1968: Please for Living Indians (The only good Indian is a dead Indian)
1968, Dec 1 The Des Moines Register
To the Editor:
The article... described the plight that is facing the Mesquakle Indian tribe of Tama, Ia. It seems the Mesquakles are again victims of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs..... Public apathy, ridicule, and prejudice, toward Indians and their living culture are causing the rapid removal of this culture from the face of our country. Consciously or unconsciously, white America ridicules existing cultures that re different from its own. It's only after a culture has been destroyed that people take an interest in it...
If you find these facts hard to believe, ask the Mesquakle Indians about it. The unyielding arm of the Bureau of Indian Affairs is a cold and cruel reality for them. Because of the control it has upon Indian people, the Mesquakle Indians near Tama are seeing the last days of their colorful culture and language.
If the people of Iowa don't take a positive stand now for these people, their religion, culture, language, their total way of life is doomed. We must relocate our interest in Indian culture, from an interest in dead, museum-type culture, to the live and vibrant Indian culture that exists today and to the people who represent that culture. If we don't stand up for the human right of these tortured people, the little living culture that the Mesquakles have left to hand on to will soon dies. And the Indians themselves, being left without an ancestry to turn to, will join the ranks of the faceless, disoriented minority groups of America. -- George C Whyte Jr, Iowa City, Ia
To the Editor:
The old phrase "The only good Indian is a dead Indian" is not as outdated as some people would like to think. Today, however, this phrase has changed a little. It now reads, "The only good Indian culture is a dead Indian culture."
The proof that this "new phrase" is applicable to today's society can better be realized after comparing a feature story an an article that appeared in The Sunday Register of Nov 17.
The feature story, which captured the cover and several pages of Picture Magazine, told of a museum in Cherokee that is featuring cultural artifacts of the Northwest Coast Indians. The story eloquently showed how interested people are in this "dead" or "extinct" Indian culture, which was destroyed upon the arrival of the white man.The article... described the plight that is facing the Mesquakle Indian tribe of Tama, Ia. It seems the Mesquakles are again victims of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs..... Public apathy, ridicule, and prejudice, toward Indians and their living culture are causing the rapid removal of this culture from the face of our country. Consciously or unconsciously, white America ridicules existing cultures that re different from its own. It's only after a culture has been destroyed that people take an interest in it...
If you find these facts hard to believe, ask the Mesquakle Indians about it. The unyielding arm of the Bureau of Indian Affairs is a cold and cruel reality for them. Because of the control it has upon Indian people, the Mesquakle Indians near Tama are seeing the last days of their colorful culture and language.
If the people of Iowa don't take a positive stand now for these people, their religion, culture, language, their total way of life is doomed. We must relocate our interest in Indian culture, from an interest in dead, museum-type culture, to the live and vibrant Indian culture that exists today and to the people who represent that culture. If we don't stand up for the human right of these tortured people, the little living culture that the Mesquakles have left to hand on to will soon dies. And the Indians themselves, being left without an ancestry to turn to, will join the ranks of the faceless, disoriented minority groups of America. -- George C Whyte Jr, Iowa City, Ia
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| 1968, Dec 1 The Des Moines Register |
