The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1930-07 - 1930-08

              •
The Word Carrier
OF
Santee Normal Training school.
VOLUME  LIX
HELPING THE   RIG-HT, EXPOSING THE WRONG
NUMBER 4
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
July-August, 1930
FIFTY CENTS PER YEAH
Indians Misunderstood
The American Indian has been so much
misunderstood that we are making an effort
to give a true idea of him. There are at
least two factors which help to confirm our
mistakes about the Indian. (1) The Indian's
history has been written by the Indian's foe.
And (2) the life-ideals of the Indian and the
White man are vastly different.
A popular description of the Indian would
be that he is cruel, treacherous, lazy, immoral, a liar, a thief, generally useless. We
take these statements in their order.
Cruel? Yes, because he tortured his captives. But why did he? The Indian valued
a triumph not at all unless it was complete;
which meant to him the conquest of spirit
as well as body; yes, more than body. So
he tortured him to break his spirit, and not
from cruelty.
Treacherous? Because he fought as he did.
So did all the troops in the late war. The
Indian mode of warfare came from the fact
that their fighting men were few, and must
be conserved. It was not treachery, but
common sense.
Was he lazy? It looked so. But the Indian, when he chose, could outdistance and
outlast his white foe. He saw no virtue in
work for work's sake. He was a poet, who
preferred to "invite his soul" and take time
to enjoy his friends. "Having food and raiment" he was content to "take no thought
for the morrow." He preferred living to
"making a living."
Immoral? Not by his standards, though
these were different from ours. The Indian
punishment for rape was that the culprit
should either support his victim for life or
be clubbed to death. In war, no woman captive was ever mistreated,—until the Indian
learned different standards from the white
man's practice.
A liar? No Indian tribe ever broke a
treaty, so long as the whites kept their part.
The ultimate insult to an Indian is to be
called "Split-tongue."
A thief? Never, with his own people.
Property is more secure on an Indian reservation than in any white settlement. In war,
theft was an achievement; so let the enemy
beware.
Was he useless? Ask the white troops who
fought him. Out-numbered, as a rule, with
weapons pitifully inferior, the Indian put up
a fight which would have been epic, if only
lie had been white. In history, when the
white man won a conflict it was a great vie
tory; when the Indian won, it was massacre.
Fifteen years of intimate association with
the Indian in his own home has convinced me
that he is our physical superior in all ways;
our spiritual equal in most ways, and only in
wiles of business an inferior. Dr. J. K.
Burleson, in South Dakota Churchman.
Letter From One of Our Santee Correspondence
School Graduates
We have sent graduation certificates recently to several of our faithful Correspondence
School students. Here is a letter from one of
them: "I have received the graduation certificate that you sent me and it makes my heart
very happy. I pursued that study for half my
life. I was at it for fifteen years and I
finished and I am thankful. I have given
thanks to God. I was in a boarding school
for thirteen years and so altogether I have
been twenty eight years in school and now
I am thirty nine years old. My heart is
very glad.    I shake hands with you."
Mrs. Lizzie Hashorns.
A Monument to be Erected to a Very Worthy Indian
HOL-LOL- SOTE-TOTE
On June 3, 185o, the great Nez Perce,
Chief Lawyer, Hol-lol-sote-tote, saved the
lives of Governor Isaacs I. Stevens and his
white companions by a daring act of heroism. While the Great Council, in which
five thousand Indians met Governor Stevens
to consider permanent treaties, was in progress, a secret plot of hostile Indians to kill
the white men was discovered by Chief Lawyer. He quietly notified Governor Stevens
and before dawn on June 3 moved his own
lodge and family from Nez Perce camp and
placed them along side the Governor's tent.
He thus extended the powerful protection
of the Nez Perce tribe over the white men,
foiled the conspiracy, and made the later success of the Council possible.
On June 3, 1930, just seventy-five years
afterwards, a bronze memorial tablet in honor of Chief Lawyer will be presented by the
graduating class of Whitman College to the
State of Washington. The monument, a
huge granite boulder, is on the site of the
Nez Perce camp, now a part of the campus
of Whitman College. A great granddaughter of Chief Lawyer will unveil the tablet.
Indian Solves Problam Baffling Engineers
Three crows and an Indian recently solved
a problem that had baffled engineers laying
a cable in a Quebeck wilderness. The cable
was to span a river 900 feet wide, but because
of the swift current and the treacherous rocks
a boat could not be used to haul it over.
Then a reward was offered to anyone with
sufficent skill to throw a weight with a line
attached across the stream, but this likewise
failed. While linemen were trying to think
of some other plan, the Indian, attracted by
the reward offered, appeared with three crows.
