The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1921-05 - 1921-06

              the Word Carrier
of Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME  L
HELPING THE  RIGHT, EXPOSING THE "WRONG
NUMBER- 3
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
MAT-JUNE, 1921
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!
Plea for Indian Dance
Hon. Cato Sells,
Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
Washington, D. C.
Through Supt. James H. McGregor.
Dear Sir : Some forty or fifty years ago we
Indians were declared  as  merciless   savages
whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages.
But at present we are law abiding and
peaceful Indians entitled to certain unalienable rights, and among these are Life, Liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness and enjoyment.
There is no future hope for us old Indians
in the line of progressiveness, today we can
not say that we will be citizens, and become
citizens, but we will be wards of the Government and will die as wards.
As we are born free, in this free continent,
and have always enjoyed freedom, the only
enjoyment we have is dancing, and this old
characteristic of the Indian can not die, we
therefore think our only enjoyment is undeniable.
There may be some objectionable parts in
the dancing which is the giving away of money
and property, but such could be prohibited
and then the dance alone is not harmful to us.
All the Indians are faithful Christians, especially the old Indians, and we are helping
the different church missionaries in their religious work. As laws are made separating the
church from the state we do not want to make
any contradictions on any church denomination.
If the church missionaries are deeply interested in the spiritual welfare of the Indians,
they should insist on the Indians to have enjoyment and the pursuit of happiness which
are essential to life.
Our sons have gone to the war which is one
of the greatest wars in the annals of the world's
history. Some have made the supreme sacrifice while we at home have given freely what
we have that the war may not be fought in
vain.
As at present certain restrictions are removed and liberalism is paramount, we want
to state again that the regulation prohibiting
Indians from dancing on this reservation
should be modified so we can have a dance
once a month. We think it is injustice when
all the Indians on different reservations are
allowed to dance while we Indians on the
Cheyenne River reservation are denied the
enjoyment which is the Indian Dance.
We therefore respectfully submit this petition asking for the only enjoyment granted to
us old Indians so we can enjoy same in our
declining years.    Stephen Hunts the Enemy,
Edward Roan Bear,
John Crow,
Edward Black Coat,
Henry Chasing Crow,
Morgan Warrior,
Daniel Black Antelope,
Henry Eagle Dog,
Lawrence Swift Eagle,
James White Eyes,
James White Horse.
BRIEF HISTORY OP THE TETON SIOUX
Prior to the year 1867 the different bands
or tribes of Indians were moving from place
to place and sometimes during the summer
go as far north as Tongue River and Powder
River, Montana,which at that time was a great
buffalo country; and all the braves were on
the war path making wars on the different
tribes.
The Teton Sioux were a powerful tribe, always making war on Crow Indians and also
on the Rees.
The Crow Indians are a warlike tribe, always with the intention of killing us ; but the
Rees are great horse thieves and always making us trouble.
In the year 1867 our Great Father called
some of our headmen or chiefs; Tall Mandan,
Two Lances, Likes the Bear and One Feather
were among the first delegates that went to
Washington to represent the Teton Sioux.
Our Great Father made peace with our chiefs,
and the message they brought to us was that
we should discontinue our wars on the pale
faces and also on the different tribes, and all
Indian medicine men should discontinue their
practice, a thing that is held sacred by us to
be abolished forever, bat one dance that is
known as the Omaha dance at that time and
at the present it is known as the Grass dance
is allowed on all reservations.
We were having this dance ever since the
year 1867. For twenty three years this dance
was had on this reservation until the year
1890 when the Messiah war or the ghost
dance was created by Sitting Bull and the
battle of Wounded Knee took place where
some of the Indians of this reservation were
killed; and since that time strict regulations
were made prohibiting us from dancing.
But since the year 1890 we Indians have no
intention of creating another ghost dance,and
such a dance is greatly opposed by us.
In 1891 good conditions were restored and in
about the year 1896 the tide turns and it is the
beginning of a long period of prosperity and
progress among us Indians. Once we were
made helpless by dismounting and disarming
us but it shows that after this we are in the
right road to civilization in all efforts that the
Indian Department has made. Our former
chiefs have taken part and worked in harmony
with the Commissioner and good results were
obtained through their influence.
