The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1917-01 - 1917-02

              The Word Carrier.
of Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME  XLVI
HELPING- THE  BIGHT, EXPOSING THE "WRONG.
NUMBER I
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1917
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR
Our Platform
For Indians we want American Education! We want
American Homes! We want American Rights ! The result
of which is American Citizenship! And the Gospel is the
Power of God for their Salvation !
Two Volunteer Missionaries Among the Dakotas
In the spring of 1834 the two brothers, Samuel W. Poud and Gideon H. Pond of Connecticut, began missionary work among the Sioux Indians at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The history
of their life and work was published iu 1893 in
the book "Two Volunteer Missionaries Among
the Dakotas." This book was written by Samuel
W. Pond, Jr., the youngest son of the volunteer missionary Samuel W. Pond.
The recent death of Samuel W. Pond, Jr.,
makes fitting a review of this pioneer Indian
work as quoted from his book.
The Missionary Outlook
"It was a serious undertaking. There was
in it no element of attractiveness. It was to a
people ignorant, savage, and degraded. Furthermore save a few personal friends none knew
anything of this mission to the Dakotas, or
felt the slightest interest in its success or failure.
Fort Snelling was located on the high point of
land lying between the Mississippi and Minnesota, then called St. Peters River. It was at
that time the central, and in fact only, important place lying within the present State of
Minnesota. There was then, and for years afterward, no white , settlement northwest of
Prairie du Chieu, and it'was the decided policy
of the government to exclude all except agents
and employees of the fur companies from the
territory of the Indians. The military post at
Fort Suelling, erected in 1819, fifteen years prior to this date, was for many years the extreme
outpost of frontier civilization.
Location of the Dakotas
The Dakota Indians had not disposed of any
portion of their vast territory by treaty, except
the narrow tract forming the military reserve
on which the above named fort was built.
The Dakotas were distributed along the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers from Prairie du
Chieu to Lake Traverse, and their territory was
bounded on the north by the Ojibway country.
Western branches of the Dakota nation, outside
of the territory described above, were at that
time beyond the reach of missionary enterprise.
With some of the neighboring tribes, and
especially the Ojibway nation, the Dakotas waged eternal warfare, and war parties each year
brought in scalps in sufficient numbers to,keep
them in fair practice in the line of the scalp
dance.
First Attempt at Civilization
No attempt had ever been made to civilize or
Christianize the Dakotas. The Dakota Indians
were at that time substantially what they had
been for generations, depending on their own resources for subsistance, upon their own medicine men for medical advice and aid, and upon
the traditions of their fathers for their knowledge
of the mysterious and unseen. Each of these they
found in its way sufficient for their needs. As
for spiritual instruction they were not conscious
of any special lack in that line, with their medicine men to look after their idolatrous feasts
and observances.
The Pond brothers expected to find the Dakota Indians human beings with like passions as
themselves, and they so found them. They
were men and women like other men and women, except as hereditary customs, modes of
life, and hereditary ignorance and superstition
had made them to differ. The trouble with them
was they had too much human nature, once said
Saumel Pond.
Reducing Lauguage to Writing
It has often been represented by persons having but a superficial knowledge of Indian lan
guages that they are imperfect and defective,
and can be made to express but a very limited
range of ideas. Possibly this may be true of
some of the aboriginal North American tongues,
but it is certainly not true of the Dakota. While
it would require many additions to adapt it
to the varied uses of civilized life, the Dakota
was quite complete enough to express all the
thoughts and feelings of a Dakota, aud in some
directions possessed a fullness and completeness
scarcely to have been expected in the unwritten
lauguage of a nation of wondering savages.
In the narrative of S. W. Pond, the process
of reducing the Dakota to a written form is
briefly described as follows: —From the time
! of our arrival, we considered the acquisition of
the Dakota language of paramount importance,
and however our hands might be employed, this
work was not neglected.    We were ever on the
alert to catch some new word or phrase from
the   mouths of   the   Indians, and   though our
memories were retentive, we made  "assurance
doubly sure" by writing down what we learned.
The Dakota Alphabet
Here we met with a serious difficulty for want
of a suitable alphabet.  With the vowels we bad
no difficulty, for there are in Dakota but five
vowel sounds, and they are'common to the English ; but with the consonants it is different, for
there are sounds in the language which no English letter or combination of letters can be made
to express.    To meet this difficulty,  we took
such characters of the English alphabet as are
| not needed in the Dakota and gave them new
\ names and powers.    When our alphabet was
I completed, each letter had one uniform sound
i so there is but one way of spelling any given
j word in Dakota, and if one knows how to pro-
i nounce a word, he knows what letters to use in
i spelling it.    This accounts for the facility with
! which  the Dakotas learn  to read and write.
] We arranged the alphabet in the summer of
! 1834, and our house was completed at about the
j same time.    The house was to stand but five
years, while the alphabet will be used as long
as Dakota is written     In the language of another:    "This cabin was the home of the first
citizen settlers of  Hennepin county,   perhaps
of Minnesota; the first school room, the first
house of divine worship, the first mission house
among the Dakotas."
