The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1923-03 - 1923-04

              The Word Carrier
OF
SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
VOLUME  LII
HELPING- THE  RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG
NTJMBEB- 2
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
March-April, 1923
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 !
Y. W. C. A. Work for Indians
To many of us the very word "Indian" is
synonymous with health and physical vigor,
and we do not realize how disastrous have
been our "blessings" of civilization—the
frame house, the stiff shoes, the confining' clothes—to a
health that came
from perfect freedom of body and a
life spent in sunshine and fresh air.
One has only to
watch the long
lines of Indian
government school
boys and girls
passing across the
campus to class
to be conscious
of hollow chests,
crooked toes, shortened heel tendons
and a general lack
of vigor and vitality. Government
statistics on the
prevalence of tuberculosis and trachoma among the
Indian people give
ground to one's
fears.
Miss Ella Deloria, a Sioux Indian, and on
the staff of the National Board in the Indian
Department, is now at Haskell Institute, the
largest Indian school in the United States,
helping in a special course for a group of
Indian girls eager to become physical directors, and in a "health month," when general information will be given to the entire
school, in which are the boys and girls of
sixty or more tribes. With her is Dr. Allison, of our National Social Education Department.
The eager response to their work is proof
both of its need and its success. "I'll have
a better record than this the next time you
come!" "And mine is going to be better
than hers!" These were the laughing remarks of two Indian girls of different tribes
as they walked out of the office where Miss
Deloria and Dr. Allison were giving medical
and physical examinations to the older girls.
"The medicine man in our country says
this—" and another girl tells some superstition which must have caused fear and physical sufferings to generations of Indian women. "Is it true?'' she asks, it is reward
enough to be able to bring that look of relief
which comes to her face as she hears the simple explanation of the cause of the difficulty
and of its cure, and believes that it is a reasonable one.
"I wonder why it is so many of you girls
have straight spines but rounding backs!"
It is the doctor who says this and she adds
tbe fact that it is not the roundness which
comes from working at a desk, nor the stoop
of the student. "It is as if for generations
you had been sitting on the ground bending
over," then she asks, "What tribes are you?"
And the girls reply, "Sioux," "Crow,"
"Cheyenne." Instantly one sees the tepees
and, within, the Indian women bending over
their bead work.
"How can we straighten our backs?".the
girls ask, and with a look of dogged determination they carefully perform the exercises
given them.    "Every night you remember,"
says the doctor, and suddenly one visualizes
the sleeping porcli with its rows and rows of
Indian girls all vigorously improving their
health, every girl with a keen sense of humor,
every girl conscious of the fact that silence
and quiet, are the rules of government, schools
when one is on the sleeping porch.
Through the special recreation class of
picked girls, die help of the Social Education
Department in Dr. Allison, the use of health
slides, posters and moving pictures, through
talks and demonstrations, Miss Deloria is explaining
to the Government
Indian Service as
well as to the girls
what the Young-
Women's Christian
Association means
when it uses the
words "health education."
While Ella Deloria has been at Haskell, Susie Meek,
who is of the Sauk
and Fox tribe, has
been traveling a-
mong tile Indian
schools of the North
and some of the results of her work
appeared in last
month's News as
student Associations lately accepted into  affiliation   by the   National   Board.
And while we are speaking of Indians—
isn't it interesting and somewhat exciting to
know that Girl Reserves from all parts of
the country sent more than five thousand
Christmas boxes to Indian children this year?
Much correspondence has been a part of the
Christmas effort. One small Indian boy
wrote, "I want to be a base ball player when
I grow up but I can't because 1 haye't any
mit." We understand that his answer did
not wait until Christmas.—The Woman's
Press.
Death of Mrs. King
Principal of Wolf Point Mission School
All friends of Indian missions are sad to
hear of the death of Mrs. C. D. King who
founded the Presbyterian Mission School at
Wolf Point, Montana in 1894. She has been
the self-sacrificing, earnest, and ambitious
head of this very useful school all these years.
