The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1925-09 - 1925-10

              The Word Carrier
OF
SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
VOLUME   LIV
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG
NUMBEB.  5
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 Power of God for their Salvation!
In Re Traverse de Sioux
Traverse de Sioux is a marked spot in the
history of Minnesota and of Presbyterian-
ism there. It has been known from earliest
trade times by this French equivalent for the
"Crossing of the Sioux." The ford ih the
Minnesota river was used by the Indians in
their migrations from the Cannon river to
tbe Swan lake country. In the city of St.
Peter, Minnesota, nearby a tablet marks the
signing of the treaty with the Indians July
22, 1851. Close at hand is old Traverse de
Sioux church, oldest in Minnesota, a substantial building in plain colonial style. Overlooking the valley is the old cemetery, resting
place of the bodies of Dr. and Mrs. Thomas
Smith Williamson. Robert Hopkins, Thomas
Lawrence Longley, Amos W. Huggins, together with many others of that group of
valiant Missionary pioneers.
These are names outstanding in the record
of Minnesota church history. Dr. Williamson, born in South Carolina, was graduated
from Jefferson College, and received his medical degree from Yaie in 1824. Settling
in Ripley, Ohio, he married Miss Margaret
Poage, and to them came the call to pioneer
missionary service. The death of their three
children seemed to point the way, and after
taking a course at Lane Theological Seminary, Dr. Williamson, commissioned by the
American Board, left Ripley April 1,1835.
The Williamsons, Alexander G. Huggins and
family, and Miss Sarah Poage made up the
party which arrived at Fort Snelling May 16,
1835.
Samuel and Gideon Pond, Connecticut young
men with the fire of a great revival impetus,
hail arrived a year before. They had found
in Major Bliss and Indian Agent Talliaferro
good friends, and had set up independent mission work at two nearby stations. They began with the gospel of the plow and had set
themselves to tbe task of learning the Sioux
language and customs. Chief Bigthunder
and Big-iron learned plowing from Samuel
Pond at Kaposia, and Chief Cloudman the
same art of civilization from Gideon at Lake
Calhoun.
The Williamsons remained long enough at
Snelling to organize the First Presbyterian
church, now of Minneapolis, then of St. Peters, its membership largely coming from the
garrison of the fort. Thence they went on
south and west to set up a mission at the
trading post of John Renville at Lac qui Parle.
Traverse de Sioux was as far as the journey
could be made by water, then overland and to
the "lake that talks" above whose shore mission house and church and school were soon
erected.
In June, 1837, Rev. Stephen Return Riggs,
another Presbyterain minister, with his family
arrived at Snelling. In 1813 the Traverse de
Sioux mission was set up under his direction,
with Thomas Lawrence Longley and Mr. and
Mrs. Robert Hopkins as chief aides.
Disaster seemed to mark the mission from the
beginning. Mrs. Riggs and the Hopkins wen*"
up to Lae qui Parle to bring the children to
the new mission home. With them were four
Christian Indians. Hardly were they out of
sight of Traverse de Sioux when they were
waylaid by enemy Chippeways and the four
Sioux murdered. It was an experience which
turned gray the hair of Mrs. Riggs. duly 15
young Longley, a brother of Mrs. Riggs, was
Continued on Next, page—3rd Column
September-October, 1925
WHO HAS ANYTHING
FOR THE
Museum of the American Indian
The Museum of the American Indian  in
New York City is maintained for the preservation of everything that can be found among
the tribes of Indians to show how they lived
in old time, so that  anyone  who  wishes to
learn  about the  native  people  of America
(ikce-wicasta) can go there and study in this
great free museum.    And there the  young
I Indian people of the present time and all the
I generations of  Indian people in the future
! years can learn about  their  ancestors,  how
they lived and what they did.
Besides the large museum house there is to
! be a museum garden.    It is   Dr. Gilmore's
j special   work  in the museum  to  direct the
| making  of  this garden to  show   the  crops
'. which  Indians cultivated in old times,   and
also wild plants which they used for any purpose,  such as psin, tewape,  tipsina,  pangi,
ikce-bdo, wazusteca, mastinpute, wipazuka,
and many other things for food.    The garden is to have also other kinds of plants which
were used for other purposes, such as  perfumes, medicines, and any other uses.
