The Word Carrier (Santee, Nebraska), 1890-12

              The Word Carrier.
VOLUME   XIX.
HELPING    THE    RIGHT,   EXPOSING    THE    WllllMI.
NUMBER   18.
SANTEE AGENCY, NEBRASKA.
OUR   PLATFORM.
For Indians we want American Education ! We want American Homes!
We want American Rights! Tlie result of which is American Citizenship!
And the Gospel is die Power of God for
their Salvation.
The way in which the Indians surprised our soldiers, at the attempted disarming of Big Foot's band,
reflects no credit upon the United
States army, either as regards military training or common sense.
"When the Government ceases to
pauperize and babify the Indians
but gives them an education that
shall, in thorough character transformation, fit them for the self dependence that it has prematurely
attempted to force upon them we
shall have no more Indian troubles
and no more Indians.
In the endeavor to conjure up
causes for the trouble among the
Sioux, several newspapers have cited the political changes and displacement of Indian agents. But
this looks like a campaign fallacy.
For at Standing Bock, the principal
source of the disturbance and the
home of Sitting Bull,there has been
no change of Agent for many years.
And the change at Pine Bidge was
necessary,and was a change for the
better. We do not go back to the
removal of Dr. McGillicuddy. That
is now too remote to consider in
this connection.
In its cooking school Hampton
has lately realized the necessity of
teaching cooking with the use of such
imperfect implements as are to be
found in a prairie-cabin. Why not
go further and train our Indian students to make the best possible use of
an open camp fire with only a knife,
frying pan and coffee pot ? Why not
have the cooking course graduated,
from a well regulated range with its
even tire, multiple utensils and variety of food elements, through imperfect stoves and a diminution of
conveniences to a simple open fire?
And let the student who can skillfully manipulate a camp fire, accompanied by a little wind and rain perhaps, be graduated with full honors
of culinary bachelorship.
The ghost dance, in its resurrection feature is somewhat similar to
the old "Wakan Wacipi," or sacred
dance of the Eastern Dakotas. In
this dance at the proper time the
dancer was shot by a sacred bean
from the medicine bag of a conjurer. This was the signal for his soul
to depart the body. Then the other dancers threw buffalo robes over
the dead man and danced around
until he revived and his soul came
back from ' In spirit world, as they
said. I'hi resurrected dancer would
come out from under the robes with
a sacred bean in his mouth with
which he professedly had been shot,
but which had been carefully placed
under the dancer's tongue by a medicine man. Once upon a time, as
the story goes,the fact that a certain
resurrected dancer was found to have j
no bean in his mouth led to the dis- :
covery of the medicine men's tricks, :
because the dancer had been so j
stupid as to swallow his bean. The |
humbuggeries of the ghost dance
are not yet all revealed,but they are
similar to those we now know.
DECEMBER, 1890.
FIFTY CENTS PER YEAR,
The most disgraceful thing that
has happened at Santee Agency
for many years was the Winnebago
dance which was had here in November. Some of the Santees had
been away visiting the Winnebagoes,
joining in their Indian dances and
receiving presents of horses and
other things. So the Winnebagoes
returned the visit to get even. And
the visiting Santees, in courtesy,
had to get up an Indian dance,
and give their guests horses in turn.
These dances are utterly demoralizing. They are lewd ; they break
down habits of industry that have
been painfully gained; they impoverish the people, and set them
back from civilization to barbarism.
It is but just to say that only a portion of the Santees were engaged
in it; and the most influential men
of the tribe protested against the
dance being allowed.
The Christian at Work belies its
name in saying that "the only solution of the Indian problem lies in
the breaking up of the tribal order
and the settlement upon the Indians of land in severalty." Has
then Christianity nothing to do with
it ? Those who have any real acquaintance with the work know that
the first thing for the good of the
Indian,and for an economical as well
as speedy settlement of our difficulties, is Christian education. The
place that the Gospel has in this
work of redemption slips out of
the consciousness of some peeple.
Not only the Christian at Work
but the Christian Union and the
Independent have been discussing
this problem in the same way,
from a secular standpoint merely. Their "only solution" is civil
service reform and Government
schools. They do not really mean
so, but that is what people will
understand from their failure to
say the other thing.
Some recent writers have mentioned the ghost dance as though it
were an old ceremony revived. But
on the contrary it is different from
any dance hitherto practiced. It
bears some resemblances to other
Indian dances in forms of ritual
rather than in its motive idea,
Some have compared this ghost
dance to the old sun dance. There
is some similarity but very considerable dissimilarity. The agony of
the sun dance is physical rather
than mental. In the ghost dance
it is both . physical and mental.
The dancers work themselves into
a frenzy, and when from physical
exhaustion they fall to the ground
in a faint, they are said to be dead.
And when, according to the processes of nature, the fainted body
revives, the person is believed
to have come to life again. In
the meanwhile his soul has visited
some happy place of perpetual
summer and divine abode. The
resurrected person returns to this
world with fresh fruit and green
leaves in his hand. No one has
ever seen this fruit and green
leaves,but it is said that some have
brought it from the other world
with them, and with savage credulity all implicitly believe it, Henceforth the resurrected dancer is on
the roll of sacred warriors-.
