The Word Carrier (Santee, Nebraska), 1890-11

              The Word Carrier.
VOLUME   XIX.
HELl'IX(i    THE    RIGHT,   EXPOSING    THE   WltONii.
Nl'MHEH   1 1 •
SANTEE AGENCY, NEBRASKA.
NOVEMBER, 1890.
FIFTY CENTS PEE YEAR,
OUIt   PXiATFOUM.
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.
The Winnebagoes have been dancing near Santee for many days and
nights. Tbe great majority of the
Santee Indians look upon this with
shame and regret. But off in the
southeast corner of wdiat was Santee Reservation a small community
of Indians have entertained heathen ideas, notwithstanding their external forms of civilization, and the
genuine progress of their neighbors.
Here was a foothold for the Winnebago dances. And their orgies have
aroused the smouldering heathenism that had been lost sight of.
Why are these things allowed ?
"Once Their Home," or, Our Legacy from the Dahkotahs, by Mrs.
Frances C. Holley, will be read and
enjoyed by many who are interested in frontier life along the Missouri River. This book shows careful research and a desire for accuracy in all the details. The familiar names of Indians, early settlers
and missionaries attract one's attention, and the faces of them, though
not the finest engravings,are easily
recognized, and form an attractive
feature of the work. Mrs. Holley
deserves credit for preserving so
faithful a record of a phase of life
that is rapidly passing away.
Fortunately, in the recent fire,
the water in "the cisterns held out.
There are times when the cisterns
are almost empty, and a good deal
of the hardest work of the winter is
going a mile and a half to the river
with water barrels, to bring water
for a hundred and forty persons,
when the mercury is 20° below
zero. A beginning has been made
towards providing water. An artesian well has been bored, but money is needed to build a reservoir for
the water before it can be of use.
Santee has some valuable buildings. Who will help to give the
needed protection from fire. On
Thanksgiving Day we received five
dollars to be invested in Santee
Normal Training School water
works.	
The only way for the Devil to
keep control of a people is to hold
them in ignorance and barbarism.
Twenty-eight years ago the Devil
lost his sway over a great part of
the Sioux Indians. The good work
of missionaiies has recently been
endangering his hold on the Pine
Ridge, Rosebud, and Standing Rock
Indians. The Devil tried to keep
the Minnesota Indians in simple
barbarismi But since that failed
he is experimentally wiser now and
accordingly makes a combination
of the old heathen dance and the
idea of a messiah brought in by a
gleam of Christianity. Thus the
strange phenomenon of a messianic delusion is a credit to these Indian people. It shows that even
into the darkest minds of the most
heathenish of them such a Christian
influence has begun to work  that
the Devil can not arouse savage
frenzy on his old purely heathen
plan. The imported idea must be
recognized in present tactics. The
New Testament in many instances
shows that the devils are more apt
than men to recognize God. In
this instance the Devil has seen
these Indians to be more largely influenced by Christian thought than
even the missionaries had supposed. For, in this Indian craze, the
messiah idea,when analytically unencumbered, is of Christian origin.
Thus, by making a combination
of some of their most heathenish
dances with a very perverted messianic notion, all the mental affinities
of the less than semi-civilized Indian are employed in the Devil's
sole purpose of leading to destruction.
Election day, November 4, was
an exciting occasion among the
Santee Indians. Four party tickets, besides many gotten up on account of side issues, made matters
very complicated, and the questions at stake this year were extraordinarily important. Surrounding
towns, and their very numerous and
almost omnipresent agents, used
innumerable forms of bribery. A
bright silver dollar is very tempting
to an Indian voter who, as an
inexperienced farmer, has fared
poorly during this dry season.
Trash-whiskey-whites feasted the
Indians, fabricated plausible lies,
and finally used much cash in
direct bribes. Thus many were
dragged away from casting the
ballot according to their own best
convictions. Nevertheless most of
the Indian voters were found to
have considerable determinaton to
vote according to their own opinion. They were over heard advising one another to receive the bribe
money, pretend to vote the bribers
ticket, but in the end to be sure
and vote the one of their own choice.
Therefore a crowd of Indians waited
about the polling place nearly all
day, acting doubtful and waiting for
bribes. All these conditions made
election day at Santee very demoralizing. Many of the Indians were
weakened to bribery because they
could see no relationship between
themselves and the questions at
stake. For instance, some liar had
persuaded many of them that the
whiskey question could not concern
them because of the United States
statute against selling liquor to Indians. Nevertheless the Santee Indians rolled up a majority in favor
of Prohibition.
have the necessary facilities for
giving life-preserving instructions
in the matter of food-preparation to
those whom we have been at such
expense to educate. In the domestic arrangements of our scliool
everything must now he done on
such a large scale that it is impossible to give such careful, thorough,
and individually effective instruction or practice in the preparation
of food as will be of sufficient practical benefit to our students after
their leaving school. We must have
a separate and special apparatus.
We must have room for much practice,—a culinary laboratory. We
must be able to teach them
to cook palatable food on a poor
stove as well as a good one. They
should also learn to do the best
possible cooking with only an open
fire. We must be able to give our
pupils individual practice in making the most nutritious compounds
of the fewest food elements. We
must have room for them to practice
this with all manner of implements
and under every condition that they
will be likely to encounter. By giving us these means, God's stewards
will increase many fold the efficiency, and prolong the valuable
lives of the Christian laborers
that we are now training. Please
respond quickly.
