The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1928-07 - 1928-08

              Word Carri
of Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME   L
HELPING THE   RIGHT, EXPOSING- THE WRONG
NUMBER  H
SANTEE,  NEBRASKA,
July-August, 1928
•
FIFTY CUNTS PER YEAR
When the Sioux Came to Hampton*
By Cora M. Folsom
The first party of young Indians from the
west to come to Hampton to school was made
up mostly of Sioux from Dakota and consisted, of twenty-live boys and nine girls. They
arrived in November 1878. about seven
months after the prisoners from Fort Marion,
St. Augustine, Florida, had been received at
the Institute and the experiment in Indian
education had begun;
They had been collected from the agencies
along the Missouri River by Captain R. II. !
Pratt, the Army officer who had brought the j
Indians from St. Augustine and who was j
much interested in their education. Pei'mis- j
sion had been obtained from the Government i
to bring girls as well as boys', for, as General j
Armstrong said, "No experiment in Indian I
education can succeed which does not prove i
that Indian women can be lifted intellectually
arid morally into a true and pun: woman- ]
hood." This conviction was endorsed by .
President Hayes in an address at the Institute '
when he said, "To elevate any^race we must |
give  the  wonaerv, equal advantages with the I
men." Unfortunately Captain Pratt, had been their first lessons embraced the ac
unable to get his full quota of girls, only :la.ting to food and hot soapy water
nine being found free to come. they found new and not altogether
CAPTAIN   R.   H.   PRATT
tivities re-
At tabl
acceptabl
Miss Mackie, the lady principal, remembered
a barrel that had come from the North, and
this was explored. Finally nine hats and
nine feathers were collected and cleft fingers
produced creations it was supposed would
bring joy to nine feminine hearts. Sunday
morning came. The girls, arrayed in their
new gowns and shawls, were approached
with these crowning adornments—but they
would have none of them! Any attempt at
posing a hat on the neat black heads was met
with indignant protest. No one realized
then how large a part the feather—which only a man may wear—was having in this refusal. The matron insisted and the girls
were forced at last to yield and with others
were marched over to Bethesda Chapel in the
National Cemetery. As soon as they were
well inside the church, the matron safely
ahead of them down the aisle, off came the
hats; one by one they disappeared beneath
the shawls, and nine bare or shawl-covered
heads sailed up the aisle, en using some consternation but more amusement. Thus had
the poor maidens found sanctuary from the
dictates of fashion! This was positively the
last appearance of these particular hats.
They were never even seen again.
The St. Augustine boys had been tiken in
as roommates by certain of the colored students.    The Sioux boys, arriving before the
8IOUX  FROM  DAKOTA   TERRITORY  ON ARRIVAL
AT   HAMPTON.   NOVEMBER   1878
If the first mild advent of a few Indian
young men from St. Augustine in military
array had struck terror to the hearts of the
colored brother, how much more the second
raid of forty bronzed, disheveled, long-haired wild men from the far West! Long rides
across the frozen plains, several days on the
freezing river, and five more on the train,
sitting up all night, had added their mede of
cinders, smoke, and dust to the once gay
Indian costumes, and hadfrowzkd up the
tidy braids, while excitement, weariness,
and homesickness had also made ..their mark.
It was little wonder that the Negro students
should recall with awe and dismay the terrifying tales they had heard of the bloodthirsty
Sioux. The red man had a mental picture of
almost as wild a black man. Hence these
young people, so soon to become friends,
met each other at first with mutual fear and
repugnance.   ■
Several of the Sioux Indians had come
from mission schools and knew enough English  to  interpret  for  the  rest.     Naturally
* A chapter from an account of Indian Work at Hampton
by Miss Folsom, who for more than forty years was connected with the Indian Department of Hampton Institute.
Jood; bacon and corn bread they especially
disliked. The boys found themselves seated
at table with girls, and these girls were being
waited upon by boys—a decided reversal of
accepted custom. Strangely enough, knives
and forks had no terror for'them; they
adopted them at once with ease and grace.
With less composure they welcomed the
shears that so ruthlessly clipped off the long
braids which had been the glory and pride of
their young manhood. The neat gray uniform of the school, with its shiny H. N. A. I.
buttons, was fairly easy to adopt, but the
stiffvisored cap and the heavy Government
shoes were hard to bear; these shoes (called
brogans, price fifty cents) were so cruel to
feet unaccustomed to any shoes that moccasins soon became the proper footwear for
ordinary occasions, and the fashion spread to
the colored students and even to the teachers,
so that in the town of Hampton the demand
for moccasins exceeded the supply for several years.
Just before the Sioux's first Sunday at
Hampton it occurred to someone that not one
of the girls possessed a hat. They had come
from the West with shawls over their heads.
BLOODTHIRSTY   SIOUX,       FIFTEEN   MONTHS   AFTER
ARRIVAL   AT   HAMPTON
Indian Cottage was ready for occupation,
were given temporary rooms in Marquand—
then a new dormitory near the shore of a
small pond which has since been entirely
filled in. Some of the boys had learned at
the mission schools how to make and use a
bed, but to others a blanket and the floor had
been all-sufficient. These latter were the
better prepared to find unbroken repose upon
the students'gaspipe slatted, and straw-ticked
beds, but nevertheless they preferred the old
way. Each boy was required to sweep and
dust and scrub-his own room and to keep his
bed and table in apple-pie order. This was
not difficult because the Indian naturally likes
his belongings clean and attractive. Edward
Ashley, one of the Sioux boys, thus expressed his attitude:—
"I want always cleanly everywhere.
But I don't want dirty; all the time I
take care of my room. Every morning
I make cleanly my room. Always before
breakfast first I work in my room. I
sweep floor and then I clean table and
chairs and looking-glass, window, or anything in my room. I wish everything
very cl ean in my room. . . . All the
time every Saturday I wash my floor and
door aud window aud chair and table because I don't want look ugly my  room.