American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)
Page 28
Indian parents, with their boys and girls and gray-haired grandfathers and grandmothers worked together picking beans.
They told me others were working in hop fields and in fruit-gathering. The Indian people are trying to make the most of the harvest season. After the winter sets in, remunerative occupation will be very scarce. They will return to their humble little dwellings on barren rancherias, there to wait till opening spring offers work again.
Their wages are low and only the utmost economy saves enough money to take them through the winter. Some less successful suffer for food and warm clothing before springtime returns.
Indian children sometimes are kept out of schools for the lack of shoes and suitable clothing requisite for their admittance.
It goes without saying that a people too poor to buy sufficient food or clothing cannot pay for medical aid for their sick.
I hope I have not unduly worried county officials with this long enumeration of the needs of our Indian people to make life more livable for them. It certainly will require money to extend public welfare work to the Indians of California. I would suggest that all Californians support the favorable passage of the jurisdiction bill now pending in Congress, whereby the claims of the California Indians against the federal government may be adjudicated at an early date.
Then there will be no need to send destitute Indians to the almshouses, nor will there be need to make them objects of charity when equitable settlement is made with our California Indians for lands taken from them without remuneration or conquest.
Before we may bestow charity we must first be just.
Heart to Heart Talk (1922)
My California Kinsmen, I greet you in the words of a famous Kiowa Indian chief: “My heart is filled with joy when I see you as the brooks fill with water when the snow melts in the spring.” Since my visit with you about two years ago, I see you often in memory. I recall vividly the earnest meetings we held and the words that were spoken then. Do you, too, remember some of them?
We talked about your Auxiliaries—how they made it possible for you to help one another in your various localities. From this far off distance I hear of your victories along the way, and I rejoice with you. The public school opportunity for our dear children at Upper Lake won by the untiring efforts of Mr. Ethan Anderson and those friends who helped him; and also the victory in a school matter won by Mr. Stephen Knight in Ukiah. These are things important for our future success and happiness as well as the immediate help they bring. Where are our Indian poets and song-makers? They should have made a new song for each of these achievements, naming the men of the Indian Board of Co-operation who together won them. They should have given the words and melody to the people, so that our people might learn to sing them. This is the way our ancestors used to do. It’s a good thing to do. While the poets and singers furnish the music, let the rest of us dance!
We are glad the sun shines for us. This earth would be a dreary place were it not for the sunlight and warmth which makes all things live and grow. Every day that you see the sun rise in the sky, you should be encouraged in your work, no matter what obstacles and hindrances appear to be. We have minds, hearts and hands to serve us, to aid us in getting some kind of education, a livelihood, and also enable us to offer a helping hand to one another. What if a mountain stood in your path and it wouldn’t move out of your way? Certainly you can go around it, or if thought advisable, tunnel through it with diligent persistent labor.
Indians are sociable people and their devotion to their families and even distant relatives is most remarkable. I was born on the Dakota Plains, and had the privilege of living in the great out-of-doors: and of knowing that an Indian tribe is really a big family circle. Either by marriage, by blood, or by adoption every member of the tribe bore some relationship to the rest. It was considered an honor for a hunter who brought home game to divide it with his neighbors. Especially true was this in times when there was scarcity of food, in times of famine. No real man cared to save himself alone and see the rest of the folks die.
This is a beautiful spirit. It is the very essence of the Sermon on the Mount of which our white brothers talk in their modern churches. Our Indian ancestors cultivated this wonderful spirit when they worshipped in the living temples, those ancient forests Nature took so many centuries to build, and which unfortunately our white brothers destroyed. Later the white man built little tiny houses in which to worship the Great Spirit, and from which to preach brotherly love. The Indian on-looker, still unforgetful of the awe-inspiring majesty of the ancient forests that are no more, is compelled to say in his own tongue, when he refers to present day churches, “little boxes” of God.
We who live today are descendents of an ancient and noble race. We inherit their altruistic spirit and a love for Nature. These are priceless. Add to them what you may of the Twentieth Century advantages in its wide variety of work, and let us preserve the good name of our people.
We need to work together, also, in organizations. This is imperative. You have your Auxiliaries, and already have gained beneficial recognition for our people of California. Keep on with the good work. You are blazing a trail for other Indians to follow. You are not only helping yourselves like real men but also setting an example to others.
Perhaps you have read the joint report of the pitiful conditions of our Oklahoma Indians. I visited them last fall and some other time I may tell you more about it. Just now I want to stress one point—and that is the urgent need of all Indians to organize for their own self-improvement and property protection. Within the last year the Oklahoma Indians have organized an Indian Society. At their first annual convention soon to be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I shall tell them of your wonderful Auxiliaries, for I have been honored with an invitation to attend. I know they will be encouraged to learn of your heroic efforts and the many satisfying results which you have won through your organization. I hope you will know each other as Indian organizations.
It is clear to us all that Indians must think and act together. They must insist upon having a voice and a part in all that concerns our welfare in this, our country. We must try to learn new things by keen observation. We all have eyes, and pretty good memories, too. Indians must organize and work together in one powerful unit. Let us help to bear one another’s burden in the best way we can. Remember, neither riches nor poverty is sufficient excuse for any man or woman, boy or girl to stop trying to do his or her level best every day of life. Do be loyal to your auxiliary work.
