KNIFE IN ITS BEADED CASE
When I was still a very small boy, my stern teacher began to give sudden war whoops over my head in the morning while I was sound asleep. He expected me to leap up without fear, grasp my bow and arrows or my knife, and give a shrill whoop in reply. If I was sleepy or startled and hardly knew what I was about, he would laugh at me and say that I would never become a warrior. Often he would shoot off his gun just outside the tepee while I was yet asleep, at the same time giving bloodcurdling yells. After a time I became used to this.
My uncle used to send me off after water when we camped after dark in a strange place. Perhaps the country was full of wild beasts. There might be scouts from warlike bands of Indians hiding in that very neighborhood.
Yet I never objected, for that would have shown cowardice. I picked my way through the woods, dipped my pail in the water, and hurried back. I was always careful to make as little noise as a cat. Being only a boy, I could feel my heart leap at every crackling of a dry twig or distant hooting of an owl. At last I reached the tepee. Then my uncle would perhaps say, "Ah, my boy, you are a thorough warrior." Then he would empty the pail, and order me to go a second time.
Imagine how I felt! But I wished to be a brave man as much as a white boy desires to be a great lawyer or even President of the United States. Silently I would take the pail and again make the dangerous journey through the dark.—Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), "Indian Child Life" (Adapted)
INDIAN ARROWS
Oral Exercise. 1. Play that you are an Indian boy or girl. Make believe that you are walking through the dark woods. Remember, there may be wild beasts in the woods, or the scouts of warlike Indian bands. Show the class how you would walk and how you would look about you as you picked your way to a spring to fetch water for the camp. Tell the class what you might see and hear on this dangerous trip.
A TEPEE
2. Now let three or four of your classmates be white boys and girls. They are passing carefully through the same woods. Let these white children show the class exactly how they would make their way through the woods. What might they be whispering to each other?
3. Play that suddenly you and the white hunters meet in these dangerous woods. At first you see them a little distance away. What do you try to do? But they have also seen you. What do they try to do? At length you find that they are friendly, and they see that they need not fear you. When you meet them, what might you say to them? What questions might you ask them? What might they ask you?