The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1914-03 - 1914-04

              the Word carrier.
of Santee Normal Training school.
VOLUME  XLIII
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE WRONG.
NUMBER 2
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
MARCH-APRIL, 1914
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR
Our   Platform
For Indians we want American Education! We want
American Homes ! We want American Rights ! The result
0f which is American Citicenship! And the Gospel is the
Power of God for their Salvation !
"The Basis of Indian Ownership of Land and Game"
In the Southern Workman for January 1914
Mr. F. G. Speck has an article with title quoted above. He introduces his observations
hy condemning Ex-President Roosevelt's statement that Indians never owned the territory
tbey- roamed over. ''Every white hunter, squatter, horse thief, or wandering cattleman" might
as well lay claim to boundless regions. We feel
sure that Mr. Roosevelt is right. Ownership
of a new countx-y always has been and always
should be based on improvements made. Where
Abraham dug a well in the midst of a large
umvatered range country south of Palestine it
gave lnm a title to that locality and to all the
surrounding grazing land whose cattle could j
be watered at the well. Now the Dakota In- !
dians are laying claim to the Black Hills and |
demanding that the Goveriument pay them a
big price for it. They say that they never
sold the Black Hills to the whites. The whites
just took it. Why should the Indians have
sold it? They never owned it. They never
made the slightest impx-ovement in all the
Black Hills country. If they had hunted buffalo on the plains surrounding the bills for all
time to come it is very improbable that they
would have done anything that would have
given them any ownership claim.
But Mr. Speck says "the Indians regarded
wild animals as personal property. The beaver
is the Indian's pork, the moose, his beef, the
partridge his chicken, tbe red deer his sheep."
The buffalos were bis Jerseys, perhaps! Mr.
Sppck is very imaginative. Moi-eover some old
Indiaus, who delight in telling white -"n what
they want to hear, have greatly helped his i-nngi-
nation. Mr. Speck says, "Wherever the.. ..-ent
the Indians took care of the game auinmls."
Asa matter of fact Indians never took care of any
animals. Indians went thru the country to kill
and to destroy and never had the faintest dreams
of conservation. These are probably white
man's ideas which Mr. Speck has found reflected by a few Indians, who were wily enough to
know how to catch the investigator's attention.
It is easy to be thus deluded. When an Indian
tells a white man about himself it is very apt to
be what the Indian has learned that the white
man thinks.        F. B. Riggs.
Board of Indian Commissoners
Co-operation has been the keynote of a three
days' session of the Board of Indian Commissi! in ers, which closed with a public meeting at
which representatives of missionary organizations, representatives of Indian tribes and Indian organizations and representatives of the
Indian department were present.
Important investigations have recently been
made bv members of the Board and action
thereon "recommended to the Secretary of the
Interior and Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Samuel A. Eliot, of Boston, and William
H. Ketcham of Washington, members of the
Board, have made important investigations in
the Southwest. They recommend the purchase
of cattle for the Mescalero Apache Indians, the
• need of survey of the Pueblo grants and of vigorous action to correct bad sanitary conditions
among the Pueblos. They made a plea against
the diminution of the. Navaho Reservation and
oppose the individual allotment of land to the
Navahoes, the need of water development for
the Papagoes and the creation of executive order
reservations for them to take the place of useless allotments of land made to these Indians
on the public domain.
The Board re-elected as officers for the coming year: George Vaux, Jr., of Philadelphia
chairman, arid F. H. Abbott, of Washington,
D. C, Secretary.
The members in attendance at this meeting
were: George Vaux, Jr., Philadelphia, Pa.;
Merrill E. Gates. Wasbiugton, William D,
Walker, Buffalo. N.Y., Warren K. Moorehead,
Andover, Mass, Samuel A. Eliot, Boston, Mass.,
Frank Knox, Manchester, N. H., Edward E.
Ayer, Chicago, 111., William H. Ketcham,
Washington, and Isidore B. Dookweiler, L^s
Angeles, Cal.—Washington Herald.
Oklahoma Oil Operator Fined Heavily for Wasting
Natural Gas
Cato Sells, Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
has just demonstrated in a practicable manner
his determination to put a stop to the wanton
waste of natural gas from Indian lands, by imposing a penalty of $1,000 on the Silurian Oil
Company, which company holds a lease on the
allotment of Walter Star, a Creek Indian in
Creek County, Oklahoma, for failure to observe
the regulations of the Department. At the
same time he indicated that a much heavier
punishment may be expected by the next lessee
found guilty of the same practice.
The Silurian Oil Company was warned by-
representatives of the Government that operations on the Walter Star allotment were not
being conducted in accordance with the regulations, and were resulting in the waste of an
enormous quantity of gas, yet these warnings
had little effect.
