Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press

by Jacqueline Emery

  The writer of today goes to the reservation to study his red men. Because he still sees an Indian here and there wearing long hair and a blanket, it does not follow that such a one still practices the typical customs of his race. One man alone cannot effectively hold the beliefs and unwritten codes of hundreds of years, in etiquette and ethics and religion. The poor Indian merely clings to his blanket as the last remnant, the shell of his old life: the soul of it is gone.

  Here and there one adheres to the dance and pounds the “Omaha” drum. What of it? He has already forgotten many of the old songs which formerly expressed the greater part of their social and religious life. The Omaha dance, which is generally kept up at the present time for amusement alone, is a very simple affair. It is really a modern innovation. All dances had once a religious significance, a higher purpose than mere entertainment.

  The truth is that no one, writing from present-day observation, can portray the typical aborigine of this country. He has forever departed. Those who went among the wild tribes fifty or more years ago may have had some glimpses of his real nature, although tremendously handicapped, as a rule, by being unable to address him in his own language. You must know his language to understand him. Much of his eloquence is in idiom and inflection impossible to translate. His flights of rhetoric at times would not fall short of Choate’s or Webster’s, if interpreted with sympathy and intelligence.

  In current fiction the Indian is introduced only as sensational effect is wanted, and is described as unstable, faithless, and venomous. He is represented as frightful and repulsive, and compared to the tiger and the snake. The writer is not seriously considering him as a man; he only seeks a sensation and therefore intensifies the traits of bloodthirstiness and cruelty which he perhaps imagines him to possess. The effect is altogether bad, for the general reader is fortified in a heartless prejudice, and it is really a gross injustice, though it may be without intention.

  Let us consider for a moment the American classics, Longfellow’s Hiawatha, Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, and Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona. Here some of the deeper qualities of the Indian are brought to light. Alessandro’s patience and self-control in desperate straits are truly characteristic. Cooper went a little further in word-painting, and possibly took advantage of the general ignorance of his subject to give his brush free play. However, Uncas is not untrue to his race. Indeed, he is one of the best types of the Indian existing in our literature.

  In Hiawatha, the poet was mysteriously able to collect the gems of native American legend, poetry, and song into a harmonious whole, expressed with the simplicity of truth. I think the work will survive as the poetic interpretation of the Indian mind, although it is yet inadequate, regarded as a study of his life and character.

  In American history, the red man has never been presented in a true light. His defense of his country and his people has been miscalled murderous and treacherous. From his standpoint it was the highest patriotism. His courage and devotion led him to face forces utterly disproportioned to his own and he was often victorious against great odds. Yet he has been deprived of his victory upon the records of history as written by the white man. Whenever he surpassed his trained opponent in strategy and generalship, and annihilated his foes, the battle is described as a massacre!

  However, it has been admitted by competent authorities, outside of written history, that many of these leaders of the plains and the woods were great generals and statesmen, to be compared with those of any nation. King Philip, in his war against the colonies, had no adequate force to carry through what he had undertaken, yet he attacked them at nearly every point, and seriously threatened their very existence. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces, in Montana, Washington and Idaho, Crazy Horse, Gall, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull and Spotted Tail in Montana and the Dakotas, were leaders in modern times.

  As a statesman, Pontiac showed a high order of diplomacy when he united the various tribes of the Middle States and organized a simultaneous attack on all the forts along the Great Lakes. Had he succeeded in his determined effort to destroy Forts Detroit and Niagara, he might have checked the westward progress of civilization for at least a generation. Certainly he stands equal with Tecumseh and the others I have mentioned in military affairs. In oratory, Red Jacket, Logan, Strike-the-Ree, Six, Osceola, Grass, White Ghost are some of the greatest names.

  There is one important truth which has been generally ignored by our historians. The red man is peaceful by nature and from choice. He is a devoted husband and father, a very agreeable host, and he never forgets a friend. The provocations which turned him to severity in war have not been fairly set forth. It is a fact which ought to be universally known that the wild tribes were invariably friendly and hospitable until they had been deceived and injured by the white man. The barbarities dwelt upon in all the text-books studied in our schools, as if they were habitual and characteristic, were in reality the acts of men driven to desperation by such provocations on the part of their enemies as have led to similar atrocities by the soldiers of all civilized nations, down to the present day.

  The Indian’s side of any controversy between him and the white man has never really been presented at all. History has necessarily been written from the white man’s standpoint, and largely from the reports of commanding officers, naturally anxious to secure full credit for their gallantry or to conceal any weakness.

  Take as an illustration the so-called “battle” of Wounded Knee. A ring was formed about the Indians, and after disarming most of them one man resisted and the troops began firing toward the center, killing nearly all the Indians and necessarily many of their own men. The soldiers then followed up fleeing women and children and shot them down in cold blood. This is not called a massacre in the official reports. The press of the country did not call it a massacre. On the other hand, General Custer was in pursuit of certain bands of Sioux. He followed their trail two days, and finally overtook and surprised them upon the Little Big Horn. The warriors met him in force and he was beaten at his own game. It was a brilliant victory for the Indians, whom Custer had taken at a disadvantage in the midst of their women and children. This battle goes down in history as the “Custer Massacre.”

