The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1905-11 - 1905-12

              the Word Carrier
of Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME   XXXIV.
II Kl PING    THE    RIGHT
KXI'OSINO   iTU-JS   WBONB
XUMHEK  «.
SANTEE NEBRASKA.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1905.
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR.
Our  Platform.
For Indians   we  want  American  Education!
•want American Homes!    We want Ameri-
ftiahts!     The   result   of which   is Ameri-
Ciiizenship!    And  the Gospel is the power
for their Salvation!
We
can
can
of God
Francis E. Leupp.
Francis E. Leupp the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs is a very interesting man. He is versatile, keen, and well informed; and his acquaintance with Iudians has been long in time
and broad in view. Therefore we find, what we
would naturally expect, his presentation, in his
"annual report, of his ideas about Indians and
how to treat them, exceedingly interesting reading. See extracts on our fourth page. We now
know what he will try to do; later we shall see
what he can do. A former Indian commissioner W. A. Jones, was a man of many fine ideas
which were quite revolutionary, but the Indian
machine ground on just the same.
The Indian Dispossessed.
This is a valuable book of reference along
the same line as Helen Hunt Jackson's Century
of Dishonor. It takes up particularly the story
of The Umatillas, The Flatheads,The Nez Perces,
The Removal of the Poncas, and The Mission
Indians. It is carefully accurate and well written, so that what might seem to be only dry
annals is quite readable.
Mr. Humphrey has done his work weR, but
he will not get much praise for it. No one can
be found upon whom to fasten the blame in
sucli way as to prevent the recurrence of such
outrages. Two of the most scandalous, the
•Rosebud strip sale "and the Catholic school
contracts, are the most recent.
It would have saved much labor and worry
if no one had tried to fix the culpability for
Indian wrongs; and if they had made the frank
confession at the start that it is impossible for
a republic to do justice to an inferior race. Distance may make possible at the Philippines what
has been impossible here. The only ultimate
power is the will of the people. And the will
of the majority of the people of the United States
is set towards greed and unrighteousness. The
only thing that can be done about it is to try
to turn the current of greed temporarily; to
make the best of the breathing spells ; and save
what can be saved.
Preserving Indian Music.
It is in pursuance of the general idea of saving instead of crushing what is genuinely
characteristics in the Indian and building upon this that I have taken steps for the preservation, through the school, of what is best
in Indian music. This is a subject which has
never been sufficiently studied in the United
States. Eminent musicians in all parts of the
world express astonishment that our people
should have left so noble a field almost unexplored, particularly in view of the beautiful
themes derivable from certain native songs and
dances which are rapidly passing into oblivion
through the deaths of the old members of the
tribes and the mistaken zeal of certain teachers
to smother everything distinctively aboriginal
in the young.
As a matter of fact, the last thing that ought
to be doue with the youth of any people whom
we are trying to indoctrinate with notions of
self-respect is to teach them to be ashamed of
their ancestry. As we Caucasians take not only
pleasure but pride in reviving the musical forms
in which our fathers clothed their emotions in
religion, war, love, industry, conviviality, why
should the Indian be discouraged from doing
the same thing? Our German-born fellow-citizen makes no less patriotic an American because
^i^gsaffectionately to the songs of his father-
[■„ V.'xuiak OlsrosSHssBD, by Seth K. Humphrey.  Little,  Brown &
w>.. Price $i.50 '■■  '
land;'why should the Indian, who was here
with his music before the white conqueror set
foot upon the soil?
The Indian schools offer us just now our best
opportunity to retrieve past errors, as far as
they can be retrieved, on account of the variety
of tribal elements assembled there. The children should be instructed in the music of their
own race, side by side with ours. To this purpose an experimental start has been made, under
intelligent expert direction, by the creation of
the position of supervisor of native music, to
which Mr.Harold A.Loring of Maine has been
appointed. Although he has been at work only
a few months, signs are , already visible that
the idea is spreading favorably among the teachers ; and its popularity outside of the service is
attested by the enthusiastic reception given by
mixed audiences to the performance of genuine
Indian music by a weR-drilled school band, as
a change from the conventional airs it has been
in the habit of playing.—From Report of the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
An Indian's Idea of School.
A dissatisfied Indian pupil recently complained that 'they had told him this was a high
school'—"but they don't furnish any clothes
at all." A school is a place where clothes are
furnished, and every thing else. If a high
school is to provide free food and clothes, a college ought to furnish top buggies. And what
should a university do ! That is a fair sample
of an Indian idea of what a school should be.
