TSAIT-KOPETA.
Hear what Tsait-Kopeta has to say of his old life and new, showing that Indian nature, both old and new, is human nature:
“My life was pretty rough and sharp before I came this way, just like the waves of the ocean, unsteady and not sure. I always was stumbling, but again I would get up. I was a very smart servant for Satan. I was like an ox with his yoke on me; but I worked for him willingly, just same he was my father. But what kind of pay did he give me? Nothing, only shame and danger, and I think when I suffered he laughed at me. I hope now I am free from him, and I think he is sorry he lost me, but he can’t help; and now I have found the Great Master, the Rock of Ages; and I saw His words, and He says, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ And therefore I shall fall at His feet and worship Him, and have confessed Him before men, and want to serve Him only all life long.
“Now I can boast, Satan is my enemy. I return to him the shame he give me. He used tell me, ‘You do what you want in earthly life, nothing hurt you; you only got this life, by and by you die; so anything you want good or bad you do.’ Oh, poor Tsait-Kopeta, how Satan kept me down and tempted. I don’t want something to hurt or do bad and he ridicule me and lie. He said, ‘Ah, you coward! only women feel that way.’ Satan made me prisoner; but Christ was sorry for me and picked me out of his hand. He give me free, and told me go and no more sin. I think very strange, Capt. Pratt, why I not know more then, why I did not ask myself who make me and all the wonderful things. My life is very strange and different from my past life. Little good at that time; often I hungry, thirsty and cold, sorrowful, all the time I restless, and afraid of the enemies or trouble; but this part of the Indian life I like sure, riding and hunting.”
SUSETTE LA FLESCHE.
Susette La Flesche (Bright Eyes), in the following extract from a letter to a friend, illustrates what culture has done for an Indian girl, and discovers the fountains of yearning and of hope in the heart of her people:
“I am coming more and more to the conclusion that the surest and almost the only way of reaching the parent is through the children. Almost the only comforts they have in their lives consist in their children. For them they are willing to lay aside their arms and take up the plow and mower, all unused as they are to labor. For them they are willing to pass over injuries, lest the wrath of the Government be aroused and their children slain. For the sake of their children they are willing to break up their nationality, their tribal relations, and all that they hold dear, to become citizens. Said one man to me, ‘I wish I had had the advantages in my youth which you have. I could then have had a chance to become something other than I am, and could have helped my people. I am now helpless and ignorant; but I shall die content if my children after me live better than I have done.’”
INDIAN MOTHER-LOVE.
We are in danger of quoting the whole of this paper after all, but must give the following extract from a letter from the wife of one who was stationed at what is now Post Fort Sill. The incident occurred in 1869. We do not envy him who can read this without shame, that during the 260 years of our contact with these people we have done so little to call forth their finer qualities, glimpses of which we catch in such a scene. We have done much to degrade and brutalize them; almost nothing to save them: