The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1930-11 - 1930-12

              HEWORDCARRI
OF
Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME   IJX
HELPING THE   RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG
NUMBER 7
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
November-December, 1930
FIFTY ('
SNTS PER YEAR
A VETERAN MISSIONARY'S SUMMARY
1876-1930
In June, 1930, we were gathered at Nishu—
the name of our Ree settlement. A large tent
was put up near the church, and forty others
were around in the usual Indian circle. There
were three hundred or .more people in camp;
nearly all having come in autos; so there
were no longer the olcl type teepee in sight.
On Sunday afternoon the big tent was full
with the mingled tribes of Indians and a
sprinkling of whites. There was some white
blood that had beeu more than sprinkled. In
every crowd of this kind there is a fringe of
white curiosity hunters. There are other folks
who like getting together for any reason.
There are some who have indefinite spiritual
impulses. In every church there are members
like Roaming Fox, who, when reproved for
unfaithfulness, countered : "Why! AVhenever
a member died, I was at the funeral." Or like
another Fox, or Goose, who doffed his citizens dress and went "back to the blanket" to
save his face and salve his conscience when
he brought wood to sell on Sunday.
But there were others like the woman who
came with her precious dollars in a cloth and
wanted change so that she could put some- of
it in the contribution. That doesn't seem of
any importance, but she was one of those who
had wandered away, and this was her way of
telling me that she was coming back and
giving herself with her money to her God.
In that company in the tent on that June
afternoon there was a spiritual atmosphere
that came near to making a perfect day. One
or two of the men had almost "fallen on my
neck.' Some of the more mature women had
clung to my hand. Many were feeling what
some had said: 'We are so glad you came
long ago to tell us this good news." Some,
perhaps, were thinking of ancestors who had
died in the dark past.
The tent was across the bottom land from
the old village site. Fifty-four years before
I gave my first message there to the fathers
and grandfathers of those before me. As I
preached about the life that does not end with
death, I thought of many who had gone on,
many more than those before me, many, I
hope, to the place prepared.
We received some of the sons and daughters into the church thai; day. We baptised,
among others, a grandchild of one of my first
Ree friends, and a great grandchild of my
beloved Abraham Poor-wolf, who had passed
on twenty years before. And then we communed together, and gave an offering that
went 'to two men who were sick. The music
of the closing hymn floated out over the
prairie.
We came away with some good impressions
of that camp meeting. One is that this annual meeting of the churches of the reservation, after four years of Mr. Case's guidance,
has become an institution. It will be looked
forward to by our Christian forces with desire, and strengthen fellowship and service.
It is a going and a growing concern. It substitutes a religious "good time" for rodeos,
dances and commercial entertainments that
lower the standards of our community. Another impression is that the people are thinking and acting for themselves and finding expression for their thoughts. There were separate groups of men and of women to discuss
their problems.    The children    were    being
taught and entertained out in the sunshine
while their elders listened to the speeches and
thought things over and prayed. Indians who
have not become sophisticated talk about and
pray to God as naturally as they eat and
drink. The older, people easily and simply tell
of their religious experiences, and pray to
their new-found Father in heaven. The younger people who have been taken to school
among the whites grow like tis and loose
their child-likeness. Thinking and expressing
religion is not cant, if it is sincere. The expression can be "seasoned with salt," and
made tasteful to the saving of Timothy and
those who hear him.'That is true in any tribe
or society.
Then we note that our Indians are disappearing. The Teutons, Scandinavians and
other tribes that have come across the ocean
to North Dakota, are disappearing in our
mixed society. Our little handful of remnants
of tribes cannot hope long to retain a distinct
life. The Indians that met the Pilgrims have
disappeared, absorbed in the mass of American life. The few translations we have made
and the native songs will be historic relics
soon, just as John Elliot's are; but they, also,
have done their work. The young people,
many of them, have forgotten how to talk
their native language. People at our meeting
had no Indian dress. They had learned to
use the white man's garb decently and even
tastefully. That, too, in spite of the poverty
that often confined their choice from catalogs
to poor or shoddy goods. Our people had
become part of our State Conference, which
is now in its forty-ninth year. They have their
part in its work and in time, will not be distinct from the rest. We will all be one in
Christ and have a^ family likeness. No! Our
people are not vanishing. Far from it. They
are disappearing like the rest of us, immigrants -as we are, to make Christian citizens.