Where did they get that idea? The United
States Government has taught it to them. That
one idea may be said to sum up all the results
of government schooling. Is it to be considered strange therefore thatmission schools are finding it very difficult to take even the first steps
toward creating a proper valuation by requiring
some things to be paid for. The mission school
announces that its pupils must provide their
own clothing, and we look toward the time when
the pupils will pay for their food. Mission
schools are struggling to make a small beginning in the development of a true valuation of
education. But the government schools persistently oppose the teaching of this most essential lesson. And how can government schools do
otherwise under the present self destructive
system. There are more government schools
than pupils. Every government school superintendent must haye his enrollment up to some required impossible number or loose his job. So
every superintendent sends forth his teachers
to overrun the reservations, solicitors from
half a dozen schools ofteu being on one reservation at a time, bidding against each other and
bribing for pupils. Anything in the shape of
an Indian wiU do to make up the enrollment.
The old Indian says to one: "How much will
you give me if I let my boy go to your school?
That other teacher says he will give me a pair
of pants.'' How much will you charge for taking my boy to your school, wdl never he asked
as long as the government is in the school business. It is absurd that the United States has
no compulsory education lawfor Indians. The
building of too many government schools is a
shameful extravagance. And the system of
sending forth agents to beg and bribe pupils,
tiR every Indian thinks that white men were
specially created to serve worthless Indians, is
an abominable crime on the part of our government against civilization; and a pretty sure preventive of any progress towards self-support
in the race that our government professes to be
educating for citizenship. F. B. Riggs.
Forty Mohave vouug men in all—so runs
the message from* Mr. Edgar—have come out
in open confession of their desire to live a
Christian life. A marvelous record this of
quick reaping, albeit from seed sown with
much toil and self denial during these three
years.—Home Mission Monthly.
The Change Most Needed.
We often hear it said,' 'You can't do anything
with the old Indians!" Oh, "ye of little faith,"
why not? God never said so, and He constantly
proves His power to reach all, young or old, and
to use them for His service. The old Indians,
when their hearts are touched by the "old, old
story" (new to them), go to work for the Master with a devotion which would put to shame
most white Christians in their apathetic "foRow-
ing afar off." Indians, when they become Christians not only give money in a most self-denying way, but they give themselves. An instance
related in "Home Mission Echoes" is that of an
old Indian who when received into the church
did not make a favorable impression, but who
"soon after his conversion went to work in his
neighborhood for Jesus. Being the only convert—oio one in sympathy with him for a good
while—rather against him, he was not discouraged, the Lord heard his prayers and blessed
his labors, his near relatives believed, his neighbors , then others and others, the work all the while
enlarging until it became necessary to organize
a church and build a chapel." Now, therefore,
through the conversion of one old Indian, there
exists a new Indian church of 48 members and
"more will come soon," in a building costing
$775, all paid for, and by these Indians and
members of three Indian churches.
Friends, there are 42 tribes or parts of tribes
to-day without any Christian teaching! In them
are other old Indians equally able to be reached
and made a force for righteousness. Oh, what
a waste of latent power not to set the machinery
in motion and utilize it!
The time has come for a forward movement
in Christianizing the Indians. Education they
are getting, ways of self-support are opening,
various customs of civilization are being adopted
(some a sad curse), but the one essential thing
to really change their Rves, Christianity, we are
not giving them as we should. Nothing at the
late Mohonk Conference was more strongly emphasized then this need of giving religious training to the Indians, beset as they are to-day with
new temptations. Old faiths, old customs are
tottering; what is to take their place ? The sad
story comes of tribes who had taken land in severalty,and were apparently very prosperous,now
going to pieces and becoming drunken idlers,
and the reason—no religious teaching among
them. Without Christianity no people rises
very high. With it the lowest commence at
once to aspire, endeavor and succeed.
Shall we let 42 tribes of Indians deteriorate,
or shall we send the Gospel to them and let its
power lift them until they become men and
women able to take worthy places in our country?—Tlie Indian's Friend.
Miss Frost is to go from Ross Fork, Idaho,
with some of her Indians to help in religious services among the Shivwits of Southern Idaho.
Such visits of one band to another have been so
productive of good in the past that we may confidently predict like results again. Make the
outcome a subject of prayer in the missionary
meetings.
Over 100 Pine Ridge Indians are working on
the railroad near Rapid City, S. D. They are
paid from $1.50 to $2.00 per day, and among
them are relatives of Sitting Bull, Red Cloudand
American Horse. The agency office is practi-
caRy an employment bureau. They now have
a call for 30 men to work on the Northwestern
railroad between Long Pine and Chadron. The
railroads are very much pleased with the Sioux
Indians as laborers, and the fact that so many
of them are working this fall, principally
through the instrumentality of Agent J.R.Bren-
nan, shows that they are becoming disposed to
cultivate the white man's ways and take up
his burden.—Oglala Light.