Nothing but unwearied diligence on the part
of the Pond brothers would have enabled them
to meet successfully the obstacles in their untried path and accomplish  so thoroughly and
rapidly the work they had undertaken.
The First Winter
The winter of 1834-35 was a peculiarly severe
I one.    The far-famed dryness of the winter at-
j mosphere in the Upper Mississippi region can-
| not altogether neutralize the severity of northwestern breezes with the mercury ranging from
zero to forty degrees m.nus.     Subsistance was
mainly upon pork and flour, varied occasional- '
ly with venison steak.     Deer were very plenty
around Lake   Calhoun   that   winter,   and   the :
brothers spent a number of weary days hunting j
them; but as they had nothing but boots to '
wear on their feet, were not properly armed for ;
that kind of hunting, and were entirely inex- \
perienced in the habits of the deer, they.were
unsuccessful.
There was, however, another liue of hunting
in which the white men were successful.    Dur- !
ing the early part of winter, an Indian boy became enraged at his pony because he could not
catch it, and in revenge shot at it, breaking the
the shoulder of his captor. Since the latter
had him by the throat, the wolf soon became
"dead again" as our Teutonic neighbors say.
The brothers afterwards looked upon their
want of success in hunting during that first
winter as fortunate, since Success in that direction might have diverted their minds somewhat from more important work. There was
one clearly defined foundation principle manifestly underlying all that these brothers did
for the Indians—the principle of putting their
mission work first.
Idea of Successful Work
Iii order to prosecute their work successfully
they deemed it essential that they should fully
understand the language, habits, customs, hopes,
and fears of an Indian; that they should be able
to talk like a native, walk like a native, aud, as
far as might be, live like one—on Indian fare,
in an Indian tent, with   Indians if need be.
They  held the work in  such   paramount  importance that   the luxuries   and comforts and
even the very necessaries of life might be dispensed with iu a measure,  in the prosecution
of it.    Cold and hunger, danger and exposure,
winter and starvation, were but light afflictions
scarce worth remembering and not worthy to
be mentioned, as were also treacherous dogs,
innumerable fleas,   and   occasionally   drunken
Indians and Ojibway bullets.    They feared no
danger, reckoned nothing as worthy the name
of hardship which they might encounter in the
path which seemed to them the path of duty.
Dr. Williamson Joins the Mission
Late  in the same  month of May that the
! Pond brothers came to Minnesota Dr. Thomas
j S. Williamson arrived at Fort Snelling, under
i appointment from the A. B. C. F. M., and ex-
| plored the country for the purpose of selecting
i a location for a future mission building.    In
i May of the following year Dr. Williamson and
] Alexander G   Huggins came to share the work
i among the Dakotas.    Mrs. Williamson was al-
j so   accompanied  by   her  sister,   Miss   Sarah
I Poage.    Dr.   Williamson  had been practicing
| medecine in southern Ohio where he had good
prospects of a successful career.    His field and
j prospects he cheerfully abandoned for what he
i deemed a wider field of usefulness among the
; Dakotas.    They remained but a short time in
j the vicinity of the fort and then ascended the
i Minnesota River to Lac qui Parle  where they
i had determined to establish a station.
During the winter of 1836 Dr. Williamson
wrote the Pond brothers, urging that one of
them should remove to Lac qui Parle and aid
him in the study of the language. Samuel
Pond went soon after, where he remained for
three years.
The Marriage of Gideon Pond
November 1, 1837 [quoting from the journal
of Gideon Pond.] I was married this afternoon at three to Miss Sarah Poage, by Rev.
Stephen R. Riggs. Mr. Riggs, who performed
the ceremony, had arrived at Lac qui Parle a
short time before with his young wife, having
been sent out to reinforce the laborers who
Were already in the field.
Mr. Riggs thus speaks of the marriage:
"Could I paint the assembly, you would agree
with me that it was deeply and singularly interesting. Fancy, for a moment, the audience
who were witnesses to the scene. The rest of our
missionary band sat near those of our number
who were about to enter into the new and sacred
relationship, while most of the room was filled
with our dark-faced guests, a blanket or a buf-
poor beast's leg.    The horse was killed and left. . falo robe their chief 'wedding garment', and
Mr. Pond took an ox chain and set a row of
steel traps around the horse, fastening them to
the chain. In this way seven wolves were
caught and their skins added much to the cabin
comforts. One of these wolves was only stunned when first knocked on the head and came
to life very suddenly after being thrown across
coarse tawdry beads, brooches, paint, and feathers their wedding ornaments. Here and there
sat a Frenchman or half-breed, whose garb bespoke their different origin. No turkey or eagle
feathers adorned their hair, or parti-colored paint
the face, though even their appearance and attire
reminded us of our location in the wilderness."