THE DAKOTA INDIANS.
BY REV. ADDISON P. FOSTER.
It was my rare good fortune last summer to spend nearly a month in a trip of investigation among the Dakota Indians. A record of observations thus made may perhaps be of interest.
Across the Missouri, in Northern Nebraska, is a reservation about twelve miles square on which are located the Santees. These Indians came originally from Minnesota, and were concerned in the terrible New Ulm massacre there. This was years ago. After that bloody outbreak a large number of Indians were imprisoned. While thus incarcerated they were deeply moved by the truths of religion. The long and faithful labors of Drs. Riggs and Williamson bore fruit, and very many were truly converted. These Minnesota Indians were subsequently removed, a portion to the Sisseton Agency, a portion to Flandreau, and a portion to the Santee Agency. At this last-named spot the Indians are practically civilized. They wear the white man's dress; they cultivate farms of their own; they sustain two churches, one Episcopal and one Congregational, the latter having its excellent native pastor and an outlying chapel where the native deacons conduct meetings in turn; they have recently, to the number of fifty, taken up land under the homestead laws and now own them in fee simple. There are three boarding schools on the reservation, one sustained by the American Missionary Association and in the charge of the Rev. A. L. Riggs, another sustained by the Episcopalians, under the jurisdiction of Bishop Hare, and a third supported by the Government, of which Rev. Charles Seccombe, a Congregationalist, is principal. The work in all these schools is admirable. The children are neat, intelligent, attractive, orderly, and studious, and while not as far advanced nor as quick, will compare favorably with the children of schools among white people. The development of Indian character under these Christianizing influences was remarkably shown in a visit to one of the cottages on the mission. Here dwell one of the native teachers, her mother and grandmother. The aged grandmother in her whole appearance bespoke the wild Indian. Gray and bent with age, she loved best to sit on the floor in a corner, after the fashion of her people. The mother, a comely matron of perhaps forty-five, was evidently more cultivated, was lady-like in her appearance, and had lines of thoughtfulness on her thin face. The work of civilization had made great advance in her. But the daughter, a young lady of eighteen, well educated, knowing only the ways of civilization, was as thoroughly refined and bright and attractive as the young ladies of our own Christian homes.
INDIAN BURYING GROUND.
At Oahe, fifteen miles west of Pierre, Dakota Territory, is a second mission station, under the charge of the American Missionary Association. Up and down the river, on what is known as the Peoria Bottom, are perhaps a hundred families of Indians, each living on their own homesteads, off reservation limits, cultivating their farms, dwelling in comfortable log-houses, dressed in civilized garb, and showing as much neatness and industry as the average white man. These people are recognized as citizens and are voters. They have a neat chapel, a native pastor, sustain admirable prayer-meetings—a woman's prayer-meeting among them—and live good reputable lives. In this spot and at Santee Agency the Indian is seen at his best. Life and property are respected, the land is fairly tilled, the homes are happy, intelligence is general, and religion is the universal motive-power.
WIGWAMS AMONG THE SIOUX.
On the west side of the Missouri in Dakota lies the great Sioux Reservation, containing 8,000 Indians at the Pine Ridge Agency, nearly 8,000 at the Rosebud Agency, 1,500 of the Lower Brule Indians, 3,000 along the Cheyenne River and northward, and nearly 4,000 on the Standing Rock Agency. It was my fortune to visit a number of villages on the Cheyenne, Morrow, and Grand Rivers and at Standing Rock. The Indians at these places are all wild—that is, still wear blankets, breech-cloths, and leggings, feathers and geegaws, do little toward cultivating the land, and are ignorant heathen. A Sabbath in a village on the Cheyenne showed what wild Indians were. The morning opened with two men disguised in buffalo-skins with the heads on, running through the village. They had had a dream, were supposed to be possessed of spirits, and as they chased the villagers all ran from them, affrighted lest some witchcraft be wrought by them. Presently the church-bell rang at the missionary's tent, and fifty Indians came in, gaudy in paints and wampum, ornaments, and dangling queues tied up with mink-skins, the chief wearing a broken down beaver hat with a faded weed upon it, and the rest supplied with fans of eagles' wings, pipes, and other accompaniments of Indian gentlemen. They listened with occasional grunts of approval during worship, and filed out at the close with a cordial handshake, one remaining, named from his height Touch-the-Clouds, to say that he felt the importance of this new way, and that he wished for himself and his people schools and churches. This was encouraging, but as the evening came on there set up a hideous noise; a dance was in progress, and all night long a relay of three Indians kept up the hideous and monotonous tom-tom of their kettle-drums, while the shrill scream of the women pierced the air.
