Away up in the northern part of the Territory of Dakota, on the bank of the Missouri, live the Mandan Indians. They are a small tribe, numbering not quite 400, are peaceably inclined, and are somewhat ambitious. They have a tradition that “they came from under the earth, where they lived near a subterranean lake. They ascended by means of a grape vine, which a heavy woman broke, so that part of the tribe were left below.” They are lighter in color than many other tribes, and gray hair is often seen even among the young people. They live with the Arickarees and Gros Ventres, in a very friendly way, but are a distinct tribe by themselves, with their old chief at their head.
Little can be said in praise of their morals; they are far below the Sioux nation in this. Polygamy is very generally practiced, although the younger people are beginning to adopt the white man’s ways, and to give up this with others of their old customs.
They are doing quite well at agriculture, raising corn and wheat, and storing hay. The Government supplies all those who seem industrious with implements and machines for use in farming; and some of the men learn quickly their use and manipulation, so that the results of their labor would often do a white farmer credit. The great drawback to their success is their natural tendency to work awhile and then shirk awhile. They soon tire of steady employment, and form all kinds of excuses for absence. Like the Irish, they always have sick relatives who demand their attention at the most inopportune times. This is not more characteristic of the Mandans than of all Indians. The lack of discipline in their natures is a very great disadvantage, and is something that missionaries and agents have constantly to fight. Of course, for generations back the Indians have followed their own sweet wills, and have roamed the prairie and forest at pleasure, traveling when they wished to travel, and halting when they wished to halt, so that the idea of any necessity for steady toil day after day, is one that they grasp with difficulty. They must learn first that there is a to-morrow—a fact they have never realized. This accomplished, a long step ahead will be gained.
Little missionary work has been done among the Mandans in their own language, and few of them understanding other languages—even those of the Arickarees and Gros Ventres—it is little they can learn of the Christian’s God and religion. The fear of their own gods arouses them to sacrifice and worship, often of the most horrible kind, and even while they gaze with red, swollen eyes at the sun, in painful worship, there is a yearning in their hearts for better, higher things, and this it is that prompts their heathen prayers to all nature, through their ignorance of the one true source from which these better things can be.
While I have spoken of their ambitious attempts at agriculture as a tribe, there are still many among them who are idle. Young Indian men in the very prime of life, powerful, and abundantly able to labor with the strongest, spend their days sitting around the camp fires with the old men and the dogs, in among blackened kettles, and all the filthy paraphernalia of their lodges—sit, and smoke, and talk, and sleep. I asked, one day: “What are these people saying—what can they find to talk so much about?” “Oh,” said my Indian companion, “they talk of the old times—of their wars and their dances!” Sad enough was the picture!
Among these Mandan people, whom he calls his children, lives an old man—a chief. He stands somewhat between the wild Indian and the civilized. With yearnings after the civilization of which he has heard and known, he is yet tied to the old ways through the want of a teacher and guide. He is intelligent, and anxious for a different state of affairs among his people. Two sons had he of great promise. The elder went out to war against some hostile Indians, and died. It was a great blow to his father, who had looked to his sons for the deliverance of his people. The younger son was sent to the Normal School at Santee, to become educated, and to learn of the white man’s ways. He is still there at school, and his old father waits at home patiently, while the years of preparation go on. He sends occasional messages of encouragement to his son, and is doing all in his power to prepare himself and people for the work ahead. In order that he may conform to the customs his son is adopting, he has even had his long hair shorn, a year before the boy’s return, that it may please him to see his father as white men are. Long hair is to the Indian very much what the cue is to the Chinaman—he is slow to part with it.
A short time ago Santee students were engaged in writing letters to Eastern friends, and the old chiefs son, among the rest, wrote of his home, his people and his plans. He was trying to tell what I have told—the condition of his tribe, the lack of missionary work among them, and their inability to understand the teachers of the other tribes. As he wrote of this, and of his plan to go back to them as a teacher, his head dropped forward on his desk and the tears rolled down his cheeks as he realized the awful want of a starving nation—a nation crying out for the Gospel of Christ. Yet this was an Indian boy—was once a wild Indian, a savage! Why will not Christian people believe that the Indian is a man—is a man with a soul! Why are we all so slow to understand that the Indian has a heart and a mind!
Surely God remembers the Mandans. God himself believes in the Indian.
MRS. C. W. SHELTON.