SITTING  BULL'S DEATH AND
BURIAL,
All has been excitement and confusion here since Monday evening
December 15. The first news about
the fight at Sitting Bull's came to us
at about 2 P. M. on Monday. We
hardly believed the reports then because we have heard so much of untruth in regard to what our Indians
here were doing, when we had seen
differently with our own eyes.
I have talked with the agent and
military officers who went out Sunday night, and with a school teacher who carried orders to the Indian
police two hours before the fight,
and with others.who said they were
in the fight.
The composite I make is this:
Orders came to the military at sunset Sunday to go to Grand Biver, arrest Sitting Bull and bring him in
dead or alive, as he and his people
were ready to starton the warpath,or
at least to join other hostiles below.
To do this without bloodshed, forty police (Indian) were to make the
arrest, binding and gagging and
putting him into a light wagon to be
.driven with ali speed into the military lines on the hills north about
two miles. The police had no light
wagon in readiness. It was nearly
light (Monday A. M.), and they
could not or did not wait to be sure
the cavalry was near. Ten of the
police entered Sitting Bull's house,
found him alone, and after he bad
put on his coat and moccasins he
went with them out of the door.
Then Sitting Bull gave the signal
and two men in sheets appeared,and
throwing off the sheets, commenced
firing. The police returned the fire,
Others of the hostiles fired from the
thicket near, and the fight became
general. Soon the hostiles, women,
children and all fled in every direction,but most of them, hidden by the
bushes, fled up the river.
In an hour after the arrest the
military, that is the cavalry, about
100 men, rode into the camp, yet
not before firing four bombs which
fortunately fell short of the mark.
The military took charge of the four
dead policemen, one of them was
our beloved Little Eagle, the father
of the boy whom in your school you
called Harry Patterson. A wounded policeman was sent in at once to
the agency, but he died early Tuesday morning. The military returned Tuesday afternoon bringing the
bodies of the four police piled upon
! the body of Sitting Bull.
Through the kindness of Dr. De-
! bell, the Post contract doctor, I saw
I Sitting Bull's body as it was in the
j dead house of the Post Hospital,
■ nude, with the exception of breech
j cloth.   I saw only one wound on his
! body.     I identified the body and
; know that it was the body of Sitting
Bull.    Bumors are afloat that the
I police after the fight riddled the
body with bullets saying that they
would see whether his shirt would
turn bullets.    I saw his coat and his
shirt but there was only one hole
I and that under the arm on the left
side.    The upper part of the head
! was terribly disfigured,having been
\ struck and cut again and again by
the infuriated police after the death
of their comrades.     His jaw was
broken and  he was shot twice in
the head.   These are not interesting
details only as they show the falsity
of innumerable stories afloat.
The five dead police were honored yesterday with a military funeral. Four, tliough not Catholics,were
buried in eonseerated ground, in the
very center of the Catholic cemetery. Little Eagle had often expressed the wish to be buried beside his boy at Grand Biver. After
the agent had told me of his desire
to honor Little Eagle as the others,
and that the body would be delivered to me at the close ofthe military funeral, the Agency powers
would have left his body in the
council house. I found the priest
and he said that the men to be
buried were not really Catholics,
but they consecrated the graves and
not the whole cemetery; and that
Little Eagle's body could be taken
in with the rest and remain on a
bier during the military funeral and
then I could bring the body here.
We have to sail between Scylla and
Charybdis here.
We brought Little Eagle's body
down and held a service in our
chapel at sunset. Few of our Indians, about a dozen, were here.
Mrs. Little Eagle came in just before the service. We held another
service this morning and Owen and
others have gone out with the body.
I wanted to go, but the agent says
it will not be safe for any white man
out on the reservation for a few days.
Miss Collins has been at Oahe for
two weeks. Elias brought in bis
family before the fight, starting
long before light Monday. He
went back alone Tuesday. Albert
and family are here.
Owen did not get back to Sitting
Bull's till Thursday, having stopped at Albert's Wednesday. On
Thursday afternoon he went over
to Sitting Bull's house and found
the house full of men. Sitting
Bull told him to sit down. Then
a man in front of him, knife in
hand, arose ana took a seat behind Owen. Owen was frightened,
and says he can not tell just what
little was said when he was there,
but they evidently wanted him to
go that they might continue their
council. Owen mistrusted that war
was imminent, and did not spend the
night in the camp, but with Elias;
and then afterward went to Albert's where he staid till yesterday.
We anticipate no further trouble.
All the friendly Indians are above
the agency, at John Grass' camp,
or here below the agency along the
river. About a dozen of our families are here now camped about
the house. Antelope has just come
in and I have been talking with him
about two hours. He says all is
just right. It could not have been
different. (;. \v. RF/et>.
Fort Yates, X. I)., Dec. 18, 1890.
Elizabeth Winyan had at her
death several deer skins which are
scarce and valuable now. These
she bequeathed to the Women's Missionary Societies, that they might
be used for the cause so dear to her
heart, and they were divided at Mis-
\ sion Meeting among the different
' societies. As a tribute of the love
and gratitude which they feel toward this noble woman, the Dakota
women are now raising money to
erect a stone to her memory.