The next morning were things equally painful. A young Indian woman, with four children to care for, put away by her cruel husband for another wife, came to beg the missionary's influence to secure for her Government rations. A tent hard by was visited, where the family, in accordance with Indian superstitions, were gathering, and had been for a year or two, all sorts of valuable articles for presents in honor of some deceased member of the household, intending by-and-by to distribute all these things, leaving themselves beggared. And last of all, in a neighboring village were seen three men and a boy, clad with a few feathers in their hair, and yellow ochre on their bodies, going through mummeries in the sight of a large company. They were "making mystery," whatever that may be.
INDIAN GIRLS AT SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
At Standing Rock were Sitting Bull and Chief Gall, with their bands. Not many years ago they had been on the war path; they were concerned in the Custer massacre; but now they are in wholesome awe of the Government and dependent on Government favor for daily bread. Consequently they are orderly and peaceable, and though a few years since it would have been dangerous for three unarmed men to pass through their reservations, it was perfectly safe last summer for a missionary speaking the Indian language and his friends.
INDIAN IN NATIVE DRESS, FORT BERTHOLD.
A third class of Indians was found at Fort Berthold. This reservation is a hundred miles north of Bismarck, Dakota Territory, on the east side of the Missouri. There are three small tribes combined in one large village for protection against their ancient enemies the Sioux, namely, the Arickarees, the Mandans, and the Gros Ventres. These Indians have latterly made great advances in civilization. They have 800 acres under cultivation, all looking admirably and well fenced in, and they are taking great pride in their work and asking for more land to cultivate. They have comfortable homes, or "lodges," as they are called, made in an octagonal form, of logs completely covered with earth. They are eagerly obtaining from the Government such comforts of civilization as they can—reapers, cooking-stoves, baking-powder, and the like. And yet this people display some of the grossest elements of savagery. Polygamy is common. The disgusting scaffold burials still go on, and the air in the neighborhood of the village is sometimes foul from the adjacent cemetery. Buffalo heads and poles with red streamers, as offerings or invocations to spirits, surmount many of the lodges and bear witness to the heathenism of the people. Many of the men are terribly scarred on the shoulders, breast and arms with the cruel practices of the sun dance. Men and women alike wear the dress of their savage life. There has been as yet little success from schools or church work. Few care for schools, and the attendance at the mission chapel is not large. The fault, however, is not with the devoted missionaries, Rev. C. L. Hall and his helpers of the American Missionary Association, whose faithfulness is unsurpassed, but with bad white men who visit the village. For years these Indians have been brought in contact with some of the worst influences of civilization, and in consequence the women have become gross, the men have lost their sense of honor, and the people are manifestly more degraded and harder to reach than the wild Indians on the Sioux Reservation.
After observation of these three types of Indians, the Christianized, the wild and the polluted, certain conclusions were inevitable.
1. There is a natural nobility in the Indian character. The Indian is debased by heathenism and his wild life, lazy, improvident, filthy, obscene and cruel; and yet he is well endowed by nature with brains and heart and conscience. He is clear-headed and generous; he is often affectionate in his family; he is capable of becoming industrious, conscientious, scholarly, and thoroughly consecrated. If his wild life has affected him unfavorably, it has not done him the same kind of harm that slavery has to the colored man. He is not crushed in spirit and ambition as was the colored slave at the time of the civil war.
INDIAN WOMAN AT FORT BERTHOLD.
INDIAN LODGE AT FORT BERTHOLD.
2. There, as elsewhere, the gospel proves the most efficient instrumentality. The United States Government is doing a noble work for the elevation of the race by introducing the agencies of civilization. The Indian agents in Dakota are, as a rule, noble men, vieing with the missionaries in endeavors to benefit the race. The Board of Indian Commissioners are deserving of all praise for their great services. The present system of Government management in establishing schools, in encouraging agriculture, in discountenancing savage practices, in stimulating the home-life, is most admirable. But Christian efforts are yet more efficacious. It is where the gospel has sway the longest, or has been the chief influence, that the Indians are the most elevated.