Explanatory Notes
II.
AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES
1 proud owner of my first diploma: To the extent that we want to read this story as semiautobiographical, the diploma she refers to here is from White’s Manual Institute and the upcoming college career takes place at Earlham College, both in Indiana.
2 Eastern Indian School: In Zitkala-Ša’s own life she taught at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.
3 Taku Iyotan Wasaka: Zitkala-Ša defines this as an “absolute Power” in a footnote to the original text.
4 The Great Spirit: The first version of this essay was titled “Why I Am a Pagan” and appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in December 1902. “Pagan” was one of Zitkala-Ša’s publications that drew a lot of attention, especially from Carlisle’s Richard Pratt, who declared her “worse than a pagan.” Except for the ending and the title the essays are exactly the same. See Note 7, below, for the original ending.
5 Stone-Boy: A popular hero in Sioux stories, he possessed supernatural powers and the ability to transform from stone to human.
6 “Christian” pugilist: A reference to the author of an unsigned column that appeared in The Word Carrier on February-March 1901, which proclaimed Zitkala-Ša’s “The Soft-Hearted Sioux” to be “morally bad,” though “written in an easy, engaging style” with a “certain dramatic power.”
7 sweet breathing of flowers: This was the original penultimate sentence for Zitkala-Ša’s version o
f this essay as “Why I Am a Pagan.” The last sentence, which read, “If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan,” was excised from “The Great Spirit,” and the final paragraph we have here was added.
8 Chief Powhatan: Powhatan, whose real name was Wahunson acock, united the tribes to form the Powhatan Confederacy and mediated much early contact with British colonists, especially Captain John Smith. Chief Powhatan lived from 1547 to 1618 and, famously, was the father of Pocahontas. The Pow hatans had about 12,000 people who lived in a 9,000-square-mile area. See “The Coronation of Chief Powhatan Retold,” page 196.
III.
SELECTIONS FROM AMERICAN INDIAN MAGAZINE
1 Community Center: At the Uintah and Ouray Reservation at Fort Duchesne, Utah. Zitkala-Ša’s was the first of what the SAI hoped would be a widespread practice among Indian reservations, bringing economic relief as well as social uplift.
2 The Red Man’s America: A parody on “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” In the third stanza, “Lane’s Bill” refers to legislation to abolish the Indian Bureau, introduced by Oregon senator Harry Lane, and “Gandy’s Bill” refers to legislation introduced by South Dakota representative H. L. Gandy in 1916 to prohibit peyote use.
3 Chief Ouray: A famous chief among the Utes. He frequently traveled, accompanied by Chipeta, to broker treaties with the U.S. government, securing the reservation land in Utah. Ouray died in 1880; Chipeta lived on in Utah at the Ouray reservation (named after her husband) until 1924.
4 A Sioux Woman’s Love for Her Grandchild: At the end of this poem Zitkala-Ša notes. “This incident occurred upon the coming of Custer’s army, preliminary to the battle known erroneously in history as “Custer’s Massacre.”
5 Indian Gifts to Civilized Man: This article was also published in the Indian Sentinel, July 1918, and in Tomahawk, July 17, 1919.
6 The Peace Conference Sitting at Paris: the Versailles Treaty and League of Nations were the outcomes of this 1919 conference, which ended the First World War. The United States under Woodrow Wilson’s administration had entered the war on the Allied side in April 1917; Germany and the Central Powers surrendered in November 1918.
7 Letter to the Chiefs and Headmen of the Tribes: Zitkala-Ša includes the following footnote to this open letter: “Dear Reader into whose hands this letter has fallen, will you do a kind act by reading and explaining it to an Indian who cannot read or speak English?—Editor.”
8 taken the liberty to write you: This open letter is then signed “Yours for the Indian Cause,” as Zitkala-Ša signed all of her letters concerning political advocacy work.
9 treaty of 1868: A reference to the Treaty of Laramie, which at one point secured lands known as the Great Sioux Reservation and provided legal recourses to provide Native control over the land.
10 Angel DeCora Dietz: The illustrator of Old Indian Legends. Like Zitkala-Ša, she taught briefly at the Carlisle school and illustrated other books of the time—notably, Charles Eastman’s Indian Boyhood—as well as books of her own short stories.
IV.
POETRY, PAMPHLETS, ESSAYS, AND SPEECHES
1 Side by Side: The speech that was awarded second place at the Indiana State Oratorical Contest, which Zitkala-Ša writes about in “The School Days of an Indian Girl.”
2 A Protest Against the Abolition of the Indian Dance: Titled “A Plea for the Indian Dance,” this piece also appeared in the Word-Carrier of Santee Normal Training School in 1901.
3 Americanize the First American: The cover sheet of this pamphlet included a picture of Zitkala-Ša framed by a number of small American flags. The longer title of the piece is “Americanize the First American: A Plan of Regeneration.”
4 A Dakota Ode to Washington: Zitkala-Ša read this “original prose poem” at a dedication ceremony held on June 22, 1922, for a memorial stone placed at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., by the state of South Dakota.
5 California Indian Trails and Prayer Trees: The first of a series of four articles about the California Indians that were published serially, first in the San Francisco Bulletin and then in the California Indian Herald.