The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1919-09 - 1919-10

              the Word Carrier
of Santee Normal Training school.
VOLUME  XLVIII
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER. 5
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1919
FIFTY 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 !
Mission Meeting Pictures
If you bad been there what would yon have
seen? What are the pictures which you would
have remembered longest! What colors would
you have painted for the others? 1 have often tried to see for other people aud as often
known that the very thing which might have
caught their eyes the quickest, never registered
in my consciousness at all. What you would
have seen I cannot tell,but I can share with you
in brief, and partial measure what I saw. i
The very first picture to silhouette itself upon my memory was shifting sand. I did not1
know that it could matter so much whether it
rained or not. And in this instance it did
rain. We bad come across to Springfield
from Tyndall the night before by auto, because the train that might have brought us
was verv late.    And the roads are clay that is
under the trees near the big tent of meeting.
I saw ever before my eyes as I went with Miss
Dabb meeting old friends of hers, a similar
crowd of white people. Suppose it was late
afternoon aud uone of their baggage had come
and their food was all with their luggage and
they were half a mile from two little country
stores that could not possibly have enough for
so many. Would they have sat in silence?
Some of the men were smoking long pipes,
some of the women were feeding their babies.
For the most part they simply sat, scarcely
speaking. What was there to do. They
could not put up tents or prepare supper.
But they were glad when the word came
that the Santee Indians would see that they
had food and some place to sleep.
And in another'day the tents came. Some
of them were pitched along the roadside, more
of them were pitched in a great hollow square
out in a field. There were two tepees, most
of the people lived in ordinary American tents
such as we all know. But those two tepees
told me volumes.    I saw  the aristocracy   of
made things. It gave you a curious feeling to
see tiny toddlers in little silk dresses. Perhaps
by and by they will adopt rompers instead.
But after a little you forgot for the most
part these outward impressions. You became
accustomed to the number of Fords they drove
and appreciated that, they were an advantage
over the more picturesque Indian ponies.
Your ears became accustomed to meetings
where there were always crying babies. You
even almost forgot to be sorry for the youngest attendant at the conference, swaddled all
those burning days in two blankets and a silk
quilt. You came to take it for granted that
babies are carried on their mothers' backs. If
only we all wore shawls we might try it too.
You were swept into the interest in the meetings.
True, most of the sessions were in Dakota,
with very little interpreting, and you could
not understand much that was going on,though
your program told you that they were having
a talk on the great events of the past year,
political, scientific, religious, or a discussion
was in progress on the subject "How can a
straighl.way "slick", I know now why some
people use that word. We slid around until
we had to stop, though the rain fell in torrents, to put on the chains. And now we took
a car down to the crossing of the Missouri.
There were no heavy June freshets this year
owing to the scant snowfall last winter so
much of the riverbed was shifting sand, lesser
channels all but completely barring the river's
progress. They were busy filling in some
such places, but still our car stuck there.
By good fortune along came a man with a wagon. After his two horses had pulled out our
car, our driver decided that he must, not risk
going farther, and the wagon took us in.
Miss Dabb and Dr. Root enjoyed the high
seat, Susie Meek and I sat on the bedding of the
Indian woman who rode in the straw with us.
And across those shifting sands, many of
the Indians had to come. 1 do not know how
they managed. I do know that wagons and
cars from Springfield brought them to the
little Jerry boat, and then on the other side
they had to wait for wagons to take them the
two" remaining miles to Santee, along a road
where sunflowers grew in rank profusion and
ever and again great heads of snow-on-the-
mountains caught our eager eyes. The rain was
over now, and the winds had begun to blow.
I had a faucy that the wind meant cool weather.
For one little minute it did, but after that,
day after day it blew like the hot breath of
a furnace across the rolling prairies. I have
known heat in New York and heat in Mississippi this summer. Now I know the hot dry
heat of that wind-swept land.
The next picture is the arrival of the Indians.
They came and came. Their tents and their
bedding stayed in Springfield or in Scotland.
So they: sat upon the ground by the chapel or
rich and poor in the
one small plain tepee
and the other much
larger one embroidered with porcupine quills, painted with horses,
ornamented with beaded suns.
The meetings were held in a big tent, for the
most part mercifully without sides. The seats
were made by stretching planks over chairs.
And the men and women sat for hours on
those hard planks with never a back. Some
of us had little camp chairs with an apology
for a back. The seats were arranged in three
ranks. The result was that the women filled
one section, the men the other, and each was
reluctant to overflow on the middle section,
was it really a man's or woman's section? the
solution was that women sat on the back seats
there and more often than not the men all
crowded together in their own part.
The men were all in store clothes, and all
wore their hair short. The heavy build and
dark skin alone marked them from white men,
until they spoke, and you caught the musical
notes and the rough gutterals of the Da-ko-ta
tongue. I hyphenate only to show that you
pronounce every syllable for its full value
never eliding or softening the vowels into
slurs. Except for the beautiful beaded or por
cupine embroidered moccasins of some of the
women you recognized their dress as the tight
waist and full skirt aud shawl of our grandmother's time when the first missionaries went
among them. Most everyone had new clothes
for the occasion. You wished that you did not
know that some had gone in debt for the new
finery. Many of the women wore beautiful
black cashmere shawls with very wide fringe.
Most of the younger women and some of the
older ones were in clothes like our own. Some
of the hats were unbecoming to the last degree
and you almost wished that they had never left
the soft scarfs which others wore. The children
were all in new clothes, most of them ready
minister keep out of debt?" "What is the
best way to raise the minister's salary and other
church expenses."
There were times when you could not help
saying "their ways are not our ways". One
of those was when a missionary explained to
you that one of the churches reported as the
way which they had found successful in raising the minister's salary was to have the congregation hand in their subscriptions in signed envelopes each week, and then the names
of the contributors and the amount which
each gave was read at annual meeting.
There were eloquent speeches on "How
shall we honor the returned soldier boys".
Three such lads sat on the front seat and hung
their heads during this eloquence, then the
speaker started a collection, giving a dollar
himself. That was the signal for many in the
congregation to bring forward their contributions. They never pass a collection plate at
such times. You can see yourself the satisfaction of bringing your gift forward. That
first gift was also the signal which brought
several other soldier lads who had been standing on the outskirts to those seats. Then the
question arose, Shall we give this collection
to the boys who are in this meeting or divide
it among all the returned soldier boys at the
conference? The decision was that the money should go to those present, and the people
hud the satisfaction of watching the presiding
officer divide the silver into neat little piles
aud give it out. It did not seem unfair to
any one that one of the boys who was not
very regular in attendance at meetings was
absent now looking after beef issue and so
missed out on the gift.    He wasn't there.
They passed on to another discussion.
One man, a great talker rose to speak. He
protested that they should have had prayer
for the returned soldiers. The presiding officer interrupted him to say that he was not discontinued on Next Page—3d Column