I came to this school in 1894 and did not get an opportunity to go back until last Christmas. Four years, I am glad to say, have brought several changes for the better. The Indians are making progress in spite of the many difficulties they come in contact with.
Better homes are being built. The little log cabins are being replaced by comfortable frame houses with glass windows. The farms are better cared for, cultivated to larger and finer crops, barns are made to shelter grain as well as livestock; church is better attended, and those who claim to be Christians seem anxious to hear the Word of God. I noticed, too, that Christmas was kept as a holy day by the Christian people.
If it wasn’t for one thing, bright days would be dawning on the hilltops of North Carolina. That cloud is the curse of whiskey, which stops progress in every race. The Indians are noted for their thirst of strong drink, and down there it is a great temptation. A government still on one side and a half dozen moonshiners on the other, makes it as easy to get a drink of whiskey as a glass of water. If the liquor business is not stopped it will surely bring disaster to the red man of North Carolina.
These Indians are getting their education from the government schools; they are getting their whiskey from the Government stills. The Government is holding them up with one hand and pulling them down with the other. But in spite of this temptation there are a few men with purposes as true as steel. But they need an army of such men and women to stand for better work and higher living.21
Anna Bender (White Earth Chippewa)
Anna Bender (1885–1911), a Chippewa Indian from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, attended Lincoln Institute in Philadelphia and Pipestone Indian School in Minnesota before entering Hampton Institute’s Indian Program in 1902, when she was seventeen years old. As a student Anna, or Annie as she was known at Hampton, showed a lot of promise, according to a report from the school to the White Earth Agency. She served as editor of Talks and Thoughts from 1903 to 1905 and published nonfiction essays and retold tales based on tribal legends, including “The First Squirrel” and “The Big Dipper” (see Short Stories and Retold Tales, this volume). After graduating from Hampton in 1906 she enrolled at Haskell Institute in Kansas and graduated in 1908. She then became a clerk at the Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon, where she died at age twenty-six. (Littlefield and Parins, Biobibliography: Supplement, 174; Molin, “‘Training the Hand’”)
A Glimpse of the Old Indian Religion, 1904
The religious idea has always been strong in the Indian, and he believed that there was a God, sometimes called the Great Spirit, who ruled all nature and himself.
In the early part of the seventeenth century Jesuit priests and Puritans both testified that the tribes which they met believed in a god and many uncivilized tribes of the present day believe in a Supreme Being who is ruler of the universe. They have different ideas as to where God stays, some think in the skies, others in the earth, and still others at the four cardinal points.
In many tribes during a religious ceremony, or when gathered around a council fire, where the sacred pipe is smoked, the first puff is blown to the sky, the next to the earth, and then to the points of the compass, usually beginning with the east.
The tobacco which was smoked was a sacred weed and was wholly used for religious purposes, and not as a drug as it is now used. Often times they burned sweet grass, so that their prayers might ascend with fragrant smoke.
Many people think the Indian worshipped idols such as the sun, the trees, animals and stones, because he sacrificed before them, but he believed that the Great Spirit commanded all these powers, the greatest of which is the sun, as it gives off heat and light, and they believed that God had helpers who caused the sun to rise in the east and set in the west.
Some Indians said grace before meals, not as we do, but they broke off a piece of food and offered it to the sun with a short prayer.
The Indian child was taught to say little prayers by his parents and when he became older he made up his own.
When a youth, it was a part of his religious duty to go off on the plain or in the woods all by himself where he would not be interrupted, and there fast and pray four days. In this absence he must receive some vision, for they believed the Great Spirit communicated with them in dreams. This dream must be in the nature of a contest which must be carried out before he won the name of a brave.
The first buffalo killed by a young brave was always offered for a sacrifice.
When a man he always committed himself to the Great Spirit’s protection before entering upon any perilous undertaking. He prayed all night that he might have good luck and while he was gone with other braves the priest went about the camp shouting the names of the different warriors, so that the people would remember to pray for them.
During the time they were gone they never forgot their prayers at night. If it was a hunting expedition the first game killed was burned for sacrifice, and it was considered a great sin among many of the tribes if this ceremony was left out.
The Indian believed in evil spirits who bring disease and trouble and which can be frightened away by rattles and by the burning of sweet grass.
Medicine men were not doctors, although they knew something of medicine, but were the religious leaders of their people. All the dancing and singing in former times were religious duties, so that is why some of the old Indians will not dance just for others’ curiosity, because it means so much to them and they reverence it. The younger generation, however, do these dances and think nothing of it.
Each Indian composes his own death song, and on his death bed he sings it if he is able.
He believes in a heaven where the soul goes after death, which is called the “Happy Hunting Grounds,” as nearly as can be interpreted, where there will be no more sorrow and trouble.
The Christian thinks of the “Golden City,” but the Indian never saw a city so that could not suggest anything of that kind to him.
He thought that his horses and dogs who had been faithful to him in life would come with him in this happy land.