The museum would like to buy objects
made for use in the old time, such as utensils, tools, musical instruments, objects used
in games, old-time garments and other articles of old needle-work, food preparations
such as were made in old times, such as
wasna, dried tewape, dried ikce-bdo, tipsina,
psincinca, and any other food preparation of
old time, and dried fruits, wipazuke, canpa,
takanheca, and others. Also leaves of different kinds used in old times for drinks like
tea. The museum would especially like to
have some canhanpi made from tbe sap of
cansuska as it was made in old times. No
museum at present has any of this.
If anyone has such objects or materials
which he wishes to sell to the museum he may
write to Dr. Melvin R. Gilmore, Museum of
the American Indian, New York City and tell
him what objects he has, and if they are suitable the museum may buy them.
A Santee Assistant of a New York Museum
I wish to express my appreciation of the
good work of Rev. Charles Frazier in assisting me in some work of translation. I have
a quantity of manuscripts written over forty
years ago in the Teton dialect on all kinds of
subjects portraying the old-time life among
the Tetons. These manuscripts were written
by a man named George Bushotter.
I was so fortnuate as to find here Rev. Frazier, who is familiar with the Teton dialect,
and who is acquainted with the Teton Dakota
customs.
Rev. Frazier is a very modest and unassuming gentleman, and said that his knowledge
of English was so meagre that he feared he
would lie unable to give me a good understanding of the meaning of Bushotter's writings. But I wish to say that he has done excellent service in helping me to put this material into form so that it will be available for
students and for general readers, and I wish
to commend him heartily for his ability and
for his kindness and courtesy. It has been a
pleasure'to me to work with him.
Melvin R. Gilmore,
Museum of the American Indian,
New York City.
Wiggam Indian Policy
Our American Indian policy has tended to
create a world where wishes ARE horses and
lie gars DO ride, and tended to make the Indian race one that can only survive in a moral and physical nursery.
By comparison from Wiggam's. "Decalog
of Science". F. B. Riggs.
FIFTY CENTS PER YEAR
American Indian Gardens in New York City
The Museum of the American Indian is
situated in New York City on Broadway at
155th Street. This museum is concerned only
with the natives of the western hemisphere,
that is, the American Indian, and nothing
else, but is concerned with everything connected with the Indians, including the prehistoric
and historic Indians of North America, South
America, and Central America. The present
building on Broadway is one of a group of
museum and library buildings. It contains
three floors of exhibition halls, with storage
in the basement, and laboratories in the attic.
It is already filled and more space is needed.
One of the patrons of the museum donated
another tract of land in the northeast part of
the city near Pelham Bay Park, on which
there is to be constructed a building of considerable size. In fact, it is to surround this
entire triangular tract of about six aud a half
acres on its three sides. The buildings will
be ninety feet wide, and, when all complete,
will aggregate more than 2,UO0 feet in length.
Thus there will be still remaining a considerable open area of several acres and this area
is to be made into a garden of native trees
and plants of native use in America. This
last spring a beginning was made of the garden in that a number of varieties of crops derived from aboriginal Indian agriculture, and
which arc still cultivated by the tribes, were
planted. This garden department of the museum is tbe original idea of Dr. Melvin R.
Gilmore and is under his direction. He obtained the seeds of these various crops from
different tribes with which he has worked,
and the garden was made and tended during
the season in co-operation with the Department of Nature-Garden Work of the Board
of Education of the City of New York in
their work of school gardens. The public
school No. 71 in the Bronx is situated a short
distance from this museum ground and children from that school registered for garden
plots and have worked their garden and the
demonstration plots of the museum together
as one garden under instruction of a teacher
of gardening from the Board of Education
of the city thruout the season.
On October 7th they held a harvest festival. They are all proud of their school garden
because they know they have the distinction
of a garden which is-different from any other
school garden in the city, and in that they
have there grown crops from seed which came
to them directly from the hands of the Indians who have cultivated them from ancient
time until the present. This fact serves to
fire their imagination and invest their work
with something of romance and is educational
in bringing them to think of the contributions
to agriculture and horticulture, for which we
are indebted to the native tribes of America.
It is intended in future years to develop the
garden fully into not only a garden of the Indian cultivated crops but a garden of native
wild things of America, which were of economic or esthetic use to Indians. It will be seen
that such a project will constitute a form of
museum work which has not heretofore been
done in any other place.
Information for the above is from Dr. Melvin R. Crilmore.
Movie Star Likes Indians
When Lois Wilson was on the way to Utah,
to heli) Richard Dix in the making of The
Vanishing American, she confessed a "passionate interest in the American Indians."
She spoke of working with theni in The Covered Wagon and other pictures. She said
she "found them a noble race, with outlook
on life a good deal more spiritual than that
of their conquerors."