The colorful picturesqueness of gypsy-like
Indian life has largely gone, except in pageantry. The glamour and romance has faded
along with the horrors of savagery. This is
what we have been working for! If the race
adds a spiritual strain of peculiar piquancy
and charm to the composite pattern of our
American life, in the future only an expert
may be able to tell from whence it came.—
C.  L. Hall.
THE DEATH OF HORACE WrARNER
Many of the friends of Santee and of our
Dakota Mission will remember Mrs. Anna
Riggs Warner, sister of Dr. A. L. Riggs, who
was frequently connected with our mission
and always very much interested in it. And
many of our friends will remember Anna
Riggs' husband, Mr. Horace Everett Warner,
Mrs. Warner passed away four years ago and
it is of Mr. Warner that we are quoting as
follows from the Evening Star of Washington, D. C:
Funeral services for Horace Warner, 92
years old, Civil War veteran, who died yesterday at his residence, 1101 Clifton street, were
held this afternoon at Lee's chapel, 332 Pennsylvania avenue, Rev. Dr. Charles Noble,
formerly of Grinnell College, officiating. Interment will be at Fairhope, Ala.
Until his retiremen 25 years ago, Mr.
Warner, a resident here for more than 45
years, had been an examiner in the old Bureau
of Pensions. Since his retirement.he had divided his time between New Hampshire, Flori
da and Washington. He was a member of
the First Congregational Church and organizer there of the Ethical Club.
Mr. Warner was born in 1839 at Kirt-
land, Ohio, then, a frontier settlement. His
family later moved to Wisconsin. At the
outbreak of the Civil War Mr. Warner, then
a student at Beloit College, enlisted with the
22d AA7isconsin Infantry. He was twice hospitalized with serious illness, was captured
and exchanged as a prisoner, and finally lost
an arm at Resaca during Sherman's "march
to the sea."
With the end of the war, Mr. Warner
returned to Beloit College, graduating in
1867. After a period of law practice in Iowa,
he came to Washington.
Mr. Warner, since his first literary ventures at college, had been interested in writing, especially poetry, and his poems appeared in leading magazines of twenty-five years
ago. He published two books, "The Ethics
of Force," an argument against war, and a
volume of poetry, "The Cricket's Song and
Other Melodies."
Mr. Warner, whose wife died four years
ago, is survived by a daughter and two sons:
Marjorie F. AVarner, research librarian in
the Department of Agriculture; Arther
AArarner, associate editor of the Nation, New
Yprk, and Everett Warner, an artist represented in the Corcoran Gallery of Art and
a member of the faculty of the College of
Fine Arts, .Carnegie Institute of Technology,
Pittsburgh. •
DESCENDENTS OF THE PONDS HAVE
REUNION
The descendents of. Gideon H. and
Samuel W. Pond, two of Minnesota's earliest
missionary pioneers, gathered at Bloomington a few weeks ago for their nineteenth annual picnic and reunion. The Pond brothers,
as missionaries to the Indians, built the first
house in Minneapolis on the shores of Lake
Calhoun in 1834- They had come from Connecticut when the Mississippi River was the
extreme frontier, and Fort Snelling the only
white settlement within a radius of many
miles. They came to convert the savage Indian. The village of St. Anthony, which became Minneapolis, had not yet been founded,
and trackless forest was everywhere. Where
Lakewood cemetery now stands, the two
Pond brothers many times heard the yells
of the warring Dakotas as they dangled scalps
of the enemy Chippewas. In 1852 Gideon
moved to Bloomington and built Lake Grove
church, of which he was pastor. Samuel went
to Shakopee, where he died in 1891. Gideon
died in 1878. The two Pond brothers made
early history in Hennepin county. Gideon
was the first editor and publisher in the
county. He had a monthly paper printed
partly in English and partly in the Dakota
Indian language. The marriage of Samuel to
Cordelia Eggleston in 1838 was the first
marriage solemnized within the present
limits of Minneapolis. Gideon was the author
of several school books and hymns which
were translated into the Sioux or Dakota
Indian language. The Pond brothers had a
large part in the reducing of the Indian
language to writing. In 1849 Gideon Pond
was elected a representative to the first territorial legislature, which met in St. Paul.