The Government may in its discretion cancel
any lease for failure of the lessee to opex-ate in
a workmanlike manner, and to px-event the
escape of natural gas, as well as to prevent
water from reaching the oil and gas beax-iug
strata. This was a very flagrant violation ot
the regulations, and while the facts fully justified a cancellation of the lease it was thought
best, this being the first offense, to subject the
company to a penalty, and when assessing the
damages in this case at $1,000. Commissioner
Sells indicated very forcibly that in the next
case of this character which comes before him,
the guilty parties will invite a cancellation of
their lease and the imposing of a much heavier
penalty. The Commissioner insists that this
wanton waste of natural gas shall cease, and
desires that all operators cooperate with him to
this end. Commissioner Sells says oil lease
regulations are promulgated to be enforced,
and it must be understood that this will be done
even though it requix-es di-astic px-ocedure.
Blonde Indians
Does the word "Indian" convey to you the
picture of a person with black hair, black eyes,
and dark skin? Then change your opinion at
once.
In Mexico there are many Indians who possess none of the aforementioned characteristics
that are so often associated with the Indian.
These strange aborigines have fair skin, blue
eyes, and light hair. The only Indian characteristics that they possess are their high cheekbones, their wide mouths, slanting forehead,
and straight, In dian-like hair and shape of nose.
These people inhabit the Sierra Madre mountains in the lower part of Sonora. They differ
in many ways from all other tribes of Indians.
Tbey are supposed to be the descendants of the
crew and passengers of a Swedish vessel wrecked on the Mexican coast long before the birth
of Columbus.
Although quite primitive, their morality is
high. They cultivate some corn and garden
truck in the valleys, and are beginning to raise
mauy limes for export. The men are large
and well formed, and some of the women are
quite handsome. They all retain some traces
of their Swedish ancestry, and some are really
fair haired and fair skinned. All are fairer
than the average Indian.
Linguists who have studied the speech of
these Indians say their language evidences a
north European aneesti-y.—The American Boy.
Presbyterian Missionary Work in Arizona
I have just returned from a nine days trip to
a mountain called the Coconino Rim where some
of our Indians live. The distance from Tol-
c'laco is about sixty miles, but the country is
so rough that it took us three days to go. and
the last half day, leaving our team at the foot
of the mountain, we bii-ed burros for the climb
up the steep trail. In a deep canyon of th«
mountain we found some water for our burros.
It was very foul with the trampling of sheep
and with small forms of animal life, but the
ludian who was with us drauk of it, saying, "It
is water anyway!"
One of the places visited was the camp of
Hush-k'an-ha-dzoh-o. Here were two hogans,
about three hundred feet apart; they could not
even be called hogans, for they were simply a
few crooked logs piled up like a fence and describing a half circle—just protection enough
to keep the animals from running over them
at night. Between these two dwellings (?) the
sheep and goats rest during the night so that
the ground all about is offensive both to sight
and smell. Here the people sleep on a sheep
skin or the bare ground; here their food is
prepared and eaten. In this particular instance they had only meat and coffee for several days. A few sheep had been sheared, out
of season, and the men had gone to the store
forty miles away to trade it for flour and baking powder, but they had probably gotten into
a gambling game and were long overdue. We
came to them just at breakfast time, when unwashed and uncombed they were gnawing mutton bones and drinking coffee of which their
meal consisted, hoping for tbe relief of more
palatable food. There were three women and
thirteen children, and of these thirteen children, seven were girls of school age, between 10
and 16 years. Three of these seven are orphans and, will be little better than slaves; one
of them is undoubtedly the girl wife of one of
the men, as she is a sister of the wife he has.
One of them, "Marie," has been to the Leupp
school and is one of those who accepted the
Saviour last winter. Marie was glad to see us,
and in answer to our question, said that she
prayed to Jesus every day when she was out
herding the sheep, and that she was trying to
tell her people about God.
As the missionary passed on his way he prayed God that this living picture of awful degradation and need might never fade from his
mind, but abide and stir him up to pray that
the government and tbe mission workers, with
the blessiug of Almighty God, might bring
about a speedy change for the better. The constant sight of such conditions is distressing
indeed, and reminds us of the words "For unto
you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only
to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His
sake." But we labor in hope, for has He not
said "He that goeth fox-th and weepeth, bearing
precious seed, shall doubtless come again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him?'
F. G. Mitchell.
What Are Santee Graduates Doing
1 Pastor
5 Students
1 Gov't   School  Farm
1 Gov't Clerk
Supt.
1 Y.M.C.A. Secretary
2 General Missionaries
5 Farming
I Domestic    Science
Teacher
1  S. S.  Missionary
1 Nurse
1 Indian Interpreter
2 Merchants
4    Domestic Helpers
11 Married and Housekeeping
1 Carpenter
2 Housekeeping
5 Died
The next edition of the Santee catalogue,
which is now being printed, will contain an
outline of our course of study which has not
been printed for several years. This new outline is from our x-evised course and is followed
by the Bible training course.