This is the reason why they sometimes shoot his animals when he dies and his wife will sometimes kill herself so that she can accompany him on his journey and enter with him into his heaven.22
An Indian Girl in Boston, 1904
This fall I visited friends who live in Boston. They were very proud of their city and wished my sister and me to see all the places of interest. We went into the new State House which has a gilded dome and saw the flags that had been through the different wars. There were also paintings around the walls near the ceiling. One of them especially took my fancy. It was that of John Eliot preaching to the Indians. A guide allowed us to enter the room where the governor stays, which was very grand, also the council chamber.
From here we went on our way and passed the old State House with the lion on one side and the unicorn on the other. We did not go in but proceeded to Faneuil Hall with its market below, the assembly room above, just as it was years ago. This room was very interesting. On the platform, occupying almost the entire wall, was a large painting of a company of men listening to the eloquent and patriotic speech of Daniel Webster. Many such speeches have been delivered in this room. Upstairs are numberless paintings of various battles. At this place we found a guide who knew General Armstrong, so when he discovered that we were from Hampton he pointed out everything of historic interest. Although he was quite an old man he did not hesitate to trudge down with us to the north end of the city where stands the old North Church in whose tower flashed the lantern that warned the Americans of the approach of the English. We three mounted its winding, rickety stairs, and sometimes had to bend beneath the rafters across our way. From this height we viewed the city while our guide pointed out the course that Paul Revere took and the movements of both armies. When we came down we were shown a tithing rod which was used to keep people awake during the three-hour sermons in church.
The place we next visited was the Public Li
brary. This is a large, beautiful building surrounding a grassy court. In the center stands a sparkling fountain with benches all around where people may enjoy the pleasure of reading with this scene before them.
As we mounted the broad stairs we were confronted by two huge stone lions. The room we entered had the story of the Holy Grail pictured on its walls. Another had the painting of the Prophets. Both were beautiful.
We left this interesting place for Harvard College and the museum which contains the world-famous glass flowers. Fancy could not picture a more pleasing sight. I could hardly believe they were really glass when I saw the tendrils of some of the vines. The coloring was exactly like the real flowers.
However interesting the flowers, we were obliged to continue our sight-seeing to the department of preserved bones, of stuffed birds and of animals. Different kinds of monkeys were placed in a row leading up to man. It was surprising to see the gradual change of the monkey to man. I could see the reason why some people get the idea that we were once monkeys. I was glad to see that as the skeletons increased in size from monkeys through different races of man, the Indian stood last and the tallest.
The last place we visited in Boston was the Art Museum. Many of the things here I had seen pictures of, and it reminded me of a lecture on sculpture we had last winter.
The next day we spent visiting Lexington and Concord, the two cities which figured so illustriously in the early history of the country.
On our way home we passed the home of the poet Longfellow, once the residence of George Washington.23
Elizabeth Bender (White Earth Chippewa)
Elizabeth Bender (1888–1965), a Chippewa Indian from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, entered Hampton Institute’s Indian Program in 1903. Like her sister Anna, Elizabeth published nonfiction essays in Talks and Thoughts. In the essay that follows, Elizabeth describes a trip she took with Anna “From Hampton to New York.” As Elizabeth explains in her essay, she and Anna were not simply on a sightseeing trip. They were “chosen” to go north to sing Ojibwe songs and speak at “parlor meetings . . . for the benefit of Hampton.” Even though school authorities wanted to emphasize that students were being successfully civilized, they often referenced the tribal past of students and displayed them as “examples” or “objects” whenever it proved beneficial for drumming up financial support for the schools. There are several possible reasons why Elizabeth and Anna were chosen to represent Hampton’s Indian Program. They both excelled academically; were active in a number of organizations, including the Josephines, a female literary society; and published their writings in the school’s student-run Talks and Thoughts. From the perspective of school authorities, exemplary students like Elizabeth and Anna were a walking testament to Hampton’s Indian Program.
Elizabeth Bender would continue to publish nonfiction essays in the boarding school press after she graduated from Hampton in 1907. After completing postgraduate work in teaching at Hampton, she taught among the Blackfeet on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana, which she recounts in her 1916 essay “A Hampton Graduate’s Experience” (see part 2, this volume), and at Carlisle. Later in life she was active in the women’s club movement and in programs aimed at developing Indian education. Through her membership in the Society of American Indians she met and married Henry Roe Cloud, a founding member of the society and founder of the American Indian Institute, where Bender taught as well as contributed to the institute’s newspaper, the Indian Outlook. In the 1940s she was named chair of the Indian Welfare Committee of the State Federation of Women’s Clubs, and in 1950 she was named American Mother of the Year, the first Native American woman to win that honor. (Littlefield and Parins, Biobibliography: Supplement, 174; Molin, “‘Training the Hand’”; Tetzloff, “Elizabeth Bender Cloud”)
From Hampton to New York, 1905
Early in January my sister and I had an opportunity to go north to speak and sing at some of the parlor meetings that were held in Philadelphia and New York for the benefit of Hampton.
