The rough class of white people around the Indians do a great deal of harm to the Indians by selling liquor to them. It is true that the law forbids the selling of whiskey to Indians, but they avoid it by a system of what is called the “underground saloons.” A few years ago a half-breed was found keeping one of these saloons; the law laid a slight punishment upon him, but it is doubtful whether it stopped him. One day a white man, while driving past some Indians, got one of his horses in the mire. Naturally they helped him out of his trouble. He expressed his gratitude by smuggling whiskey from the nearest town to these thirsty souls.
There is an old religious dance called the “Medicine Dance,” which in its day was really pure and helpful, but is now only an excuse for all sorts of most degrading amusements. This dance always comes off on Sundays, and men and women who take part in it usually manage to drink a great deal. Perhaps some people might feel shocked at the thought of women drinking with men, but, since the old days of the subjugation of woman have passed away, she is on an equality with the man, and sometimes she carries herself even lower than a man would. Such women cannot be expected to be very good mothers and there are enough sad examples to show what this kind of motherhood is doing for the present generation. The girls are given away in marriage when they are scarcely in their teens, and those who have minds of their own generally follow the example of their parents by running off with some ruffian. The same parents encourage their children to drink, for to them it stands for manliness. At no time does a woman feel her importance more than when she is supporting her staggering, bleared-eyed heir away from the crowd at some feast or dance. It is one of the most pitiful things to hear parents tell of making their little children drunk, but that is not uncommon among my people. Of course with such, marriage can be but loosely held, and although they are often married by proper form, they leave each other as soon as they are tired of living together. Is it then any wonder that girls who have been to school, after going back home, “go back to the blanket?” While I do not try to justify them, I can but feel that they are not so much to blame as those who have better surroundings and better developed consciences. This is the sort of life that is waiting for us Winnebagoes, and whether we want to or not, it is our duty to do what we can for our people.
“Shall we whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,
Shall we, to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?”
Let us, who are members of this unfortunate tribe, strive to prepare ourselves to elevate our people into a higher civilization. The responsibility is ours.1
Native Indian Art, 1907
The time has not been long enough since the subject was put into practice to show some of the possibilities of adapting Indian art to modern usages.2
Indians, like any other race in its primitive state, are gifted in original ideas of ornamentation. The pictorial talent is common to all young Indians.
The method of educating the Indian in the past was to attempt to transform him into a brown Caucasian within the space of five years or little more. The educators made every effort to convince the Indian that any custom or habit that was not familiar to the white man showed savagery and degradation. A general attempt was made to bring him “up to date.” The Indian, who is so bound up in tribal laws and customs, knew not where to make the distinction, nor what of his natural instincts to discard, and the consequence was that he either became superficial and arrogant and denied his race, or he grew dispirited and silent.
In my one year’s work with the Indians at Carlisle I am convinced that the young Indians of the present day are still gifted in the pictorial art.
Heretofore, the Indian pupil has been put through the same public school course as the white child, with no regard for his hereditary difference of mind and habit of life; yet, though the only art instruction is the white man’s art, the Indian, even here, does as well and often better than the white child, for his accurate eye and skillful hand serve him well in anything that requires delicacy of handiwork.
In exhibitions of Indian schoolwork, generally, the only trace of Indian one sees are some of the signatures denoting clannish names. In looking over my pupils’ native design work, I cannot help calling to mind the Indian woman, untaught and unhampered by white man’s ideas of art, making beautiful and intricate designs on her pottery, baskets, and beaded articles, which show the inborn talent. She sits in the open, drawing her inspiration from the broad aspects of Nature. Her zig-zag line indicates the line of the hills in the distance, and the blue and white background so usual in the Indian color scheme denotes the sky. Her bold touches of green and red and yellow she has learned from Nature’s own use of those colors in the green grass and flowers, and the soft tones that were the general tone of ground color in the days of skin garments, are to her as the parched grass and the desert. She makes her strong color contrasts under the glare of the sun, whose brilliancy makes even her bright tones seem softened into tints. This scheme of color has been called barbaric and crude, but then one must remember that in the days when the Indian woman made all her own color, mostly of vegetable dyes, she couldn’t produce any of the strong glaring colors they now get in analine dyes.
The white man has tried to teach the young Indian that in order to be a so-called civilized person, he must discard all such barbarisms.
It must be remembered that most of the Indians of the Carlisle school have been under civilizing influences from early youth and have, in many instances, entirely lost the tradition of their people. But even a few months have proved to me that none of their Indian instincts have perished but have only lain dormant. Once awakened it immediately became active and produced within a year some of the designs that you have seen.
I have taken care to leave my pupils’ creative faculty absolutely independent and to let each student draw from his own mind, true to his own thought, and, as much as possible, true to his tribal method of symbolic design.