American Indian Makes Gifts to National Life
Good Suggestion from Our Catholic friends
The Indian Sentinel, published by the Bu
reau of Catholic Indian Missions, refers in a
very pleasing way to the conference of Catholic and Protestant Missionaries and Government Superintendents which Commissioner
Burke called at Pierre in October. And referring to the resolutions which the conference
passed against the old Indian dancing Rev.
Louis J. Goll, S. J. says:
"The solution of the problem concerning the
dances would probably be reached if the white people of the surrounding towns would frown upon
these ancient practices as foolish and no longer
worthy of notice. As a matter of fact, they laugh
at the absurd antics of the dancers. Where persuasion fails to have any effect, ridicule often triumphs."
This is a good suggestion because it is a
psychological fact that Indians are more afraid
of ridicule than any other people on Earth
yet heard of. But the trouble will be to get
the white people of the towns surrounding the
Indian Reservations to do the ridiculing.
Henry Roe Cloud, President of American Indian
institute, at Wichita, speaks for Indians
at Hampton  Institute.
MISS 'DAWES SENDS  GREETINGS
By William Anthony Avery
Hampton, Va.—Temperament, art, and
history are the American Indian's gifts t©
our National life, according to the Rev. Henry Roe Cloud, president of the American Indian Institute at, Wichita, Kan., who delivered the principal address at the public exercises, which were recently held in Ogclen Hall,
Hampton Institute, to celebrate the passage
of the Dawes Act.
Mr. Roe Cloud, after referring to the present widespread discussion of race problems,
stated the method of Jesus. Then he outlined
in detail the original possessions of the American Indians and the possibility of using them
for the benefit of all Americans.
"Solutions of the race question," he said,
"areeasy togive but hard to follow." Many
today advocate migration as a solution.
They say : 'Let the Negroes return to Africa, the Jews to Palestine, and the Indians to
old Mexico.' Jesus worked where He was
and bore the burdens of His race. He thereby solved the problems of His race: He
solved all race problems. Jesus was energized by love.
"The Indian's peculiar nature—his poise,
his calmness, his self-possession, and his equilibrium of temperament—is in itself a gift,
when be finds himself self-controlled among
those who indulge in heated argument. The
Indian, living under open skies and on broad
prairies, betook himself to meditation and
protracted prayer, in which he came to realize the power of the Great Spirit. His mind
roamed in vast expanses and got a conception
of the majesty of God.
"The Indian has one of the distinctive arts
of the world. This art could easily enrich
the treasure-house of the Nation and might
well become the marvel of the civilized world.
The Indian can also lend that antiquity which
America needs, because, as compared with
the European nations, the people of the
United States constitute an infant nation.
"When Michaelangelo was painting his
'Last Judgment' and Leonardo da Vinci was
painting his 'Mona Lisa,' the American Indians were in their prime."
Mr. Roe Cloud made a plea that men and
women should give themselves quickly to the
task of service whieh requires patience, toil,
and suffering, in their day.and generation.
Mr. Roe Cloud also paid a tribute to Hampton Institute as "the moral fountain head
and intellectual energizer of the Negro and
Indian races, which is making all-around
character-building the paramount aim."—
Hampton Institute Press Service.
National Park in South Dakota Indian Country
It is an interesting proposition  of South
Dakota Senator Erskine to make a national
park of 1500 acres of the White River Bad
Lands of South Dakota.    There he says are
found :
"Soils filled with remains of prehistoric life
from which the museums of the world have been
supplied with specimens of the first importance;
an area affording opportunities for study in natural history, paleontology, anthropology, geology
and topographynot found elsewhere, as well as in-
diseribable scenic grandeur; cliffs carved by erosion into vast cathedrals surmounted by tapering
spires, deep chasms with walls of jasper, em-
battlements with bases of blazing crimson and
crowned with parapets of crystal white; extensive
areas so complicated that man has not yet invaded them, and the hidden beauties and wealth
of which have not been glimpsed by human
eye." —Daliy Capital Joiarnal, Pierre, S. I).