We left Old Point Comfort one evening and reached Baltimore the next morning. As we were being transferred from one depot to another we had a good view of the burned district and the many large new buildings that are being put up. One who had not seen or read of the terrible fire would hardly know the difference the new buildings are going up so rapidly.
From Baltimore we went on to Philadelphia and as soon as we reached there we started to go about the city. First of all we visited the Lincoln Institute. There are about forty Indian scholars, mostly little tots. We got there just as they were having dinner and they seemed to be very happy indeed, to judge by the broad smiles on their faces. We also visited Independence and Carpenter Halls and they are about the most interesting places I have ever been to. In the evening we attended the meeting which was held in a private house for the benefit of the school. Bishop McVickar presided and it was very interesting.
The next morning we left for New York and remained there about ten days. Between the meetings we had a good deal of time to go about the city and we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Natural History, the Aquarium, Zoological Garden, Academy of Design, the Settlements, and also went to a lecture on Holland and to a concert where a young Hungarian violinist played with great skill. In the Aquarium were every kind of fish imaginable. They were swimming around in large glass cases and seemed to be as much at home as in their native haunts.
The Museum of Natural History interested me the most for it contained so many Indian ornaments, weapons, domestic utensils, medicines, and I believe every imaginable thing that the different tribes of America have used. It seems so strange that nearly all the tribes should differ so very greatly in the way of dress and of living.
We spent one whole day at the Zoological Park. It was great fun watching the many kinds of monkeys, some seemed almost human. In one of the houses were all sorts of reptiles. One of them was twenty-two feet long, and the keeper said that they had one that was twenty-eight. We did not remain there very long for it gave us the creeps. There were ever so many kinds of animals and birds which one could not stop to mention, some of them I had never heard of before.
In spite of all these good times we were not sorry when the time came for us to come back to Hampton, and we think we were very fortunate to have been the ones chosen to go, for we had a chance to see so much and meet so many interesting people.24
J. William Ettawageshik (Ottawa)
J. William Ettawageshik (ca. 1889–1942) was one of several male printers at Carlisle. After graduating from Carlisle in 1911 he became assistant editor of the Outlook in Onaway, Michigan, as reported in the February 1913 issue of the Red Man. In 1914 he worked as a printer for the Enterprise in St. Ignace, also in Michigan. (Red Man, February 1913, 265; Littlefield and Parins, American Indian, 320; Littlefield and Parins, Biobibliography: Supplement, 209)
My Home Locality, 1909
Harbor Springs, in the northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan, in a county called Emmet, is my hometown. It has a population of about nineteen hundred people. It is a delightful place, both in summer and in winter. It is well up-to-date. The name comes from the “harbor” which is nearby and “springs” from the many beautiful springs which are near the place. Putting harbor and springs together brings the name, Harbor Springs.
The surface around this locality is hilly. The hills average from 100 to 300 feet high. The highest of these hills are 950 feet and are called Emmet Heights. There are a few small rivers and their names read as follows: Maple river, Bear river, Indian river, and Five Mile river. They are mostly used for water-power and fishing. Three of these rivers flow into Lake Michigan and one into Lake Huron.
The climate is very mild in summer. There is plenty of rain in summer and much snow in winter.
Lumbering, fishing, farming, and manufacturing are the chief industries. The agricultural products are: oats, rye, barley, potatoes, sugar-beet, and wheat. Forest products, sugar, bark, maple,
beech, hemlock, elm, oak, cedar, and tamarack. Sugar comes from the maple tree, bark from the hemlock and oak. This bark is used in tanning leather; maple, oak, beech, hemlock, and elm are made into lumber. Cedar into railroad ties and shingles; tamarack into telegraph poles. Pulp wood is also found in large quantities and it is made into paper in a town nearby. From the lake large quantities of fish are caught. Lake trout, white fish, and perch are chiefly caught for food. There are twenty other different kinds of fish in the lake and in the streams.
The scenery is grand, both in summer and in winter. The harbor is very beautiful and safe. Steamers stop at this place on their way to Buffalo, or to Chicago, both freight and passenger.
The scenery and climate are very suitable for a summer resort. Bay View, Petoskey, Wequetonsing, and Harbor Point and Harbor Springs are known as Petoskey resorts. In the lake there is excellent fishing, yachting, and swimming. There are also other amusements besides these. Golf, driving, and observation. Harbor Point has the most beautiful and best golf course in the northern part of Michigan. Many people come here to spend their vacation.
The most interesting part of this locality is in a park known as Hiawatha Park. It is situated on a little lake called Wayagaimug, or Round Lake. At this place Hiawatha is dramatized by the Ojibwa Indians. It is given daily, except Sundays, through the months of July and August.
Education is compulsory in this locality. All children over seven years of age, both Indian and white, must go to school or else be kept at home. This rule is enforced by the town officers. District schools are located in convenient places throughout the township. Sixty per cent of the people have education. Harbor Springs has both primary and secondary schools. After finishing secondary schools or high schools, they are admitted into a college in a town nearby.
Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press Page 9