The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1923-05 - 1923-06

              the Word Carrier
OF
SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
VOLUME   LII
HELPING- THE  RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG
NUMBEB. 3
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
May-June, 1923
FIFTY CENTS PER YEAR
Our   Platform
For Indians we want American Education I Wc
want American Homes ! We want American Rights !
Tlie result of which is American Citizenship ! And the
Gospel is the Tower of God for their Salvation !
Fifty-Third Annual Report of Board of Indian
Commissioners
The Board of Indian Commissioners consists of ten members who serve without pay
except their traveling expenses. Their annual report is always an interesting document.
While in sympathy with the underlying principles of the administration of Indian affairs,
they do not hesitate to make adverse comments
when they find conditions bad. As usual, low
salaries in the Indian service are scored, especially in the medical branch. They strongly
recommend the employment of a great many
more field matrons, also the erection of a cum
ber of reservation hospitals, The Commissioner's educational policy is justly praised,
but attention is called to the lack of funds to
give education to all Indian children. This
condition is particularly bad in the Navajo
country. General Hugh L. Scott, one of the
commissioners, says:
"It has long been well known to the department, that there are over 6800 Navajo children in
tho Navajo country growing up in savage ignorance for lack of school facilities. This is in violation of the treaty with the Navajo, which provides, among other things, that the children
shall be educated by the government and obligates the building of schools. Tht Navajo parents generally desire the education of their
children. The government has been extremely
negligent of its duty in permitting this condition
to continue by not providing the facilities contemplated in the treaty."
The Southwest, ho'wevar, is not the only
part of the country where Indian children
grow up without any schooling whatsoever.
A report of Commissioner McDowell says
. that out of 1323 children of school age on the
Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation in
North Dakota, between 350 and 400 do uot
attend any school. In the last six years only
55 per cent of the eligible children were in
actual school attendance. On the Cheyenne
River Reservation, So. Dak., out of a school
population of 820, 116 children were unaccounted for.
All through the Indian country, the Commissioners note the poor state of repair in which
especially the school plants were found.
There were exceptions, of course, but in too
many cases buildings have been allowed to run
down badly. Of one of the Sioux schools,
Commissioner Vaux writes that ''there is not
a building or anything of permanent character
about them which is not in wretched condition." During the war, no money was avail
able fo • such purposes, and since then, the
econom ' wave, which has struck Congress,
has pri rented the voting of adequate funds
for this purpose.
Commissioner McDowell's report on Fort
Berthold is particularly encouraging. Ten
years ago, these Indiaus farmed less than 1000
acres, last year (1921) they produced crops on
over 10,000 acres. In that period, scrub stock
has largely been eliminated. Every fall, these
Indians sell mow from $20,000 to $25,000 of
beef cattle. Health conditions are not so good,
however. Especially among children under
three years of age, the death rate was found
to he very high.
The same Commissioner's report ou Devils
Lake Reservation is quite unfavorable. He
feels that these Indians are still very backward, in spite of many years of Indian Service tutelage and the practical examples of
neighboring white farmers. To quote again—
''There is too much tuberculosis and trachoma ; too much dirt; too many children out of
school; too much sickness; and too much backwardness ou this reservation.  .  .  . ':
Ou Sisseton Reservation, Commissioner
Vaux feels that some real progress is being
made. He finds that especially many of the
returned students are doing well. At the same
time, the average Indian cau still secure a
greater return by leasing his allotment to a
white man than farming it, avoiding at the
same time the risk of a crop failure.—
It is to be hoped that all who are interested
in the Indian will secure a copy of this thorough aud reliable report from Malcolm McDowell, secretary of the board at Washington,
D. C. ■ Rudolf Hertz.
The Pathfinder and Boston Transcript
Ought to Know Better
The following is copied in The Pathfinder
from the Bostou Transcript:
The Indian's Religious Right
Nearly all Indian dances are of a religious
nature, or of the nature of that observance of
ceremony which with the American Indian is
essentially religions. To forbid the dances, or
to restrict them to dances arranged by government superintendents or agents, is virtually to
interfere with their religious liberty. It is comparable with telling Methodists and Baptists
that they must go to prayer meeting only occasionally, or Catholics that they shall attend
mass only when their farm work or housework
is done, and then under government regulation. The citizen's religion is supposed to be
beyond government interference. The Indians
are now mostly citizens, and in any case they
have as much right to their religious and ceremonial observances as white men possess.
This is a fair sample of the ignorance of eastern papers. It is true that dancing is connected with some of the old Indian religious
ceremonies, but iu no such relationship as is
indicated by the above quoted effusion from
the Boston Transcript. The Sioux dances
which are objected to are those that are called
the "give-away dances." The Indian word is
I itulian. At a dance of this kind a design-
I ing person comes into the midst and sings the
I praises of some person present. Immediately
I that person is bound to come forward and
; give a big present to his glorifier and to every
I one else attending the dance. There is notb-
! ing religious about this. It is an old heathen
social custom and it must be stopped. Well-
to-do Indians offceu give away everything they
have in one of these dances. The good people
of the- United States are trying to lead the
Indians into Christian civilization. We are
educating them in special schools and more
and more in our American public schools.
