1929: Indians Are Being Robbed of Their Language of Institute

Palm Springs Physician Says 

Indians Are Being Robbed of

Their Language of Institute

Declares Children at Arlington School

Are Forbidden to Speak in Their Own Tongue

1929, June 18 The San Bernardino County 

Indians of the Southwest are being robbed of their language and traditions through the system in effect at the Sherman Indian institute, Arlington, it is charged by Dr. Clara Stillman, noted physician f Palm Springs. 

    Addessing the crowd gathered Sunday afternoon at the San Bernardino [asistencia], on the Barton road between Redlands and San Bernardino, Dr. Stillman asserted that Indian children at Arlington are forbidden to speak their own language. 

     "Boys and girls come to me at Palm Springs and tell me that they receive demerits merely for greeting each other in the Indian tongue outside the school building," she said.

     "The Government is doing all it can to make these first Americans our kind of Americans. As a result, the beautiful Indian traditions and customs are dying out, for want of young folk to carry them on.

Said Only Way to Preserve History

     "The only way in which the Indians can preserve their history and legends is by passing them from father to son and from mother to daughter in the spoken word. If the children cannot understand their native language these records will be lost."

     Dr Stillman has labored among the Coshuilla Indians at Palm Springs for seven years, making no charge to them for her medical services. She had to work two years before she gained their confidence, as they have learned to be suspicious of white persons' advances; but for the last five years they have accepted her as one of their own.

     "I am the only white people who has been permitted to attend their secret ceremonials," the woman physician said Sunday. 

Urged Halt of Tribal Dances

     "Not long ago I received letters from the East urging me to use my influence to stop the tribal dances. I obtained permission to attend some of them, and as a result I declined to do anything to discourage the ceremonies.

     "Far worse dances may be seen almost any day among our white Americans at Venice, Coney Island or similar resorts."

     Dr Stillman related that in a pathetic attempt to preserve their records, kept in the minds of the old folk, the Indians at Palm Springs gathered the children of the tribe and every night for a week told them the same story of tradition and history, hoping thus to preserve it.

     "It would be a tragedy if these records were lost," Dr Stillman protested. "I attended these meetings. Five generations of Indians were there."

Basket Making is Saying Dying Out

     The art of basket-making also is dying out, the physician said. One expert worked 27 months to make a very beautiful basket, she said, and received for it only $75. The girls of the tribe cannot afford to work more than two years for $75, constantly they are doing housework for the whites. Moreover, the reeds and grasses needed for the baskets have all been plucked or washed away from the vicinity of their homes, so that it is necessary to go long distances to the mountains for material.

     The program included an address by Roy Manuel, chief of the Serrano Indians on the San Manuel reservation north of Highland. Legends that have been passed by word of mouth down through the Serrano generations formed the basis of the Indian's talk, which was interpreted for the assemblage by Florencio P Chino, Mission Indian from the Morongo reservation at Banning. 

    The world was populated by two "great fathers," who lived on Mr San Gorgonio, known to the Indians as Greyback mountain, the chief said. These two men sprang from feathers dropped on the mountain top by an eagle, he said.

     "The two great fathers did not agree when they talked of making men to live in the valley," said the chief. "One of them wanted to make men with webbed hands and eyes in the back of their heads, so they could see in all directions. The other wanted to make men as they are today. The first great father wanted to make men that could live forever. The second refused, claiming that the world would become crowded. Because they could not agree, the first great father went down into the middle of the world, and as he went there was an earthquake. The only en of his liking that he left on earth became ducks.

     "The other great father continued to live on Greyback, and he made men as they are today. Then he gave them bows and arrows with which to hunt game, but the Indians killed tow of their men while trying to learn how to use bows and arrows. They became afraid that the great father would kill them because the two men had been killed, so they planned to kill the great father. This was hard to do, because the great father disappeared every night and no one knew where he went, because the great father put the Indians to sleep by the smoke from his pipe. Then the Indians told a lizard to find out where the great father went and the lizard followed the great father into a crack in the big pole which held up the tent in which all the Indians slept. The lizard found out the great father's hiding place and then the Indians appointed one of the medicine men to kill the great father."

Population of Valley Described

     Chief Manuel was rambling in his discourse, but the audience gathered that the Serrano Indians populated the Big Bear valley orignially, then scattered throughout the San Bernardino valley and gradually came to speak different languages. He told the localities of various tribes, from Yucalpa to Pomona, giving the old Indian names for the places. 

     The interpreter, Chino, then addressed the group, calling himself a representative of the Mission Indians. His was an appeal for consideration of his tribesmen, who, he said, were being robbed of their land by the Government and were being denied education and even adequate water rights. His cousin was murdered. Chino said, but he could not interest the authorities in the crime.

     George W Beattle of East Highlands paid tribute to the Indians, whom he credited with having laid out the roads which white pioneers followed in their invasion of the San Bernardino valley. Many of these roads, he said, are paved highways today. He told of the highly developed agriculture which the Indians had under the supervision of Spanish padres fromt he Mission of San Gabriel. Then he spoke of the Asistencia de San Bernardino, where the meeting was being held, and its realtion to the calley's history. 

1929, June 18 The San Bernardino County