He attached the line to a five-foot stick, then
bound one foot of each crow to the stick
with a cord, one crow in the middle and the
others at the ends. When the birds were
hitched, he released them and they flew across
the river with the line, the Indian bringing
them to earth on the other side b.y a pull on
the cord. The line rope then was employed
to pull the cable over.—Popular Mechanics.
Early Mission History
An intimate picture of the life of the missionaries' families at Lac qui Parle, Traverse
des Sioux, and other places in the Indian
country of western Minnesota in pioneer days
is presented in the reminiscences of Mrs.
Mary Huggins Kerlinger of Berkeley, California, recently loaned to the society for photostating through the courtesy of her daughter, Miss Callie Kerlinger. The.v fill 275
pages and include interesting material on the
Indians and half-breeds, the white and red
children who grew up in the mission homes,
trips up and down the Minnesota Valley,
a visit to the East, the treaty of Traverse
des Sioux,  and the Sioux Outbreak.
A copy of the "Prairie Rose Bud", a
quaint little manuscript magazine edited b.y
Jane S. Huggins and "published on every
alternate Monday at Cansu Paha," the Hazel-
wood mission on the upper Minnesota, is tbe
gift of Mr. A. Doyell Clark of Minneapolis
in honor of Mrs. Mary H. Kerlinger. Students of the mission school seem to have been
the chief contributors. This copy, Vol. I,
No. 3, which is dated March 20, 1854, includes childish essays on such subjects as
"Flowers,'' "Kindness," "Fame," and "Influence."—From "Minnesota History" Vol.
II, No. 1 March 1930. Pub. by the Minnesota Historical Society, St. Pauh
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!
Gold Star Indian Mother—Descendant of Sacajawea
By A. M. Movius,
A North Dakota historian, delving into Indian lore of the state, discovers that there are
a number of the descendants of Sacajawea
living today near Cheyenne, N. D. Considering the fact that Sacajawea is undoubtedly
North Dakota's most widely known historical
character, the family background cannot help
but be of great interest and appeal to the
emotions of people of this state and elsewhere.
This Shoshone Indian girl, identified with
the Lewis and Clark Expedition had been
captured and taken to Mandan, here she was
one day put up as a prize in a poker game
and won by a French trapper, one Baptiste
Chanbonneau, this game being played with
a Minnataree chief who had captured the girl
in western Montana and brought her to his
North Dakota home.
Charbonneau took his bride on a trapping
enterprise. On his return the Lewis and
Clark Expedition was about to start for the .
Pacific coast and, as Charbonneau could speak
the Indian language, he was engaged as an
interpreter; thus it was that Sacajawea and
her infant son, Toussaint, also cast their lot
with   the expedition.
As they travelled in canoes over the
turbulent streams, accidents were apt to
occur and the one in which were Charbonneau, Sacajawea and the infant capsized,
together with the precious documents, medicines and other equipment; Charbonneau
saved his own life, forgetting his family who
looked out for themselves, Sacajawea with
special forethought saving the valuable articles besides holding onto her small son and
bringing all safely to shore.
After this, tbe Indian girl acted as guide
through the trackless forest. Having spent
her childhood with the Shoshone race, her
services were invaluable on this expedition
and her remarkable memory saved them all
many times. Meeting a Shoshone tribe, she
was able to gain a conference for Lewis
and Clark with the chief and she was called
into the council as interpreter. As it happened, Chief Cameawhait was her own brother whom she had not seen since she was a
small child; but she instantly recognized him
and this proof of friendliness gave the Lewis
and Clark Expedition a realization that there
was nothing to fear regarding the Shoshones.
After the return of the expedition, there was
but little known about Sacajawea; she was lost
sight of and no appreciation of her many courageous deeds is on record. Her husband re-
received a sum of money, but Sacajawea was
not. a partner in this, so her work was never
mentioned, that is, during her lifetime.
According to history, her death occurred in
1812 and she left a baby girl Lissette; this
child lived only a short time after the death
of her mother, we are told.
Toussaint, the son of Sacajawea. married
one Victoria Vandell who was also a French
Indian half blood; and the descendants mentioned are in direct line and it is gratifying
to know that they have been found and are
living today in the state of North Dakota.
They no doubt never would have been discovered had it not been for the intensive
drive of the American Legion Auxilliary of
New Rockford. An application for membership was made by Mary Hillstrom and handed
into this unit. This application contained the
information that she was the daughter of
Toussaint Charbonneau, the only son of Sacajawea,   famous   bird   woman;   Mary  Hill-
Conlinued on  Last Page