The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1912-09 - 1912-10

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The Word Carrier.
os Santee Normal Training School.
VOLUME XLI
HELPING- THE BIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER  5
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 1912
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 God for their Salvation !
The Society of American Indians
This Society has now emerged from some unfortunate conditions that hampered it in its first
organization, and now has entered upon its
third year of life with a mox-e complete organization and hearty endorsement of evex-y one
who knows of them. Much of their success is
owing to the untiring efforts of Prof. F. A.
McKenzie of Ohio State University, who has
Deei! working for the idea for four years. October 3-6 the society held their second annual
conference at Columbus, O. It was a most successful meeting.
We copy from a personal letter of Arthur C.
Parker the seex-etary, some paragraphs of interest to all.
Knowing your interest in our Society I take
occasion to inform you briefly of the results
of crir Second Conference held during the first
week of October at Ohio State University. Dr.
Coolidge still holds the President's chair of the
organization, the Society saw fit to further
hoimr me with the important office of Secre-
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I really wish that you might have been
to have attended the Conference and to
listened to the earnest discussions by the
y earnest Christian men and women who
i the greater bulk of our organization,
very associations of the Conference were
iring and helped every person who atteud-
Many of the leading clergy of the city at-
■d the Confex-euce and on Indian Sunday
our members filled the pulpits of the churches.
This year again I believe we reached moi-e than
ten ihousand people with the message.
Our Society now has a definite constitution
and platform and has asked that the Secretary
devote his entire attention to the work of the
Society. . In this we had the assurance of co-
optation from the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A.,
various Indian Associations and such individuals as General Pratt, Thomas Jesse Jones, formerly of Hampton, Professor McKenzie of Ohio
Stale University and many others. We number among our endorsex-s many of the leading- citizens of the counti-y beginning with the
Pn-ident of the United States down through
the various college presidents and professors,
leading clergyman such as Dr. Washington
Gladden down to the earnest man and woman
devoting him or herself to the Indian Service,
through the church, the Government, or lay
organizations. Never before did a class of
Indians, binding themselves together for the
purpose of uplift and advancement, have the
friends which we have. We sincei-ely believe
that this result has been achieved through the
confidence which our leading members have inspired among the well-wishers of the Indian
race and through their sacrifice and devotion
to the cause of the Society.
Biography of William Jones
The Frederick A. Stokes Company has issued an interesting biography of William
Jones, Hampton's most distinguished Indian
graduate, written by Henry Miluer Rideout.
These memoirs of William Jones by one of
his fellow students, says William L. Brown of
Washington, are written con amore. They show
a keen appreciation of the genius and personality of the man and possess an intrinsic interest that will appeal to a much larger circle
thau the limited group to whom the subject of
the book was personally known. That he was
not more widely known to fame was undoubtedly due to the accident of his early death.
For it is generally conceded among scholars
that he gave promise of becoming one of America's leading anthropologists had he but lived
to reap the fruits of his thorough training
and natural aptitude for his chosen profession.
Born, in 1871, a member of the Sauk and
Fox tribe, with a strain from a clan of Indian
rulers in his blood—though more white than
Indian—and raised in a wigwam by bis grandmother, he was graduated from Hampton in
1892 and went to Andover where he fitted fox-
Harvard. Graduated from Harvard in 1900,
and gaining his Ph. D. at Columbia in 1904, he
was sent in 1907, by the Field Museum of. Chicago, to the Philippine Islands to study the wild
tx-ibes of natives in the mountains of Luzon.
And he met his death in March 1909 by treachery at the hands of the savages among whom
he had lived for about a year.
His life, though short, followed no ordinary
course. Rarely indeed is it given to any hu-
inau being to range through such varied and
fundamentally different experiences. His boyhood, as our author remarks, resembled the
boyhood of Hiawatha with Nokomis. His career took him, as on an abrupt curve, through
some of tixe highest complexities of our civilization. And when he had become the chief
authority in Algonkin lore and was indispensable, humanly speaking, to the work he had
chosen, it was fate to be sent off to the far corners of the tx-opics, there to meet death suddenly at the hands of savages.
His character was of the strong and simple
type of those who are born under the open sky
and live always in close touch with natux-e.
He was naturally modest and unassuming, with
much of the sober dignity and reticence which
characterize the higher type of Indians, and his
face, reflective and melancholy in its upper
lines but full of determination in its lower
contour, revealed the clear, untroubled thought-
fulness which possessed him, while his eyes,
at times impenetrably sad, held frequently a
twinkle of merry humor that was ix-resistible.
