The Word Carrier (Santee, Nebraska), 1919-03 - 1919-04

              the Word Carrier
of Santee Normal training school.
VOLUME  XL VIII
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER G
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
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
Pjwer of God for their Salvation !
Some of Our Expeditionary Soldiers
Buglar, Co. H., 355th Infantry,
89th Division,
Germany, Feb. 2, 1919.
Dear Friends: Just thought I would write a
few lines to let you know that I am alive and
well, and having a good time. Hope you are
the same.
A few days ago the boys of the 340th artil-
ery gave a miustral show which was very good
and was sure funny.
The 355th infantry is getting up one now
and it will be a good one too. Philip Frazier
will be in the singing part. Talk about Com-
pette, he sure can sing.
Well, how goes it this year in the printing
office? Lots of work I suppose. I'll be there
again some time when I get back.
When we boys of Santee get back we can tell
some stories of our experience of soldier life,
MARCH-APRIL, 1919
FIFTY CENTS PER YEAR
in France and Germany.    I know it. did me
good in regard to my health.
When   I was in school at Santee I used to
Down With Peyote
We hope all friends of the Indians did as recommended below :
The Hayden Bill, (H. R. 2614), designed to
suppress intoxicants, including peyote, is now
in the hands of a Senate Committee, of which
Senator Henry F. Ashurst is Chairman. If
you would help save the Indian from the peyote
curse, which now threatens his race with destruction, and which is said to be invloving some
of the whites of the United States, please send
word immediately to Senator Ashurst, Washington, D. C, asking for the passing of the
Hayden Bill. Also ask your own Senator to use
his influence for the passage of this Bill, that it
may become a law. We urge you to act at once.
Richard H. Harper,
Missionary to Comanches and Ft. Sill Apaches
The Peyote Cult
Imagine yourself in a Winnebago tent toward
dusk. On an altar in the center is a peyote
bean. This drug is the object of a weird and
horrid cult that has held the Indian in a vise
for centuries. I asp*    '
The braves watch the altar intently, for toward midnight they believe the body of Christ
will emerge from the bean and appear to those
who have taken enough of the drug.
Sounds of eatirg and drinking are followed
by a less pleasant sound, as tlie Indians have
reached their limit and nausea has set in. The
victim is repudiating his sins and purging his
soul.
The place becomes noisy and fetid, but the
partakers are not conscious of it; they are seeing brilliant colors, hearing sweet music, and
some of them are seeing tbe figure of Christ on
a great white throne.
One Indian has said: ' We prize this medicine as highly as we do our farms, our blankets, !
and our homes. To us it is a portion of the body
of Christ, even as the communion bread is believed by others to be a portion of Christ's body.
We read in the Bible where Christ spoke of the
Comforter who is to come. Long ago the Comforter came to Whites, but it never came to Indians until it was sent by God in the form of
this holy medicine."
Yet this "holy medicine," like opium or
hasheesh, steals away their brains, weakens
their bodies and makes them imbecile and
worthless.
Why do we not stop the use of peyote? We
have allowed it to come in from Mexico free
of duty and have not effectively restricted its
sale; we have permitted its spread from Mexico to Canada; and not until 19.15 did we include it in the Food and Drug Law.—Hester
Donaldson Jenkins, in World Outlook.
Eugene Rouillard—Drafted from Our Printing Department
study about the European countries. iSow I
have seen parts of it so history is more real
tome. Eugene Rouillard .
Headquarters 2nd. Army,
Office of Chief Q. M,
A. P. 0. 918.   A. E. F.
January 22, 1919.
Strange to be writing to you from "somewhere in France", but we never can tell what
might happen. Next thing, you know I may
be back in America, at least I hope so. Had
been wanting to write to you for sometime, but
somehow I would end the day without tbe letter, that is encb day would slip away from me
before 1 would realize that it is gone, and yet
time seems to drag and pass along so slow these
days. It has seemed that way since the 11th
of November. Every body waiting to be sent
home and that's what makes times travel so
slow. It is worse than missing tbe Springfield morning train and have to lie over in town,
but we may get there some day.
Peace Conference is now on in full blast, so
they say, but of course that's all we know and I
fully believe you have better and more detailed
accounts of the meetings than we have on this
side. So there is nothing I can tell you in that
line. And the "war," well, its all over with
now, and I believe the shouting will be all over
with too, and soon I hope.