The work now produced at Carlisle, in comparison with that of general schoolwork, would impress one with the great difference between the white and Indian designer. No two Indian drawings are alike and every one is original work. Each artist has his own style. What is more, the best designs were made by my artist pupils away from my supervision. They came to me for material to take to their rooms and some of the designs for rugs that you have seen were made in the students’ play hour, away from the influence of others—alone with their inspiration—as an artist should work. It may interest you to know that my pupils never use practice paper. With steady and unhesitating hand and mind, they put down permanently the lines and color combinations that you see in their designs.
We can perpetuate the use of Indian designs by applying them on modem articles of use and ornament that the Indian is taught to make. I ask my pupils to make a design for a frieze for wall decoration, also borders for printing, designs for embroidery of all kinds, for woodcarving and pyrography, and designs for rugs.
I studied the Persian art of weaving from some Persians, because I saw from the start that the style of conventional designing produced by Indian School pupils suggested more for this kind of weaving. We shall use the Navajo method as well, but the oriental method allows more freedom to carry out the more intricate designs. The East Indian and the American Indian designs are somewhat similar in line and color, especially those of the Kasak make.
I discourage any floral designs such as are seen in Ojibway beadwork. Indian art seldom made any use of the details of plant forms, but typified nature in its broader aspects, using also animal forms and symbols of human life.
With just a little further work along these lines I feel that we shall be ready to adapt our Indian talents to the daily needs and uses of modern life. We want to find a place for our art even as the Japanese have found a place for theirs, throughout the civilized world. The young Indian is now mastering all the industrial trades, and according to the wishes of the Honorable Indian Commissioner, there is no reas
on why the Indian workman should not leave his own artistic mark on what he produces.3
An Autobiography, 1911
I was born in a wigwam, of Indian parents. My father was the fourth son of the hereditary chief of the Winnebagoes. My mother, in her childhood, had had a little training in a convent, but when she married my father she gave up all her foreign training and made a good, industrious Indian wife.
During the summers we lived on the reservation, my mother cultivating her garden and my father playing the chief’s son. During the winter we used to follow the chase away off the Reservation, along rivers and forests. My father provided not only for his family then, but his father’s also. We were always moving camp. As a child, my life was ideal. In all my childhood I never received a cross word from any one, but nevertheless, my training was incessant. About as early as I can remember, I was lulled to sleep night after night by my father’s or grandparent’s recital of laws and customs that had regulated the daily life of my grandsires for generations and generations, and in the morning I was awakened by the same counseling. Under the influence of such precepts and customs, I acquired the general bearing of a well-counseled Indian child, rather reserved, respectful, and mild in manner.
A very promising career must have been laid out for me by my grandparents, but a strange white man interrupted it.
I had been entered in the reservation school but a few days when a strange white man appeared there. He asked me through an interpreter if I would like to ride in a steam car. I had never seen one, and six of the other children seemed enthusiastic about it and they were going to try, so I decided to join them, too. The next morning at sunrise we were piled into a wagon and driven to the nearest railroad station, thirty miles away. We did get the promised ride. We rode three days and three nights until we reached Hampton, VA.
My parents found it out, but too late.
Three years later when I returned to my mother, she told me that for months she wept and mourned for me. My father and the old chief and his wife had died, and with them the old Indian life was gone.
I returned to Hampton, and after graduation, some of my teachers prevailed upon me not to return home as I was still too young and immature to do much good among my people.
I went to Northampton, Mass., and through the efforts of some friends there, I entered the Burnham Classical School for Girls, and later when I decided to take up the study of art, I entered the Smith College Art Department, taking the four years’ course under Dwight W. Tryon. During my study in Northampton, I worked for my board and lodging and also earned my four years’ tuition at Smith College by holding one of the custodianships of the Art Gallery. The instruction I received and the influence I gained from Mr. Tryon has left a lasting impression upon me.
After the four years at Smith College, I went to Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, to study illustration with Howard Pyle, and remained his pupil for over two years.
While at this Institute I used to hear a great deal of discussion among the students, and instructors as well, on the sentiments of “Commercial” art and “Art for art’s sake.” I was swayed back and forth by the conflicting views, and finally I left Philadelphia and went to Boston.
I had heard of Joseph DeCamp as a great teacher, so I entered the Cowles Art School, where he was the instructor in life drawing. Within a year, however, he gave up his teaching there but he recommended me to the Museum of Fine Arts in the same city, where Frank Benson and Edmund C. Tarbell are instructors, and for two years I studied with them.
I opened a studio in Boston and did some illustrative work for Small & Maynard Company, and for Ginn & Company. I also did some designing, although while in art schools I had never taken any special interest in that branch of art. Perhaps it was well that I had not over studied the prescribed methods of European decoration, for then my aboriginal qualities could never have asserted themselves.
I left Boston and went to New York City, and while I did some illustrating, portrait and landscape work, I found designing a more lucrative branch of art.
Although at times I yearn to express myself in landscape art, I feel that designing is the best channel in which to convey the native qualities of the Indian’s decorative talent.