Such was the man who is the subject of this
book. Of the work that he accomplished little
is said, but enough to show the seriousness
with which he took it and the value of the results. He invariably spent the summers of his
college years in the field, among the Indian
tribes of our Middle West or the Ojibwas of
Canada, collecting and writing the tales which
make up the vast sum of their native folklore,
or gathering the native implements or weapons
of their mox*e primitive native life; and his
birth and training made much of this accessible to him which would have been concealed
forever from any investigator of an alien race.
Much of his work mayr be seen in the Museum
of Natural History in New York and in the
Field Museum of Chicago whex-e he classified
and ax-ranged his material. He wox-ked also
upon a grammar of the Fox language and on a
dictionary of tribes for the Bureau of Ethnology.
But this book, which is made up of personal
reminiscences and of extracts from letters and
a journal, is the account, (as the author declares) not of the scientist and his achievements, but of a young man who, everywhere
he went—among curators of museums, artists
in studios, plainsmen in their saddles, or Indians in wigwams—endeared himself to many
persons lastingly. The pex-usal of its pages
must inevitably make those who thought they
knew him know him better, and those who did
not know him wish it might have been their
px-ivilege to x-eckon him among their friends.
—The Southern Workman.
Post Office Affidavit
Of The Word Carrier, published once in two
months, at Santee, Neb. Editor, A. L. Riggs,
Santee, Neb.; Publisher, A. L. Riggs, Santee,
Neb, Owner: The Santee Normal Training
School, Sautee, Neb.
Signed, A. L. Riggs.
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 17th
day of  October,  1912.
B. J. Young, Notary Public.
The Comanche Interpreter
Howax-d White Wolf, the subject of this
sketch is at present employed as interpreter
at the Comanche Mission of the Reformed
Church in America at Lawton, Okla., and resides on the Mission grounds, having leased
his lands and improvements to engage in this
wox-k.
Howax-d has steadily developed. This is noticeable not only to those who have long
known him but even to those whose knowledge
of him is of shorter dux-ation.
The one time drunkard aud gamblex is, like
Onesimus of old, now a profitable brother.
Many times he refers to the great work, the
evangelization of the Indian, and thanks God
that he is called of God to help in it.
This morning I again received evidence of
this. He was referring to a funeral held yesterday. A young woman by the name of Nina
Cox Komah had fallen asleep in Jesus Sunday
evening. So when he came to report this morning for duty, among the first things he said
was : "Mr. Sluyter, the thought came to me since
the funex-al yesterday that my interpreting
would not amount to anything if I did not have
my heart in this great work." "No," said I,
"you might interpret the words but the expression and feeling would be lacking." "Do you
know," he added, "after the funeral Uttopoby
and Nahwats (these ai-e my two Comanche
Elders) and I were talking, and we expressed a
desire that when our time comes we may be
cleax--headed and die with a smile like Nina did
and be able to say as she did: 'I am not afraid
to die; it is all right.' ''
It is very helpful to me in my preparations
to know what the Indiaus ax-e thinking and
talking about. I get very much help along
this line fx-om my interpreter.
Besides helping in this way, he assists in
direct Chx-istian effort. Last week he and a
number of other Indiaus were at Anadarko to
meet with the Indian agent. Among the little
group from our immediate neighborhood was
one who some three mouths ago renewed his
stand for Christ and since he has been a model
Christian. This young man was approached by
one of his closest friends with a request for
fifty- cents to get some liquor. Among the Indians, to deny a i-equest of a friend is considered a great discourtesy. Henry, for such is
the name of the Indiau, was perplexed He
did not know what to do. He knew the evil
effect of whisky, but knew equally well the Indian esprit de corps. He went over to Howard
who was talking with another Indian and frankly told him the situation This other Indian
immediately spoke up and said, "Why, give it
to him." Henry turned to him and said politely, but firmly, "I am not asking you; I am
asking Howard." Howard said, "I am glad
that you have confidence in me to ask me, Henry. Yon ax-e here away from the Christian
Mission. Here is your test." The fifty cents
was not paid.    Another victory7 won.
Thus we have an interpreter who interprets.
He takes the fire as well as the message; for he
is in sympathy with the truth.
He acts as a medium thx-ough whom I leam
much of the needs of his tribemen byr keeping
me posted as to what the Indians are thinking
and saying. Best of all, Howard is becoming
more and more useful as an immediate agent in
helping to make the religion of Jesus Christ
apply to evex-y-day, practical life.
These few lines I thought might be helpful
to those who are intei-ested in the progress of
the Gospel among the Comanches, with especial
reference to the interpx-eter through whom God's
word is brought to them in their native tongue.
—Rev. Henry Sluyter, in Carlisle Arrow.
Santee Normal Training School Press,
Santee, Xeb.