I have never in r. iy life experienced so much
wet weather as I have since coming to this country, and 1 have not seen "sunny" France yet.
Still the winter is not so bad, the coldest snap
we have had so far has been in the last few days,
and its not so very cold, it would rain, and rain.
Have seen very little snow, not anything to
speak of. I sometime wish it were possible to
trade oue of these rainy days, for one or two
hours or so of real South Dakota "blizzard."
I have seen so very few Indian boys over on
this side that I often wonder, where they are
all gone to, for I use to hear of so many of
them joining the Army and so on, but I guess
this Army is not so small after all, and France
not so small a country as she looks on the
map. What I have seen of the country, is very
pretty, but give me most anything back in the
States, even if it is old "Crazy peak", as bare
as it used to be, I think I can endure living on
it for some time. At that France must be a
healthy country, for I never felt better in my
life than I do right now and I have done very
well in keeping out of infirmaries and hospitals
so far, and I am not bragging either.
I received a letter from my father sometime
ago and he tells me that my little boy, Samuel
Jr., is at Santee, and while father told me that
the boy is doing fine in school, of which I am
happy, and hope he may prove a bet'.er man
than his father and so on, I wish to request of
you, if not too much trouble, to let me know
how he is getting along. I do not worry aud
am not thinking there is anything wrong or anything of that sort, but you know how a parent
feels about those matters. I will thank you very
much if you kindly will send me a copy or two
of either "Iapi Oaye or Word Carrier''. It will
be a treat to read either of them over here.
Thankiug you in advance, I wish to remain,
Very truly, Samuel Lapointe.
Indians in the Trenches
Looking :ibout the  misshapen dugout,  my
thoughts soon reverted  to more  materialistic
things.    The most noticeable feature was the
atmosphere, which so grudgingly gave its adulterated oxygen to the small flame.    I recognized most of the ingredients which reached my
; nostrils as common to similar human burrows
I which I had already inhabited.    There was old
j perspiration, and oil, and soiled clothes, stale
i wine and tobacco, and burned powder, with  a
j hint of boiled cabbage and brussels sprouts,
! and the taint of carbon dioxide.
But there was something else, which confused
I me.   It was neither white, Negro, norMongoli-
! an smell, nor the old familiar odor of crowded
Calcutta bazaars which I had recently sniffed in
an East Indian cafe in Paris.
As 1 sat and wondered, eight men crowded in, and the first glance at their features
gave me my answer. They were full-blooded American Indians—Algonkins and Iroquois from Eastern Canada. If I had come
upon a squad of Bornean sea-dyaks in the
trenches, I could not have been more surprised. One thought of most modern Indians somehow as being bowlegged, pot-bellied fellows, ne'er-do-wells, who at best sold
blankets and cheap bead work. Yet here were
eight fine-looking men, rangy, tall, swift of
motion, and graceful in their mud-matted
khaki. It was astounding beyond words.
One of them—a university graduate, as I was
told later—observed my ill-concealed surprise,
and instantly interpreted it. 'Looks as if we'd
climbed out of Cooper, doesn't it?' he asked
smilingly.
I found that there was a whole platoon of
these Indians, officers and men doing scout-duty
at various points, trained to this modern raiding, the selfsame manoeuvring which their
great-grandfathers had practised against mine.
They were exceedingly quiet fellows, and the
officer and I furnished most of the conversation. I learned, however, that a raid for information  was planned and  these men were
to undertake it I may
not tell the division and place, or the wonderful cheats of appearance which these camouflaged Redskins used, but I can safely infer that the delayed bombardment indicated a distinct loss of temper on the part of
the Boches, on the discovery of their exterminated outpost.
Then my mind went back to surprise number
one,—the wolf,—and my mind associated the
two, and my reason told me that it was the
year 1918, and the dull boom of guns reminded
me that I was in the land of France; and then
I gave it up as part of the most astounding war
of divers weapons, men, aud causes which the
earth had ever known.
I had taken a tiny part in what was to me a
new phase of the great war, with real Indians
of my own continent; and my future thoughts
of this race will be of these splendid Iroquois—
athletic, wiry, virile, the menace of the German line throughout this whole sector.—William Beebe, Atlantic Monthly.