American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

by Zitkala-S̈a

  Together they taught her what to say, placed an eagle plume in her hand. “With this sacred quill write word for word what we have told you here tonight,” they commanded. “At dawn start upon the journey to the great stone shrine with our message.” In final parting bade her, “Upon the way, keep your own heart warm with love and strong with truth. Lift up your eyes for vision.”

  Upon the Way

  Straight as an arrow flies from a strong bow, sped the Dakotah runner from the hallow’d circle of the starlit prairie. At break of day hastened with the message, speeding faster, ever faster. Upon the way were many relays, from footsore pony to stage-coach plunging over rough country roads, from coach to the iron horse gliding rapidly upon a steel track. The miraculous journey to the Nation’s Capital is made in safety. All faithful to her trust, the messenger stands before the monumental shrine of Washington.

  The Message

  “The day of days is at hand. It is now.” These the words from the Seven Council Fires of the Dakotah. “We sing the name of our first President. We call him Washington—Ohitika—un daunted leader of nations crying in the dark. He brought them light from the sky, taught them principles of peace and brotherhood; taught the lisping multitudes to say ‘We, the people,’ counseled them ‘to observe good faith and justice toward all nations.’

  “The Dakotah people carol with lusty throats the memorable deeds of Washington. He scanned with eagle eye the hope of a united people and happy; beheld the vision of democratic government. He rose on powerful eagle wings, with unswerving purpose attained to lofty virtues of public service.

  “A victory song we sing to the memory of Washington, who disdained kingship upon a lower realm and preferred to be a servant of the people, who by his life demonstrated only ‘Right makes might.’ Then over all his glorious achievements upheld our sacred emblem, the eagle, pointing to its meaning in all his noble acts.

  “We venerate the memory of our great pale-face brother, Washington, the chiefest among guardians of spiritual fires—liberty and unity. Washington, thrice worthy of the decoration of the eagle plume, for he left the impress of its meaning upon the minds and hearts of all Americans.

  “This is our glad song to-day. The eagle represents the conscious spirit of man, soaring into the silent upper air for meditation and spiritual communion, soaring away from the transitory turmoils of the day, into the heights, there gaining wider vision, added strength, and wisdom, there finding the secret of joyous being, unburdened from the pettiness of make-beliefs.

  “Comrades of the earth, the hope of our humanity lies in the preservation of high ideals, in holding fast to these symbols and precepts bequeathed us through all ages and races of men till we have learned their innermost lesson. It is well that the sacred eagle is carved upon America’s gold, lest we forget in the heat of world commerce our brotherhood upon earth. It is well that the eagle is engraved upon the buttons and insignia of our brave men, lest we forget in the wild flurry of swift locomotion and radio communication to perfect our relationships, man to man, nation to nation, with justice and mercy.

  “Long live the memory of Washington, whose praises we sing this day of days!

  “Long live the eagle principles he inculcated in the hearts of the people!

  “Then shall come many days of peace, prosperity, and happiness!”

  California Indian Trails and Prayer Trees5 (1922)

  Chapter I

  Very gladly accepting an invitation extended me by our Indian people of California to visit them this summer, I heard of this ancient practice among them which I tell.

  When the big trees of California were saplings, the Indian people here then were crooning soft lullabies to their black-eyed babes. The California Indian mother, ambitious for her darling’s future welfare, sought out a young tree, usually a pine tree thriving upon a bare boulder. Gently bending its tender top closely to her, she grafted a very tiny, sacred token of her baby in its topmost shoot. Then, releasing the baby tree, she murmured: “In memory of my beloved child, bear this token up as you reach upward to the stars. I want my child to grow upright and strong along with you through all the seasons.”

  Perchance some mothers in that early day entrusted the redwood saplings also with this prayer for strength and protection. By the ancient ceremony—the sacred token imbedded in the fiber of the tree, together with the vocalized desire—the Indian prayer became a living part of the tree.

  In the forests of pines and big trees stand countless prayer trees, silently bearing the sacred token placed in their keeping by Indian mothers.

  A few weeks ago a party of tourists stood under some big trees and exclaimed about their height, their circumference and their reputed age. I ventured the remark: “If only we could understand the language of these big trees we might learn interesting things of the past, the experiences of ancient people now gone away to the unknown.”

  A kind-faced gentleman with iron-grey hair pleased me greatly with his quick reply: “We are learning. They say, ‘Take off your hats.’ We obey.”

  It was then I longed to tell some of the things the big trees in their seeming silence were fairly shouting to me, an Indian woman, but words are stubborn things. They failed to come. The conversation naturally turned into new channels while I stood mute among them. All the while the happy party bubbled over with sparkling words at the feet of the big trees. I gazed at their topmost branches. I listened for the Indian prayers and was thrilled with the feeling that I heard them. It is needless for me to say that these trees are held sacred by our Indian people to this day.

