The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1907-11 - 1907-12

              The Word Carrier
of SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
VOLUME XXXVI.
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER 6.
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 1907
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR.
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 their Salvation!
All our missionaries and Indian churches,
Presbyterian and Congregational, are just now
anxiously interested in news concerning the
health of Dr. John P. Williamson. Early in
November he went to Montana to make the
round of his churches there and was taken sick
at Harlem, Mont. From there he was brought
down to Asbury Hospital, Minneapolis, where
he is at this date December 19. On his way to
Montana he stopped over at Twin Brooks, near
Milbank, S D., and was thrown out of the carriage in a runaway and quite badly shaken up.
At first this was thought to have caused his sickness, but is now known to have been only an
incident. His malady seems to be a nervous
breakdown, from which the recovery is slow but
now assured.
Mdetanka.
Mdetanka is an Indian settlement between
Fori Yates and Cannon Ball, North Dakota.
Here for several years we have had a congregation of Indians connected with our Fort Yates
Congregational church, who worship in a neat
chapel erected largely by their own efforts. They
have now become a separate organization and
called as their pastor Arthur T. Tibbetts, the
sun-essful Indian Secretary of the Y. M. C. A.
The council called for the organization of the
church and for the ordination and installation
of Mr. Tibbetts, convened in the Mdetanka
chapel on Sunday, October 27, with Rev. G. W.
Reed moderator and Rev. Albert Frazier scribe.
After half a day of conference with the members of the proposed church, tbe church was
organized with twenty-three members and others
to come in. Then followed the examination,
ordination and installation of Arthur T. Tibbetts
to i>e their pastor. And the exercises of a deeply
int-resting day were closed by the Communion.
The ice was already ou the duck ponds and
fringing the sand bars of the old Missouri as
we started homewards the next morning. Nevertheless Mr. Bobtail, our ferryman, had to
jui p out in the middle of the river and drag his
ski if over the sand bar. But we were dry and
comfortably ready for our ride to the railroad.
And w'e were glad that he had a welcoming stove
near by, by which to thaw out his dripping legs.
Work on Navaho Language..
The work of reducing the Navaho language
to a written language which has been undertaken by the missionaries has received considerable attention since the meeting of the conference at the Rehobeth mission a short time ago.
This work has been going on for some time and
good progress has been made, but at the very
earliest calculation it will be five years before
a dictionary and grammar will be ready to issue.
The Franciscan monks at St. Michaels are engaged in the same work and now have an enormous amount of manuscript for their dictionary
and grammar, and as yet the work is only about
half through. All who are studying the Navaho
language with the intent of making a written
language and deducing the.grammar, state that
the Navaho have a most beautiful language and
that it has a very regular grammar although
many conditions controlling the grammar of
the lauguage are found which have no parallel
in any known language, and new rules to cover
these conditions have to be marked out. It has
been found by the missionaries that it is impossible to use the English alphabet as there are
word sounds which cannot be made by the letters
we use! The Polish alphabet is found to be
the best for writing the Navaho and it is now
the intention of the missionaries to use that
alphabet.—Gallup Republican.
A Dakota Endeavorer.
^ I often think of the teachers and pupils at
Santee and wonder what they are doing, and
wonder how the Christian Endeavor Society and
its members are getting along. I wish 1 could
be at the Santee meeting pext Sunday, but as
long as I cannot be there, I hope to have a
meeting here at my own home
1 have started a Christian Endeavor Society at
I last, aud I hope and pray that it may grow and
\ may be a strength and a help to all of us here
j in this neighborhood,and that those who attend
may get as much good from it as I did from
the one at Santee, for there was nothing that
ever helped me in my Christian life as those
Sunday afternoon meetings. For that reason I
decided to start a Society among my own people
after I returned home, and I have prayed for
it and for these people that God would strengthen them and that they might take interest in
what is taught them from the Gospel. We have
had five meetings. I started with seven members, including myself, and last Sunday we had
a business meeting at which we voted in seven
more new members, and we decided to send for
some Endeavor topic books and the Endeavor
World. We also decided to write to the main
society and give in our report. Though we have
fourteen members there are not many of them
that take real interest in the meetings, but I
am satisfied to just have them come and listen
to what is said. It has been one of tbe hardest
things which I ever tried to do, for I had to go
to each one and work with them for days before
they became interested at all. The Bible says
| there is nothing impossible with God so I stuck
to it until I succeeded. It would not be so hard
if these people were Protestants, but this is a
Catholic community and many do not even
know what kind of a church they belong to'for
the Father comes to their house and baptizes
them and that is the last of it. They never get
instruction, nor have they ever been inside of
a church, and even the women drink. So you
can imagine bow hard it is to work among such
a class of people. So I waut to ask you to pray
for Us, and pray to God to give me the right
words and thoughts for the meetings.
