1938: Chief Spotted Owl, of the Pine Ridge reservation, explained through an interpreter that he thought Indians, to live a "good life, had only to obey the Ten Commandments." Instead, he found that "everything we Indians do violates some government regulation."
Re-Vamping The Indian
1924, Mar 7 Altoona Tribune
Ever since they took Manhattan Island from the American Indians for a few strings of beads and paltry baubles, every since the time the White Man began to devastate the hunting grounds of the aborigine and forced him to surrender the lands and firesides so near, and dear to the heart of every Red Man but little, if any, consideration has been shown. After having done the worst, having done the worst, having cheated and misrepresented negotiations, after having broken one treaty after another -- be it to the everlasting credit of the Indians that they never broke a treaty after another -- be it to the everlasting credit of the Indians that they never broke a treaty with the White Men -- now they would take away the tribal dances, dances which these sons and daughters of the forest have been performing since long before Columbus' first voyage. The dances are suspected of immorality.
And while the White Man indulges in jazz and tango, black-and-tan resorts and road houses continue their furtive existence outside the law and undraped chorus girls shock visitors to threatres -- maybe they shock them! -- the Red Man is reproved for adhering to the ancient dances of his tribe.
Immortality and drunkenness only crept into the Indian race because of association with the paleface and his firewater. Fifty or a hundred years ago it would have been a hard task to find one case where an Indian had ever violated the chastity of a woman.
Secretary Work, replying to the petition of the Tawa Tribe of New Mexico, that they be permitted to continue their dances was forced to admit that he did not disapprove of Indian dances as a whole. "But," he added, "there are certain practices which are against the law of nature or moral laws, and all who wish to perpetuate the integrity of their race must refrain from them."
In Indian veins run the wild poetry of the forest and of the stream, of mountain crag and sylvan dell. That's why the Indians replied to Mr Work that their dances are "drama, opera and poetry." and denied they are immoral.
By too many White Americans the Indian is less understood and appreciated than is the most recent immigrant from far-off Armenia or Hungary or Russia. We've driven the Indian westward step by step, denied him the right to vote, refused him the privilege of making a will, have cooped him up on reservations and continued to cheap him through inefficient Indian agents. To many a paleface the scalping party, the warpath, the deadly tomahawk are still the symbols of Indian life and character. Yet members of artist colonies in the southwest, where the Indian is still hanging on, tell of Indian art in terms of highest praise. There is a simplicity and a beauty and a faith in Indian religion.
Religious tolerance in America extends even to atheists. In their religious ceremonies - and most of their dances are religious - their music, dancing and other arts the race which inhabited the continent before its present rulers deserves at least an equal freedom.
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"Civilizing" Indians.
Righteous Complaint.
Holier-Than-Thou.
1938, Jan 23 The Ogden Standard Examiner
For the "holier-than-thou" gentry who can never let an opportunity that affords them a chance to blow off about the "barbarity" of other nations these days, pass by, I recommend a reading of the testimony spread upon the minutes of the senate Indian affairs committee.
The committee is delving into the operations of the Wheeler-Howard act, now under fire of the very man who fought so vigorously for it in the senate -- Burton K. Wheeler, of Montana. The act, reversed a long-standing policy of the United States government -- the Indians should be assimilated by the rest of the population -- by providing that they can live together on reservations under self-approved constitutions and characters.
Astounded senators sat hardly believing their ears as Indian chief after Indian chief, some wrinkled of face, some who could make themselves understood only through an interpreter, appeared before them to explain as wretched an indictment of the worth of our civilization as anyone could wish to find.
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Chief American Horse, staunch old Sioux redskin whose ancestors had a hand in the massacre of General Custer, gravely recited that the redskins on South Dakota reservations could get themselves divorces for $15; that their general living conditions were "immoral"; that the Indian bureau jobholder sanctioned a "divorce mill" on this reservation, where a man can separate from his mate on any excuse if "he has the $15 to pay the junior judges" of the recently organized Indian court.
Gazing straight into the eyes of the palefaces, this old redskin, said quietly, but wit grave sincerity:
"I have been converted to Christianity and have been taught that divorced people go to the left side of hell. I don't like to see all our Indians go to hell."
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Sioux Chief Shorthorn slowly recounted how the Indian bureau resorted to typical ward-boss methods to "get out the vote" on a constitution and charter. All those in favor were given free transportation to the polling booths. The Indians opposed had to get there as best they could.
Chief Spotted Owl, of the Pine Ridge reservation, explained through an interpreter that he thought Indians, to live a "good life, had only to obey the Ten Commandments." Instead, he found that "everything we Indians do violates some government regulation."
The chief, tall, still handsome and proud, declared that although he was more than 65, his old age pension request had been turned down because he was opposed to some of the things the Indian bureau did.
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Oh, yes, we palefaces - or at least our ancestors, but we're their descendants so we can't sneak out of the responsibility -- seized this great country with its fertile plains, rolling forests of virgin timber from the Indians.
A right to do that? Oh, sure, they were savages, barbarians, uncouth and uncivilized, don't you understand? We were to teach them how to be humane and decent. We were to teach them our civilization, you know -- just like the Japanese are trying to bring civilization to those Chinese barbarians; just like Mussolini took Ethiopia to teach decency to those Ethiopian savages!
Of course, we paleface will admit that the redskins can get information only from the paleface government; and maybe it is a little paradoxical - odd, you might say - that these savages have to complain to the "civilized" government about the habits of the civilized people, teaching them all the dirty tricks of a strange world that was thrust upon them - a world of spiritual values dulled by the avarice of materialism - but, pshaw! Don't you realize that's Civilization, with a capital C?
"I have been converted to Christianity.. . and I don't like to see all our Indians going to hell."
"I thought all we had to do was to obey the Ten Commandments."
Now isn't that just too simple for words! Fancy having a simple, forthright philosophy like that. Why no wonder those "savages" needed "civilizing" -- teach them how to slip the dough to the judge; how to get an easy divorce; get wise to the ward heeler's tricks; learn the "Ten Commandments" were lost in the shuffle of progress -- and in the flood of paleface statutory alphabetical soup!
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What's that? You say we gotta nerve lecturing other nations about their uncivilized ways? Say, you're crazy! We gotta lot of bankers and big shots dollars in some of those countries. You don't expect the bankers and the diplomats to holler that they're losing their dollars and that the people should go and save their dollars for them, do you? No -- the big shots just get the "uncivilized barbarian" stuff going; cry, about the "poor women and children," and we swallow that mush like you can fool a baby with an empty bottle and a rubber nipple. We're all suckers!
Besides, you poor fish, who d'you think's going to hear about how we brought "civilization" to all the other guys in the other countries. And, brother, don't you forget it -- those who are just too dumb to understand the great gift we offer them, are just a bunch of "barbarians." Spout that out often enough, and you'll be popular -- with the big shots, the statesmen and the holier-than-thou!
Indians? Pshaw! They're just Indians -- savages! They only believe "in the Ten Commandments."
(c) Ledger Syndicate
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| 1924, Mar 7 Altoona Tribune |
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| 1938, Jan 23 The Ogden Standard Examiner |