In 1906, Hon. Francis E. Leupp, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, appointed me to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania to foster the native talents of the Indian students there. There is no doubt that the young Indian has a talent for the pictorial art, and the Indian’s artistic conception is well worth recognition, and the school-trained Indians of Carlisle are developing it into possible use that it may become his contribution to American Art.4
Gertrude Bonnin (Yankton Sioux)
Gertrude Bonnin, or Zitkala-Ša (Red Bird, 1876–1938), was born at the Yankton Sioux Agency in South Dakota, where she lived with her mother and attended a bilingual agency school for two years before enrolling in White’s Manual Institute, a Quaker-run boarding school in Wabash, Indiana. After graduating from White’s Manual Institute she attended Earlham College from 1895 to 1897. While at Earlham she published poems and essays in the school paper, the Earlhamite. As a student at Earlham, Bonnin distinguished herself from her predominantly white peers. She excelled academically and delivered a prize-winning speech at a statewide oratorical contest. The Earlhamite reprinted an unabridged version of her speech, “Side by Side,” as did the Santee Agency school newspaper, the Word Carrier. Multiple articles about the event and Bonnin herself also appeared in the Earlhamite and in mainstream newspapers like the Indianapolis Journal and the Indianapolis News, which described her as “a cultivated young woman [whose] pronunciation was without trace of a tongue unfamiliar with English.” In all of this press coverage, Bonnin was represented as an exemplary educated Indian—civilized, English speaking, and articulate—an identity that she would later embrace and revise in her periodical writings.
Her success at Earlham College played a part in landing her a teaching position at Carlisle. Although most of the teachers at Carlisle were white missionaries, Bonnin’s impressive educational background and teaching experience caught the attention of Carlisle’s founder, Pratt. At Carlisle Bonnin taught and recruited Indian students. Her stint at Carlisle was brief; after eighteen months she resigned and went to study at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston in 1899. One year later she traveled as a violin soloist with the Carlisle Indian School Band on their tour of the northeastern United States at the same time that her three autobiographical essays appeared in the Atlantic Monthly: “Impressions of an Indian Childhood,” “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” and “An Indian Teacher Among Indians.” An excerpt of her second autobiographical essay, “School Days of an Indian Girl,” is reprinted here.
After her autobiographical essays appeared in the Atlantic, she published two books: a collection of oral traditions in Old Indian Legends in 1901 and American Indian Stories in 1921. She also co-wrote an opera, The Sun Opera.
Whereas early in her literary career she engaged the national attention of a mostly white middle-class readership of the Atlantic and Harper’s, she later sought to reach a Native readership by publishing in the American Indian Magazine, the official organ of the Society of American Indians. This shift in audience and publishing context shaped Bonnin’s artistic and political choices in her periodical pieces. She became a contributing editor to the magazine in the October–December 1915 issue and assumed the editorship of the magazine in 1918 through the Winter 1919 issue. Her involvement with the SAI also ceased with her departure from the magazine. Yet she remained a devoted activist for Indian rights. In 1926 Bonnin and her husband, Raymond Bonnin, co-founded the National Council of American Indians, a pan-tribal organization with local chapters on numerous reservations. Bonnin was also an active member of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
She also continued to publish in multiple forms. In 1921 she wrote a policy brochure, Americanize the First American: A Plan of Regeneration, in which she continu
ed her project of promoting education and citizenship for Indians. She also wrote a series of pieces about the California Indians that were first published in the San Francisco Bulletin in 1922 and then reprinted in the California Indian Herald as well as in pamphlet form. As both author and activist, Bonnin remained committed to Indian reform until her death in 1938. (“Cheers for the Indian Maiden,” Earlhamite, March 1896, 187; Cox, “‘Yours for the Indian Cause,’” 181–90; Davidson and Norris, Introduction, American Indian Stories; Littlefield and Parins, Biobibliography: Supplement, 178; Peyer, American Indian Nonfiction, 303–5)
School Days of an Indian Girl, 1900
In the January number of the Atlantic Monthly, Zitkala-Ša (Miss Gertrude Simmons) dwelt with much simplicity upon the picturesque “Memories of an Indian Childhood.” In the magazine for February, she relates the impressions made by her school life.
Miss Simmons’ work has literary quality. She has a striking gift of characterization. Her satire is keen. She excels in giving what seems to be the genuine records of the mind of a child, uncolored by later knowledge and experience. We regret that she did not once call to mind the happier side of those long school days, or even hint at the friends who did so much to break down for her the barriers of language and custom, and to lead her from poverty and insignificance into the comparatively full and rich existence that she enjoys today.
We do not for a moment believe that “Zitkala-Ša” desires to injure the cause of her own people, whose titles to the blessings of enlightenment and civilization has so lately found general recognition, but we do feel that the home-sick pathos—nay, more, the underlying bitterness of her story will cause readers unfamiliar with Indian schools to form entirely wrong conclusions. Her pictures are not, perhaps, untrue in themselves, but, taken by themselves, they are sadly misleading. The following chapters will serve as examples.
Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press Page 24