I have been more than thankful for the musical
training I had at Santee, for as we have our
meetings at each member's home we do not have
any organ to start our songs with, so I remember
how we were taught in class to get the right
pitch, and so I lead them in the singing although
I never did have an excellent voice and always
felt that God did not intend me to be a singer,
yet I feel that he must expect me to make use
of all  I was  taught  at  Santee.
Mary  Clifford.
Jennie Cox Aungie.
Jennie Cox Aungie. was born in 1867, and at
an early age she went to the mission school at
Santee where she stayed under the care of Dr.
A. L. Riggs until she was well advanced in her
studies, when she was-afforded a chance to attend school in Iowa. Having becorne an earnest
Christian while at the mission school she returned there to work for others when she had finished her studies in the east.
In 1893 she was married to Mr. Thomas Aungie an elder in the Presbyterian church at
Greenwood, S. D.
Though Mrs. Aungie was afflicted with physical weakness, and found many trying things
to contend with in her new surroundings, she
never failed to show her staunch, christian character at all times. Her patience in suffering,
her many acts of kindness to those around her
live in the memory of all who knew her. As
she had lived quietly, and peacefully, so she
departed on the morning of September 15, to be
at home.
Though we miss her sorely we know that her
life was lived for Christ.
Helen A. Williams.
A Dakota Teaching the Creeks.
I left home the twenty-sixth of September for
the south. I never was so anxious to see a place
as I was the Nuyaka Mission, where I am sent
under the Women's Board of Home Missions, as
a music teacher. I really was surprised to find
the school as large as it is. We now have ninety-
three pupils. The first day of school eighty
were enrolled. I never saw Indian pupils come
to school so promptly. By noon the grouud was
full of wagons and people. They seem eager for
school.
Nuyaka Mission is a school for Creek Indians,
and although there are other schools around
here most of the Indians want their children to
attend the Mission school. Mr. Robe, tbe superintendent, said that every year they have
to refuse many who would like to come. They
take in the old pupils first and then take in
what new pupils there is room for. There
are more boys than girls. We have two large
boys who are only in the first grade. Mr.
Robe did not think they would stay very long,
but they are here yet and seem to want to stay
all the year, even though they do have to go to
school with the little ones.
The work looked encouraging to me from the
verv first day. These girls aud boys seem anxious to learn. When out of school, and they go
to school all day, they sit down with their books
and study. As I pass through the sitting room I
see them hard at work and hear them talking
over some difficult part of their lessons. I have
the music department and I do enjoy the teaching. The Creeks are fond of music like the rest
of us Indians. I give lessons on the organ, and
have one piano pupil. I also have the singing classes. I have not the voice to lead in
singing, but I am teaching my pupils to read
music by notes. I have the older pupils twice
a week and the primary class two evenings out
of tbe w^-ek. I took up school room music work
when I-was at Miami University aud I find that
has been a help to me.
I like this country very much. Nuyaka
Missiou is eighteen miles west of Okmulgee,
Oklahoma, which is our post office. We only
get our mail when some one goes over from tbe
Mission for it. This makes the arrival of the
mail a very exciting time.
Since the children have found out that I am
also an Indian, how they do watch me! It
makes me much more careful as to what I say
and do. Last Sunday evening the pupils sang
a hymn in Creek, and-then I sang a Dakota
hymn wThich the little ones thought was the
funniest sounding hymn they had ever heard.
We have three cottages for the different
homes, and a school house. Tbey have no farm in
counection with the school, so the boys have no
farm work to do, but they are kept busy chopping wood for they use wood altogether for
fuel.    There is timber all arouud here.
I have seen real cotton fields and have
picked some off to send home. The fields
look so pretty and white. They tell me they
pick cotton from now on until about Christmas. We see wagon loads of cotton pass
through here every day on their way to Okmulgee. Grace Olive Eastman.
Grace Eastman was a Sautee graduate in the
class of 1905. She attended Miami University
for one year and then taught in tbe Presbyterian
Mission School at Goodwill, S. D. She is now
teacher in the Nuyaka Mission School at Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
From  Grand   River.
Just before Thanksgiving Miss Mary C.
Collins was going in a livery to Evarts, and
two miles from there was thrown out by a
runaway. She received a serious scalp wound
and a severe nervous shock. It was a narrow
escape, but she is now improving and getting
along well.