SANTEE INDIANS TEN YEARS AGO.
3. It cannot be questioned that we have come to a new stage in Indian affairs. At last there is throughout the country almost complete control of the wild Indians. The day of Indian wars is over. We may very likely never have another. Now that the buffalo has largely disappeared, the Indian is dependent on the Government supplies for food and clothing, unless, like the white man, he resorts to agriculture. In consequence, without any large display of military force, the Indian agents are able to preserve excellent order on the reservations. The Indians feel their dependence and recognize the power of the Government. If fairly treated by the white man they will give us little trouble hereafter. It is easy to see that modifications in their condition, all looking toward civilization, are constantly taking place. They are giving up their Indian dress. It is now rare to find an Indian whose dress is not in some way conformed to the white man's. They are learning the comforts of civilization through the supplies from Government, and welcome the frame house, the sugar and syrup, the flour and beans, the tools and clothing which come to them from this source. They feel the pressure of the white population crowding upon them from every side. They see their wild life is a thing of the past, and while there are selfish, vicious, superstitious and conservative influences strongly at work against the change, still the change goes on. Their more thoughtful men, perceiving the necessity of the change and recognizing its advantage, are urging the establishment of schools and churches among them. There can be little doubt that as these processes continue the tribal relation will eventually cease, the reservation system will be abandoned, the Indian will come under ordinary laws, he will be assigned land in severalty, will cultivate it for his support, and become citizen. Already this is true of many Indians, and the day is not far distant—I venture to prophesy that it is within the next twenty years—when, if these influences continue, the Indian will be so thoroughly absorbed among his white brethren that as a separate race he will be lost to sight, and the Indian question will be a question no more.
INDIAN IN NATIVE DRESS, FORT BERTHOLD.
A word now in explanation of the illustrations accompanying this article. An Indian chief is prominent in the first cut. His son is on horseback beside him. His wives and younger children are seated on the ground. The influence of civilization already appears in the dress of these people and in their use of cattle. The second cut represents a small portion of the large burying-ground at Fort Berthold. The wigwams in the third cut are mostly of skin, but generally canvas furnished by the Government is now used. The arrangement of poles and the desolate appearance of the tents scattered here and there are true to life. In the sixth cut the heavy earrings and necklace are of wampum and very valuable. The dress, while cut in Indian fashion, is, like nearly all that the Indians now wear, furnished by the Government. The Indian in the fifth cut wears his hair long and tied up in two queues, with mink-skin pendants. His constant companion, a pipe of red pipe-clay, is in his lap. The lodge in the seventh cut admirably represents the peculiar homes of Fort Berthold Indians. It is very large, and sometimes divided into several rooms inside. It is well constructed as a protection against the severe winters of Northern Dakota.
INDIAN BOYS AT SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
On the top of the lodge an Indian is standing. For many years the Indians of Fort Berthold have been accustomed thus to look out across the Missouri, on the watch, lest their ancient enemies, the Sioux, steal upon them unaware. Beside the Indian may be seen the wicker framework of a "bull boator," skin coracle. The Indians can seize these in a moment, run with them on their heads to the river, and paddle across the Missouri with ease after a deer or a buffalo. In the foreground is a travoir, or Indian wagon, made of two poles with a pouch of leather thongs slung between them. A pony rather than a dog ordinarily drags this. Another cut represents the Santee Indian as he was a few years ago. He now lives in a comfortable log-house, or often in a frame house given him by the Government. In the last cut are very good likenesses of two girls who are now at the Normal Training School sustained by the American Missionary Associates at Santee. They are pure-blooded Indians. Their father is a chief at Fort Berthold, who has turned from his wild life to become a regular attendant at church and a thoughtful imitator of the white man's ways.
DAUGHTERS OF INDIAN CHIEF "POOR WOLF."
Two other cuts represent groups of school-children at Santee, all Indians. The artist has not exaggerated the bright and attractive look upon their faces. They come from all parts of Dakota and the Santee Reservation. In the ninth cut is represented an Indian who, with a white man's shirt, retains his native leggings, blanket, necklace and tomahawk.