  Of the modern school of American ethnology Dr. George Bird Grinnell, Mr. James Mooney and the late Frank Cushing are leading representatives. Cushing studied the Zunis alone, and of their customs and religion he had a more intimate knowledge than any other white man has been able to gain. Mr. Mooney’s work is preserved mainly in scientific collections, where it is inaccessible to the general reader, and the same is true of other scientific workers. Dr. Grinnell has had rare opportunities to come into close touch with the Indians of several tribes, in the days of their wild life as well as in their semi-civilized state. He has done, perhaps, more than anyone else to popularize the subject, and in his versions of old legends and folk-tales he preserves admirably the native simplicity of expression. His sincere love for the Indian character is the secret of his success. A popular author, new in the Indian field, is Hamlin Garland. His sympathy with the red man is unmistakable, and he paints him in such a way as to win the sympathy of the reader.

  To sum up, however, the Indian who is loyal to his race and familiar with its history, cannot but feel that his people have been unfairly treated in literature as in Governmental affairs. He has not been called to an equality with other men, but rather arbitrarily assigned to a part which he had no inclination to play, and left under the stigma of an imaginary character. Our writers, with few exceptions, seem to forget that he is a man, endowed with the faculties and virtues common to all men, except degenerates. The original American was an unspoiled man, and a fairly well-balanced character. In the white man’s books, either his faults are exaggerated or his good points sentimentalized.

  The life of the red man, simple as it was, had many interesting phases, and its competent expression might prove a valuable contribution to the human story. The record of Indian wars and their cruelties
should be kept entirely distinct from the portrayal of his national and domestic life. His conception of the “Great Mystery,” which was really the basis of all his development, his songs, music, and native literatures are as yet almost unknown, except for the good beginning made in this field by Miss Alice Fletcher and Dr. Grinnell. Miss Fletcher, in her recent book, Indian Story and Song, has revealed some of the secret motives and deeper feelings of the Indian as expressed in music. Yet, upon the whole, the Indian’s story has been written only from the outside, and he is yet to appear as his own interpreter.8

  Life and Handicrafts of the Northern Ojibwas, 1911

  Among the forest Indians of the Northwest they are still some few who maintain themselves in the old-fashioned way, living in birch-bark houses during most of the year. Their home is the lake regions of northern Minnesota and the Province of Ontario. This country is so interlaced with watery highways that the primitive [bark] canoe is the main carrier. The horse is scarcely used, but in winter the dog-sled replaces the canoe. Each family roves about within an area of perhaps a hundred miles.

  These people actually live by hunting and fishing, wild rice and berry gathering, and no country be more perfectly adapted to such a life. Each season of the year has its characteristic occupation. In the early fall they fish with nets at the outlets of the large lakes or in the narrows between their countless islands, sometimes spearing the sturgeon and other fish by torchlight. The flesh is cut into thin strips and smoked or sun-dried. At this time they also shoot many ducks and cure them in the same way for winter use.

  A little later, they separate into small groups of one or two families each and scatter for the winter fur-hunt. Moose and caribou may also be hunted in winter; but if food is scarce they may fall back upon fishing through the ice. In the spring they deliver their furs at the nearest post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, although sometimes agents from the posts gather up the furs by dog-team, thus saving the Indian the long journey. This is the time for maple-sugar making, and delicious sugar is made with the primitive utensils, mostly of birch bark, and packed away in birchen boxes of a peculiar shape called “mococks.” In April large groups of from ten to thirty families gather at some waterfall near the mouth of a river for the spawning season, and again large quantities of fish are caught and cured.

  From this time to the middle of July, as they plant no gardens, the people come together on their “sacred grounds,” and there conduct the ancient rites and festivities. This is the play time of the year—the time for courtship, dances, and feasts, as well as ceremonies of a distinctively religious nature.

  In July they begin stripping the birch and white-cedar bark for canoes and basket-making, gathering pine roots also for the same purpose. The bark is baled and kept flat under large stones, to be used when needed. The pliable cedar bark is utilized in mats, as well as for binding and stripping the canoes; the framework and paddles of the canoe are made of its wood. During the latter part of this month bulrushes are gathered, dried, and pressed for use in making mats. After this comes the blueberry picking, an occupation which again scatters the Indians pretty widely in small groups throughout the country. The dried berries are put away in coarse stacks woven of grass rushes.

  By the first of August, the people begin to seek out the wild-rice fields, where the precious cereal grows most abundantly about the outlets and swampy bays of these northern lakes. The harvesting of this natural crop is an interesting and important feature of their lives. A large field having been located, certain portions of it are pre-empted by different families, and men and women go out by pairs in a canoe [to] tie the straw in bundles to ripen. A month later, they again enter the field and beat out the grain with a club while holding it over the canoe with a hooked stick. In this manner the light craft moves slowly in water several feet deep, while only the black heads of the harvesters are visible through the thick straw.