  Catastrophe it was when both the big trees and the ancient race of red men fell under the ax of a nineteenth-century invasion. Could their every wound find tongue I am sure not only pebbles but mountains of stone would rise up in protest. No wonder that Mother Earth shook with convulsions upon such a dire calamity befalling her children—the big prayer trees and their little brothers, the Indians.

  It is an Indian belief that bad thoughts and deeds of man bring disastrous storms and earthquakes. Before we pass upon this as a superstition of untutored minds, let us recall the learned Thoreau’s statement that the greatest of all arts is to affect the quality of the day by our own acts. These ideas are akin, like peas in a pod. Truths are universal. Our discernments grow with keener vision. Truths are ever present for us to see, if we will, whether our eyes are blue, gray, or black.

  After those cruel and stormy days we have again a comparative quiet. New laws have sprung up in the tracks of the de stroyers to protect, at least, our big trees. When will our hearing become sensitive enough to catch the Indian mother’s prayer wafted broadcast by the ancient trees of our American forests?

  It might be well for Americans who go to Egypt to see the sphinx to remember that in America we have a living sphinx in the red man. Our American Indians are descendants from one of the oldest races on the face of the earth. The Indian is older than the sphinx. Through untold centuries the Indian people brought upon their trails many treasures. Notable among them is a little grass from which they developed corn. The red man’s gift to civilized man is what the civilized world calls, “Indian corn.”

  There is a story retold by Dr. Gilmore of North Dakota of an Indian woman gathering corn in her small field. When she started to go, she heard a voice cry out to her, “Oh, do not leave me behind. Take me home with you!” Puzzled to know who was talking to her, she looked about. The voice sounded like a child’s. Seeing no one, she started away. Again came the piteous cry, “Please don’t leave me behind. Take me with you.” The sound seemed to come from among the cornstalks. So she began her search and there found a little nubbin. She picked it up and carried it with the other arm. There were no more cries heard in the harvest field. Indians are appreciative of food given them by Mother Earth and were always careful not to be wasteful.

  Every step I take on old Indian trails I feel I am treading on ground made sacred by those who have preceded me. Loving my race as I do, it
is difficult to understand why they fared so badly under the foremost democratic government of the world. I used to wonder if it could be the pigment of the skin that was our offense. Yet, in nature, flowers of every hue abound. Sin could not be in color. When I began perusing the papers I was amazed at the crimes committed in large cities, brother against brother. Scarce could I believe the palefaces were killing one another, too. From this I reasoned it was not the Indian’s dark skin that had brought on his unspeakable sorrows at the hands of heartless men, money crazed.

  According to what might be called Indian psychology, the recent World War, now closed, was a monumental attempt at suicide by the Caucasian race. Our Indian philosophy forbids suicide. It grieved me that in the past my people were ruthlessly slaughtered in the white man’s quest for gold. It grieved me no less that the white man’s greed for gold, for world power, now turned death dealing bombs and gases upon himself. So much did I admire the white man’s artistic talents and mechanical genius it was sad, indeed, to see his powers misused for self-destruction.

  To an Indian life is a profound mystery. It is too sacred for us to extinguish it wantonly in ourselves or in others.

  Again I reiterate, truths and laws of life are universal. They may be seen by those who have eyes to see. The American Indian is far from being blind.

  The very next time you spend your vacation among the red-woods or climb old Indian trails in the Yosemite Valley, take your radio set and “listen in” on the life of the American Indian, past and present. “Live and let live.”

  Lost Treaties of the California Indians (1922)

  Chapter II

  Imagine the pride of those fond California Indian mothers whose prayers for their babes were placed in the redwood forests, when their children did grow up straight and strong through all the seasons. This was the fulfillment of their hearts’ desire. It was a proud day, indeed, when a California Indian mother’s son, grown tall, walked among his people carrying a quiver made of a bear-cub skin.

  This was the great badge of bravery and prowess among the California Indians in those days of yore. Bear-cub skins were costly. It was the fearless man with a trained eye and daring heart who, together with another hunter, sought out a grizzly bear and challenged her to a duel without guns for her cubs. It was a dangerous feat. While the infuriated grizzly stood upon her haunches, angrily parrying from her face the threatening thrusts of her bold antagonist, the second man seized the cubs and made away with them.

  Then followed a duel to the death between the grizzly bear and the Indian. Occasionally, the Indian lost the fight and paid for the adventure with his life. Bear-cub skin quivers were, therefore, a badge of a daring and successful fighter. No wonder that the mother’s breast filled with pride at sight of her grown-up son walking among the multitude carrying a quiver made of the grizzly bear-cub skin.

  Thoroughly trained in self-control, unerring aim, and dauntless daring, dueling with the grizzlies, the California Indians were not at all disposed to use their powers warring against human beings. They were a friendly people, preferring to live in peace with their fellow beings whenever possible. Every autumn they had their white deer-skin dance, when tribal difficulties were settled by arbitration. The dance was a celebration of their amicable disposal of old grievances.

  These and other practices among them demonstrated their great spiritual poise. By these celebrations they varied the routine of daily fishing, hunting, drying of fruits, and gathering into stores quantities of acorns. They were happy people, well fed by nature’s lavish supplies spread throughout the State now known as California.

