to seek entrance to this new
school. These five had formed the first pupils.
There also was the tender tribute of the brother
Thomas, who as a student had accompanied his
older brother when he came to open up the
mission in 1870, and who had found in all these
years of his own noble work farther up the
river, such a fund of sympathy and new courage, such a wealth of wisdom in the home
of his brother Alfred.
After the uplifting prayer by Rev.
George W. Reed, for nearly thirty years
a missionary at Standing Rock Reservation, six graduates of the school bore the
body through the line of students to the
carriage and to the cemetery on the hill.
Alfred Longley Riggs was the oldest
son of the veteran missionaries, Stephen
R. and Mary Ann (Longley) Riggs, and
was born at Lac-qui-Parle, Dec. 6, 1837.
He graduated from Knox College and
Chicago Theological Seminary. For
seven years he was pastor at Lockport
and Woodstock, 111., and Center, Wis.
After a visit in 1869 to look over the
ground, he came the following May to
Santee, Neb. To this Reservation the
Santee Sioux had been transferred in
1866, after the Minnesota massacres,
and Rev. John P. Williamson had come
with them. It was designed that Alfred
should come not as missionary or preacher, but, to open up some higher educational work for all the Dakota Indians,
for which the time now seemed ripe.
When he came in 1870 there was a log
house, and a few ' 'shacks '' Today there
. is the picturesque group of buildings on
the bank that overlooks the Missouri, a
noble monument indeed to the great
labors of this gentle, patient leader
who wrought with statesmanlike vision,
but still altogether inadequate to the
needs and the opportunities of the enlarging work.
Dr. Riggs possessed remarkable intellectual gifts, and these were coupled with
the finest spiritual qualities. As was said of him
at the funeral service by Rev. Stevens, "he possessed such gifts of mmd and qualities of soul
that he would have been a man of marked success
in any calling or profession." But what choice
of life work that he could have made would
have given him such a throne of influence as he
has had? From all over the Northeast, and
now, iu later years, from the more distant
tribes to the south and west, there have come
those who are to be the leaders of their people
as they struggle up from semi-paganism to
Christian civilization. He has brought the impact of his personality and Christian ideals upon more red men than probably any other man
of this generation.
Dr. L. 0. Baird eloquently reminded the
young men and women of the school, in his address, that the work among and for the Indians
has really only just begun; that besides the
300,000 Indians in our states, there are the
thousands in Alaska and Canada, the million
and a half in Mexico and the ten million in
South America, and he expressed his conviction that for all of these the work of Santee
Training School is crucial and central in importance. From this school in the years to
come there must go forth those who shall be
missionaries and leaders of all these tribes.
Aud as he paid tribute to the significant work
of Dr. Riggs he rejoiced that among the doctor's
gifts were members of his own family consecrated and so well trained to carry forward the work
of the school to yet larger and wider usefulness.—From The Congregationalist, of July 6.
Tribute to Dr. Riggs from the American
Missionary Association
The Executive Committee of the American
Missionary Association bears its testimony to
the sacrificial and consecrated services of this
noble, Christian man and would convey expressions of profound appreciation and sincere
sorrow to the members of his household and
immediate friends.
In placing its testimony in the minutes of
this committee we realize that the Indian people
of the prairie have lost a. devoted and wise
[leader in the death of Dr. A. L. Riggs.