  After the field is cleared and the canoe emptied on shore, a hole is dug, or a natural water-worn rock filled half full with rice and covered with rawhide. Then the young men dance bare foot upon it until husked in its winnowed skins or flat baskets, thoroughly dried, and finally packed in rush sacks or skins, sometimes in whole fawn skins. This nutritious food is mainly used in the form of a soup or stew with wild duck and other game. Last come the cranberry picking and the fall fishing, when the cycle is complete.

  Some of these Ojibwas have log cabins of their own construction, with mud chimneys, but few care to live in them except during the coldest part of the winter, preferring teepees covered with birch bark in overlapping strips, and supported by poles arranged in the shape of a cone. Their craftsmanship is as simple as it is ingenious, and nearly everything they use is made by themselves, lovingly, and with patient skill. Years ago all their fish-nets were of the wild hemp, but now they use twine bought at the trading-posts. I saw the women at work making them in different sizes for catching different kinds of fish. Two light, thin cedar strips are used for netting, one about two inches square, the other from five to eight inches long with a rounded point, slit to form a tongue. When thirty yards or so are made, it is weighted with stones, and strips of cedar wood are tied to the upper edge as floaters. These white floaters are noticeable along the shallows and wooded shores of the lakes, and in the early morning it is common to see the women, together or singly, lifting their nets and taking the catch into the canoes.

  The canoe is begun by pegging out an outline upon the ground, after which the cedar framework is built up, and the bark sewed firmly into place and thoroughly calked with boiling pitch. Baskets are made of sweet grass, rushes, split roots, and strips of bark, the larger and coarser ones being uses for carrying fish, game, wild rice, berries, and even babies. The regular cradle has a pliable cedar board for a back, while the front is of tanned skins securely laced and provided with straps for carrying.

  Skins are tanned and dressed by the women with their primitive instruments, scraped with the shin-bone of a deer, and softened by rubbing with liver and brains. These are skillfully made up into garments and especially moccasins, of which those made of moose-hide are the best and most durable. They are ornamented chiefly with beads, the more difficult and characteristic work in porcupine quills, flattened and dyed, having fallen largely into disuse. Sometimes the entire skin of a fawn or other small animal is tanned with the hair on, cutting it as little as possible, sewing and stuffing it so as to present an almost life-like appearance. Stuffed birds, skins of skunk, ermine, and other ornamental furs, bear-paws, horns of different animals, plumes of heron and eagle, are curiously combined in the characteristic warbonnets or head-dresses of the chiefs, some of which have been preserved through more than one generation.

  The drum for the “sacred dance” is a hollowed log of bass-wood over which a wet moose-hide is tightly stretched by means of a ring and which, when struck, gives forth a weird and hallow resonance. There are also rattles made of bone with supposed sacred or mystic properties. Rough dishes in many shapes and sizes are made of the ever useful birch bark, and more durable ones of the flat horns of the moose. Spoons are carved of cedar wood. I found very few old pipes, such as there were being small and of black stone.

  To me these last of the hunting Indians seemed happy and contented, and for a few short weeks I lived over with them my boyhood days, unexpectedly finding a little bit of the past in the midst of our noisy and strenuous today.9

  “My People”: The Indians’ Contribution to the Art of America, 1914

  In his sense of the aesthetic, which is closely akin to religious feeling, the American Indian stands alone. In accord with his nature and beliefs, he does not pretend to imitate the inimitable, or to reproduce exactly the work of the Great Artist. That which is beautiful must not be trafficked with, but must be reverenced and adored only. It must appear in speech and action.

  The symmetrical and graceful body must express something of it. Beauty, in our eyes, is always fresh and living, even as God Himself dresses the
world anew at each season of the year.

  It may be “artistic” to imitate Nature and even try to improve upon her, but we Indians think it very tiresome, especially as one considers the material side of the work—the pigment, the brush, the canvas! There is no mystery left; all is presented. Still worse is the commercialization of art. The rudely carved totem pole may appear grotesque to the white man, but it is the sincere expression of the faith and personality of the Indian craftsman, and has never been sold or bartered until it reached civilization.

  The Indian’s View-Point

  Here we see the root of the red man’s failure to approach even distantly the artistic standard of the civilized world. It lies not in the lack of creative imagination—for in this quality he is truly the artist—it lies rather in his point of view. I once showed a party of Sioux chiefs the sights of Washington, and endeavored to impress them with the wonderful achievements of civilization. After visiting the Capitol and other famous buildings, we passed through the Corcoran art gallery, where I tried to explain how the white man valued this or that painting as a work of genius, and a masterpiece of art.

  “Ah!” exclaimed an old man, “such is the strange philosophy of the white man! He hews down the forest that has stood for centuries in its pride and grandeur, tears up the bosom of mother earth, and causes the silvery water-courses to waste and vanish away. He ruthlessly disfigures God’s own pictures and monuments, and then daubs a flat surface with many colors, and praises his work as a masterpiece!”

  This is the spirit of the original American. He holds Nature to be the measure of consummate beauty, and its destruction, sacrilege. I have seen, in our midsummer celebrations, cool arbors built of fresh-cut branches for council and dance halls, while those who attended decked themselves with leafy boughs, carrying shields and fans of the same, and even wreaths for their horses’ necks. But, strange to say, they seldom made free use of flowers. I once asked the reason of this.