An Indian,
a missionary's reply
I. Objections to the Indian dance.
(1) The give away (ituhanpi) cannot be separated from it, and the give-away is undesirable because
(2) Jesus told us that when we make gifts,
we should not let one hand know wrhat the
other hand does, certainly should not give
things awav before a big crowd (Matthew
6: 1-4).
(3) Although called ituhanpi, to give for
nothing, often the giver expects to get back
even more than he has given.
(4) All of us should follow the example of
Paul and his companions and toil, working
with our own hands (Romans 4:4.) If we depend on gifts from other people, why should
we work?
(5) Jesus said "No man having put his hand
to the plow and looking back is fit for the
kingdom of God" (Luke 9: 62). Therefore
"forgetting the things which are behind, and
stretching forward to the things which are before let us press on toward the goal unto the
prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3: 13-14). The Indian drum
awakens all the old superstitions and cravings, but our Christian songs build up Christian character..
II How to overcome the Indian dance.
"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome
evil with good" (Romans 12: 21.)
(1) Let us have strong churches
(2) Let us have good clean socials in our
churches
(3) Let us have vigorous Y. M. C. A.'s _
(4) Let us have large busy Women's Societies.
Then our people will have neither the time
nor the desire to attend the Indian dance, and
we can say once more: "Thanks be to God,
who giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. R. Hertz.
Indian Music
Address delivered by Frances Densmore, of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington,
D. C„ before the U. S, Indian Vocational School, Phoenix,
Arizona, February 28, ig2I
One great difficulty in the study of Indian
music is that people expect it to be somewhat
like the music of the white race. People
sometimes say that Indians have no music because their music is not like that to which we
are accustomed. It is natural for us to take as
a basis that with which we are familiar, so we
will begin our consideration of Indian music
with a few words about the music of the white
race. We will ask two questions, "Why do
white people sing?" and "What do white people sing about?" Then we will ask, "Why
do Indians sing?" and "What do Indians
sing about?"
You know enough about the music of the
white race to have some idea of why we sing.
Individuals sing when they are happy or sad,
and  when  many  people are  together,  their
singing  gives  expression  to their  thoughts
and  feelings  and  unites  them  in   thought.
Singing in religious meetings or public gatherings is an expression of  feeling.    At  the
present time, there are held what are called
"Community Sings," with  the  idea that  if
people sing together it will make them feel
j more  friendly  toward  each  other.    Chorus
I singing formed an important feature of life
' in the Army camps.    Among the white peo-
1 pie there is also music as an art, including so-
I lo or chorus singing and instrumental music,
, such as solos on various instruments and orchestral and band music.    Our second qnes-
• tion is "What do white people sing about?"
1 It is said that more than half our songs are
I about love; next in popularity are songs of
pleasure in spring, or in the songs of birds
1 with, of course, many other subjects; we have
i also  our  hymns and "patriotic'songs.    You
j see that all these  contain  an  expression  of
thought or feeling.
Some white people think that Indian music
is a free expression of feeling and that the Indians "pour out their heart in song," but
that is not the Indian way of doing things.
People who are better informed concerning
the Indians know they have ceremonial songs
that are handed' down for generations, aud
that if a mistake is made in the public singing of one of these songs, the singer is punished and his part of the ceremony niust be
done over again. Some say that the Indians
have only one tune, or at most, two or three
tunes. People tell me this is surely true because they have listened to a dance for a whole
evening, but you and I know that one Indian
ceremony may have hundreds of songs.
For more than thirteen years I have been
studying the music of the American Indian
under the auspices of the Bureau of American
Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution at
Washington. The method of work is as follows : "I take a phonograph to the Indian reservation, record the songs from old, reliable
singers and transcribe them as nearly as possible in musical notation, then classify and
analyze them by a system which 1 have devised for the purpose. I write down all available information about the origin and use of
the songs and make a study of the native musical instruments. You will uote that I hav«
thus far used the word "Indian," but tribes
differ. They differ in disposition, and part
I of my work is to find how they differ in their
music. I have studied the music of seven
tribes, the Chippewa, Sioux (Dakota), Man-
dan, Hidatsa, Ute, Pawnee and Papago. One
object of the work is to preserve the old
songs and another is to find in exactly what
respects the music of these tribes is alike and
in what respects it is different.
Continued on 3rd page