We are trying to teach them industry and
thrift. Scarcely any of the younger generation of Indians has any belief in tbe old Indian religion, and the great majority of them
are members of Christian churches. But in
most Indian communities there are a few old
Indian fakers who still get up the give-away
dances. Thus lazy loafers get their living
from the accumulations of those who are industrious. Outsiders may very well say that
the more progressive Indiaus ought to know
better than to he caught in that way. Very
true. But the allurements are many, aud
those that the fakers want to rob are gotten
to the dance.
The great majority of progressive Indians
want these dances stopped and they have many
times appealed  to  the  Government to have
them stopped.   Hon. Charles H. Burke, Commissioner of Indians Affairs, called a conference   of   Government   Superintendents,   Missionaries and leading Indians at Pierre, So.
Dak. last October.    There was discussion of
many subjects having to do with Indian advancement and the  old  Indian   dancing was
unanimously condemned.    The Indian leaders
themselves were most  emphatically insistent
| that the give-away dancing should be entirely
: prohibited.    And   the  conference entirely a-
! greed   that none   of the  old   Indian dancing
I should lie allowed except under rigid restrictions.
Ban on Indian Dances
(The following statement was written by Mr. M. K.
Sniffen, Secretary of the Indian Rights
Association.)
When a public official is making au earnest
effort to eradicate practices that are immoral
aud degrading, it is almost incomprehensible
thai he should be severely condemned for so
doing.    Such,  however, is the experience of
the  Commissioner of   Indian   Affairs,   Hon.
Charles H. Burke, who recently issued an appeal "To All  Indians,"  urging them voluntarily to abstain from certain  degrading, vicious,  and   demoralizing   dances.    This   suggestion is peculiarly applicable to the numerous secret dances among certain tribes of the
Southwest; the character of which is unptint-
j able,   as is well known   to those   who   have
j made a thorough investigatian of the subject.
This   action  of  Commissioner   Burke   has
raised a storm of indignation among certain
I groups of artists and archaeologists, who pro-
! test against Governmental  inteiference with
I the "ancient and sacred rites" of the Indians.
; Evidently the objectors have little real know
1 ledge of what these dances really are, or they
1 would hardly term them  "a national asset of
i uuique historic value," and "as of inestimable
i worth   to   artists, scholars,   writers,   and   all
thinking people."   Nor would they urge Sec-
1 retary Work to reverse Commissioner Burke
; in order "to preserve for the American people
one of their unique public posessions."
The casual visitor (or even those who spend
■ a little time in the vicinity of the,ludian villages in question) who sees the open performance is interested, aud doubtless charmed, by
its weird pieturesq.uen'ess, and of course re-
1 gards it as harmless; but he witnesses only a
! fractional part of what precedes or follows it.
I It is a well-known fact that when the Span-
i iards conquered the Pueblo Indians, many of
their public dauces were so indecent that an
i order was issued prohibiting them, and thereafter  they   were  indulged   in   secretly.    On
| such  occasions care was taken to guard the
villages   from   intruders.    Bandelier,   in   his
letters, refers  to the  vulgarity and wickedness of these dances; and when they were too
i indecent for the sensibilities of a Spanish explorer of the sixteenth century one can imag-
j iue how vile they must have been.
There is an abundance of evidence on file in
the Indian Office (which cau be examined by
anyone wishing to know the facts) that shows
these secret dances to be of a bestial and revolt-
I ing character, ton filthy to be described in pub-
! lie print, which would not be tolerated for au
instant in any civilized community by local
police authority.
In   seeking to  eliminate  vicious   practices
' that are marked by unbridled license (whether
! attempted under the cloak of a "sacred reli-
! gious   rite"   or   otherwise),    Commissioner
Burke should receive the earnest support of
all thoughtful   people, especially  those who
believe that the Indian should be regarded as
a human being and uot merely as an ethnological  specimen.
No one wants to deprive the Nation's wards
of decent and proper amusements, and Commissioner Burke is seeking to develop a force
from within that will advance their moral,
material, and spiritual progress. The Indian
is entitled to that, but he should not be exempt from the ordinary laws of decency in
order that we may have "a unique national
asset" of such a doubtful character.—The
Southern Workman.
Santee Church News Fifty Two Years Ago
"Jan. 8, 1871—The first weekly collection
for   the poor was taken   up,   amounting to
S4.02 and one otter skin."
This is an extract from the minutes recorded in the church records by Rev. John
P. Willamson, clerk, fifty-two years ago.