Helping the Indian [Walker Lake Reservation, Nevada] (5 pages)

96 Virginia City, another, loaded down like a burro, had a rope around her neck, and was being led along the street by the “noble red man” who claimed property rights in the half blind creature whom he guided. When the bucks sit on the ground by the wayside to play cards, the stakes for which they gamble were probably earned by the women‘ doing house work for the whites. The Reservation Indian is not allowed to gamble with the white man. Like his more independent fellow outside, he rarely has any money. He lives heartily if not well while he has any. The post trader is not allowed to feed any free, but I saw groups of men and women on his back steps dipping into big pans of meat and potatoes, and he told me he had taken ten dollars for meals so served within two days. The Indian pays his debts. He sells his hay, pays any bills which he may owe ‘and starts again, empty of pocket. He works when he must. Many were away in the hills gathering pine nuts, and the shells of these little oily seeds of the pifion could be seen wherever a gossiping group loitered to talk or sun themselves. They are confirmed gossips, men and women, and are loafers from away back. They are the original “hobo” tribe, save that they do not take the road, nor wander far from the old ancestral hunting grounds. That they are idle and loaf aimlessly is but the ingrained habit of generations when life was a long vacation, and the only work was fishing and hunting and gathering nuts. I asked about the morals of these Indians. The head farmer, the physician, and the teacher of the Reservation school laughed. They seemed to think that the morals of the Reservation Indian were like snakes in Ireland. Domestic troubles are very common by reason of marital unfaithfulness. Opium smoking has found its way from contact with Chinese in the surrounding towns, and the “dope fiend” is abroad on the Reservation. Tuberculosis and nameless diseases prey upon these children of the Indian, and the fight before them is not simply for deliverance from customs and habits which no longer fit into their environment, but for existence itself. SUNSET MAGAZINE If the helping hand is to be extended at all, it should be in the form of schools. The one maintained on the Reservation has an average attendance of about thirty. There is one teacher and « housekeeper who looks after the children, teaches the girls housekeeping, how to sew and wash and scrub and cook, and who also cooks the noonday meal. This is furnished by the Government and as the cupboard (by courtesy) in the camp is generally like Mother Hubbard’s, this substantial, wellcooked meal at the school becomes the chief joy of papoose life. ‘ Many of the older boys and girls go to the Industrial school near Carson. Having entered, they are required to remain and complete the course, yet such is the power of inherited traits, conditions and habits, that the graduates of school frequently return to the Reservation to drop back into the old dirt and idleness, the customs, habits and dress of the camp. . The hope of Indian and white men alike is education, but there is a “yellow streak” in human nature which charity developes, whether in the form of free meals in a refugee camp, free education in a training: school; or coddling by a paternal Government on a reservation. More than half the Nevada Indians live independently, working on ranches and in the homes of the whites, receiving no Government aid, and are every way better off. The younger Indians are not unfriendly to schools, and their children will freely use them, and in time what is left of these victims of Fate, will crawl out of the rut of custom, superstition, tribal prejudice and habit, and will improve their mode of life, learn to look ahead, to live in better houses, to accumulate something for their children and gradually acquire the better habits of civilization. To-day they are in the eddy and back-water of the stream of progress, overcome by conditions to which they have not been bred, and in danger of being swept out of existence by the law of the survival of the strongest. And the Reservation Indian is shackled by his own loss of self-respect, and made a pauper in spirit by the back door “' of the Government.

96 Virginia City, another, loaded down like a burro, had a rope around her neck, and was being led along the street by the “noble red man” who claimed property rights in the half blind creature whom he guided. When the bucks sit on the ground by the wayside to play cards, the stakes for which they gamble were probably earned by the women‘ doing house work for the whites. The Reservation Indian is not allowed to gamble with the white man. Like his more independent fellow outside, he rarely has any money. He lives heartily if not well while he has any. The post trader is not allowed to feed any free, but I saw groups of men and women on his back steps dipping into big pans of meat and potatoes, and he told me he had taken ten dollars for meals so served within two days. The Indian pays his debts. He sells his hay, pays any bills which he may owe ‘and starts again, empty of pocket. He works when he must. Many were away in the hills gathering pine nuts, and the shells of these little oily seeds of the pifion could be seen wherever a gossiping group loitered to talk or sun themselves. They are confirmed gossips, men and women, and are loafers from away back. They are the original “hobo” tribe, save that they do not take the road, nor wander far from the old ancestral hunting grounds. That they are idle and loaf aimlessly is but the ingrained habit of generations when life was a long vacation, and the only work was fishing and hunting and gathering nuts. I asked about the morals of these Indians. The head farmer, the physician, and the teacher of the Reservation school laughed. They seemed to think that the morals of the Reservation Indian were like snakes in Ireland. Domestic troubles are very common by reason of marital unfaithfulness. Opium smoking has found its way from contact with Chinese in the surrounding towns, and the “dope fiend” is abroad on the Reservation. Tuberculosis and nameless diseases prey upon these children of the Indian, and the fight before them is not simply for deliverance from customs and habits which no longer fit into their environment, but for existence itself.

SUNSET MAGAZINE If the helping hand is to be extended at all, it should be in the form of schools. The one maintained on the Reservation has an average attendance of about thirty. There is one teacher and « housekeeper who looks after the children, teaches the girls housekeeping, how to sew and wash and scrub and cook, and who also cooks the noonday meal. This is furnished by the Government and as the cupboard (by courtesy) in the camp is generally like Mother Hubbard’s, this substantial, wellcooked meal at the school becomes the chief joy of papoose life. ‘ Many of the older boys and girls go to the Industrial school near Carson. Having entered, they are required to remain and complete the course, yet such is the power of inherited traits, conditions and habits, that the graduates of school frequently return to the Reservation to drop back into the old dirt and idleness, the customs, habits and dress of the camp. . The hope of Indian and white men alike is education, but there is a “yellow streak” in human nature which charity developes, whether in the form of free meals in a refugee camp, free education in a training: school; or coddling by a paternal Government on a reservation. More than half the Nevada Indians live independently, working on ranches and in the homes of the whites, receiving no Government aid, and are every way better off. The younger Indians are not unfriendly to schools, and their children will freely use them, and in time what is left of these victims of Fate, will crawl out of the rut of custom, superstition, tribal prejudice and habit, and will improve their mode of life, learn to look ahead, to live in better houses, to accumulate something for their children and gradually acquire the better habits of civilization. To-day they are in the eddy and back-water of the stream of progress, overcome by conditions to which they have not been bred, and in danger of being swept out of existence by the law of the survival of the strongest. And the Reservation Indian is shackled by his own loss of self-respect, and made a pauper in spirit by the back door “' of the Government.