The Indian Conference in session last week
at Lake Mohonk, New York, discussed the
subject "ofthe relation ofthe churches to the
federal government in the word of educating
the Indians." Experience, sound judgment
and tlie precepts of political economy generally
unite in support of the position taken by Dr.
Lyman Abbott, Rev. Dr. Foster, of Boston,
and others that a speedy separation of Church
and Slate in this matter is neccessary for the
best interests of the Indians. People generally
who have a personal knowledge of the condition and character of the Indian races of the
Northwest will heartily concur in this view.
What these Indians need to be taught is in the
line of thrift and industry, not in that of creeds;
an intelligent knowledge of how to take care of
themselves decently and comfortably in this
world, not speculative theories of what will
become of them in the next; honesty, morality
and kindness, not the doctrines of theology;
the creed of personal responsibility, not that
Christ alone can give this.    A man
grows from the soul outward.   And
never has history given evidence of
genuine advance in civilization caused by change of outward circumstances without a correspondent and
precedent change of the inward man
—the man proper.   A manly Christianity is wdiat we teach,—not speculative  creed,   sanctimonious  hypocrisy, superstitious symbolism,or
treasonable Papism.   But the moral
principles of an unadulterated, unencumbered Chirstianity are the only efficient incentives to every form
of legitimate activity and success.
Aud   these   Christian    principles
must he interwoven with all training
of the mind and hands and body.
The quoted article implies that mission schools do not teach manual
training or give instruction in the
affairs of economic and thrifty living.    But that is just what we do
teach.   And that we have been successful in it we can prove by the
most competent witnesses.    Some
of the very best shop products have
come from  our mission  schools.
And  we  have   sent   out   students
who   are   not   only   supporting
themselves by means of the trades
they learned  here, but are living
exemplary Christian lives.   We do
not aim to veneer any savages with
semblances of civilization.   We
aim to thoroughly train our Indian
students, mentally, morally, manually,  physically.     We   desire to
train the whole man.   We aim to
train him not for his own self-sufficiency,but for service in that which
alone makes life worth living, /'. e.
the good of others.
In the Congregationalist, Mr. S.
B. Capen, of Boston, makes the
following argument for Civil Service reform in Indian Schools:
friends ofthe Indian have for years been
trying to get the whole Indian service divorced from politics, and progress has been made
steadily. We ought, howover, to lake advan
tage now of some favoring circumstances to
move forward. We have General Morgan
and Dr. Dorchester in their positions of com-
of vicarious atonement: to plow, to sow, to j manding influence, and they nave the full con-
gather into barns,- to put flour m the bin, meat | fidence  of all.    We  can   depend  upon  the
Hoard of Indian Commissioners for any service
in the barrel, potatoes in the cellar and wood
in the shed for winter; to make individual
homes and surround them with at least the
common comforts of civilization; to wash, to
cook, to sew, to handle tools usefully, and to
clothe themselves and their children decently
—these are things in the direct line of wdiat
education should mean to Indians. What the
schoolmen teach in relation to the plan of
salvation will be well enough later on, but the I
in their power to render. I fthose now occupying these high places of trust can be sustained
heartily, we believe rules could be formulated by them which would be adopted by the
department and become permanent. Once
get that slake driven, it would be very difficult for any subsequent administration to pull
it out.
The principles laid down should   be   these:
Please notice, in another column,
an article on a cooking scliool for
Santee Normal, by one of our former co-laborers. We have $50.00
towards a department for culinary instruction. We need only
$150 00 more. In the radical
change of diet and mode of living
in general that accompanies Christian civilization there is great danger to health. At this school we
spend years of time and hundreds of
dollars in carefully training each of
our competent students for leadership among his or her people. It
therefore seems only a matter of
righteous economy and Christian
insurance   policy that we should
malcrial things of life and how lo make ihe    ( , , That all appointees should be certified
most of them are of pressing present concern
to the Indian races.—Lancaster Examiner.
If the  Government is going to
I continually tie itself to the Roman
1 Catholic church,then we agree "that
! a speedy separation of Church and
i State is necessary." But the above
| quoted objections to the cooperation of church and state do not apply
to the Protestant church. Protestants do not teach 'schoolmen's
creeds' and "speculative theories"in
opposition to "thrift and industry."
But there is not the slightist foundation for a character of''thrift and industry "except that laid in the simple
principles of the teachings of Jesus
Christ. And there is no perfect
creed of personal responsibility except it be found in pure Christianity.
In order to a thorough and genuine
reformation of life, a heathen must
have a change of inmost character.
to character and leaching ability by supervisors
or expert teachers. The appointment should
always depend upon professional and not political qualification, and upon professional and
not political indorsements. 12) Aftera proper
and limited period of probation, all teachers
shiild be put upon a permanent tenure, removable only for cause. (3) If the conditions
first named art- fulfilled, the religious sect or
political party lo which one belongs should
not be a barrier on the one hand or a motive
for appointment on the other. (4) Vacancies
shuld be filled, wherever possible, by promotion from a lower to a higher grade.
The objection will be made that while this
is practicable in our regular schools, it is impracticable in the Indian service; that it is difficult to get good teachers for this work, etc.
I would reply that the way to get good teachers is to raise the standard and make the position permament. Is it any wonder that teachers have not been eager to take such appointments, when the positions have been so insecure
and dismissals likely to come at any moment?
Let the conditions be made right, and there
are enough consecrated young men and women
in this country to fill every place.