  Then one day came white men with hearts inflamed by greed. Suddenly the happy Indian people were threatened with extermination. It was more than seventy years ago when United States soldiers came as messengers to California Indian villages.

  These men, in uniforms and brass buttons, brought a most cordial and pressing invitation to the Indian people, asking them to meet the Federal Commission sent from Washington, D.C., to treat with them for their wonderlands.

  At the time and place named 400 California Indian chiefs and head men assembled. They were well received and generously feasted. The Indian guests were entertained by the Federal Commission; long were the discussions of the treaties they had drawn up, and now offered for the Indians’ signatures. For the promise of moneys, subsistence, clothing, supplies and educational advantages, vast territories were ceded to the government; to the California Indians and their descendents 7,500,000 acres of land with clearly described boundaries were reserved “for ever and ever.” Four hundred chiefs and head men representing some 210,000 California Indian people signed with thumb marks and cross the eighteen treaties of 1851 and 1852.

  This was at the time of the gold rush in California, which brought hither fortune hunters from every clime. The Indians who signed the treaties particularly asked the Federal Commission how their rights were to be respected by the eager seekers of land and gold. They were presented with copies of the treaties, and told to show these government papers to any white man trespassing upon their lands; that the white men seeing these documents would leave them in peace. The wise men erred on their assumption that bits of paper would be sufficient to safeguard the Indians’ rights from invasion. The Federal Commission returned with the treaties to the nation’s seat of government. They vanished from the life of the California Indians like the passing of a momentary mirage.

  Hordes of lawless gold seekers poured into the undeveloped country. Overnight, like mushrooms, thousands of men carrying guns and picks invaded Indian villages. An old chief, one of the signers of the treaty, tried to protect his people according to the instruction of the Federal Commission. With the great papers in his hand he ran out to meet the raiding party of white men who marched into his village, and offered his precious copy of the newly signed treaties to the leader of the gang. With an oath more vicious than the grizzly bear’s growl the white man snatched the papers from the chieftain’s hand, glanced at them, then struck a match to them. He hurled the burning scraps of paper against an Indian house, from which started a fire that burned the whole village.

  Atrocities of the paleface against the California Indian increased year after year. Lest the Indian people in their extremity might seek to defend their homes and children with arms, as it seemed, a law was passed forbidding the sale of guns or ammunition to any Indian. Betrayed, defenseless, and with their proud hearts breaking, the California Indian became a people “without a country.”

  The gold mania made white men mad till they forgot their ancestors had fled to America as a refuge from European oppressions and butcheries. In the delirium of the gold fever, white men forgot the human rights of the California Indians. Under the pretext of protecting the white men’s interests, they forgot to extend the same American protection to the first Californians. By order of an executive session the United States Senate filed in its archives, to be kept secret fifty years, the California Indian treaties of 1851 and 1852, which a Federal Commission had labored to secure. Thereafter they were called the “Lost Treaties.” The signers of those treaties, with their people, were driven from their ancestral homes into holes in rocks of the mountains for shelter. The anguish of my Indian people neither pen nor tongue can tell.

  The California Indians of Today (1922)

  Chapter III

  The California Indians dwindled from 210,000 to 20,000 during the siege of seventy cruel winters, repeated evictions and the spread of the white man’s diseases among them. They were unable to get away far enough to escape deadly epidemics.

  In those dark days of terror and desolation there occasionally appeared splendid men and women of the white people who individually befriended my people. Their compassion shines out brightly against that long night of sorrows. All praise be theirs.

  A few years ago the fifty years’ secrecy of the “Lost Treaties” expired. Those governmental papers have been found. Will the present day citizen strike a match to them
as did the lawless ruffian of the raiding party? Let it not be so. Our national honor is at stake. Time is growing short in which we may redeem the fair name of our government. The people are the government. The Indians of California are greatly diminished in numbers, year after year dying broken hearted.

  Today a small remnant of a noble race are bravely struggling for existence. They search the country far and wide for seasonal work, from which they earn a scant living. Those who are crippled, blind, or sick cannot work. They are starving. They die untimely deaths for lack of proper medical care. Their sorrowing relatives are unable to give them adequate relief.

  To whom shall the Indians go for succor if not to our beloved America? By a test case in 1917 the State Supreme Court’s decision established the citizenship of the California Indians.

  Educational advantages of the public schools will equip them to earn a more comfortable living. Liberal education in American schools will be vital to their future success and happiness as American citizens.

  “Could the California Indians keep up with American people if given a chance?” someone asked me. It is my belief they can, if given educational opportunities, and if at all disposed to keep up with the “Joneses.” Masses of men speak through the telephone, but it was a genius who first invented it. The educated Indians may install modern conveniences in their homes if they wish to spend their earnings in that way. It will not be difficult for them to equal the average American, under like environment.

  During my visit to Lake county a few days ago, I found a hundred or more of my people camped under a grove of trees near a very large bean field.