Category: Education

Categories
1920s African American Education Family Short Story

The Yellow Tree

The Yellow Tree

By DeReath Byrd Busey
Egon Schiele. Small Tree in Late Autumn. Oil on wood, 1911, Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria. Public Domain.
Annotations by Rene Marzuk

Plum Street is a firm believer in “signs.” It is not an ordinary street—not even physically, for it begins at Ludlow, stops on Clark where the trolley passes, picks itself up a half block south on Clark and rushes across the railroad straight uphill to the Fair Grounds. In the early nineties it was the thoroughfare for the “southend,” but Jasper Hunley, who bought Lester Snyder’s house at public auction, proved to be a “fair” Negro. Then the Exodus![1] In 1919 Negroes had been in undisputed possession for twenty years.[2]

Like the colors of their faces, the houses vary. There is Jasper Hunley’s big brown house with built-in china cabinet and bookcases, hardwood floors and overstuffed furniture. On either side of him in white houses live the Reverend Burns and Policeman Jenkins in a little less state, with portable furniture sparsely upholstered, and carpets. Across the street lives Mother Stewart and Reverend Gordon in plain barefaced houses with scarred pine furniture.

At the close of the January day, Mary Hunley sat watching at her window for Eva Lou’s home-coming from the office. Again she recalled vividly the June day she had sat with bed-ridden Mother Stewart while Lucy went to market. She had been sitting at the second story window feasting her eyes upon her hardwon home across the street—a big house in a big yard with flowers and young trees in spring garb. The roses were beginning to open. She had smiled contentedly as her eyes lingered on each bush and shrub but a puzzled frown crossed her brow as she noticed her youngest maple had yellowed. She wondered if worms were at its root.

She turned her eyes to gaze down at the Reverend Mr. Gordon, who pulled his broad brimmed hat further over his eyes, squared himself on his bare board bench in the corner of the yard and sank into a revery. Unpainted palings enclosed the tiny grassless yard about his unpainted weather-stained house, distinguished from its neighbors only by a bright blue screen door. The Reverend, tall, broad, his brown face growing darker with age, had lived on Plum street ever since he had been called from the janitorship of the Mecklin Building to the pastorate of the St. Luke’s Baptist Church. He had come to be the oracle of the street.

His dreams were respectfully broken by the greetings of returning marketers. Mary listened idly until Lucy stopped for a conversation. They spoke of the movies and the man there to whom the whole town was flocking for advance information on the future. Lucy thought his amazing replies all a trick. Mr. Gordon concurred.

Mary Vaux Walcott. Carolina Maple. Watercolor on paper, 1923, Smithsonian American Art Museum. Public Domain

“Yet,” he said, “the Lawd do give wahnin’ of things t’come t’them that believes, Miss Lucy. Ah’m not a-tall supstitious but when ah gits a sign ah knows it.”

“Yassuh,” Lucy nodded.

“Las’ yeah,” he continued, “ah says to Mrs. Reveren’ Burns that somebody in that house on the cornuh o’ Clark would die ‘fore spring come agin. She laffed. In Feb’uary the oldest boy died o’ consumption. The new leaves on d’tree in d’front yahd turned yeller. When a tree does that, Miss Lucy, death comes in the fam’ly fore a yeah is gone.”

He paused portentously. Mary Hunley leaned unsteadily closer to the window. He spoke solemnly as he pointed his long finger.

“That tree yonde’ in Jasper Hunley’s yahd turned yeller las’ night. This is June, Miss Lucy. The Lawd do give wahnin’s to them as believes.”

Mary Hunley never knew how she got home. She only knew the Lord had sent her warning. She had always believed in signs—and the few times she had ignored them they had told truth with a vengeance.

When but a girl a circus fortune-teller had drawn a picture of her future husband who should bring money and influence. When Jasper Hunley, carpenter, came a-wooing, his likeness to the picture made the match. She never really loved him, but he was her Fate so they married.

William Bullard. Portrait of Martha (Patsy) Perkins. Photograph, 1901, courtesy of Frank Morrill, Clark University and the Worcester Art Museum. Public Domain.

The first year of her marriage she dreamed three nights that they had moved into a big brown house. When Lester Snyder went bankrupt—Jasper bought the house. They moved in and their neighbors moved out. Racial gregariousness was stronger than economy, so houses went for a song.[3] Enough of them came to Jasper to make him potential potentate of Plum street. But Jasper was slow, not given to show, and contented to be hired.

Mary came to realize that he would only bring the money. She must make the influence. She had received diploma and inspiration from one of those Southern Missionary Schools for colored youth, and she had thoroughly imbibed “money and knowledge will solve the race problem.” [4] In ten years she had made Jasper a contractor. She read, she joined “culture clubs,” she spoke to embroidery clubs on suffrage when it was a much ridiculed subject, she managed Jasper’s business, drew up his contracts, and still found time to keep Eva Lou the best dressed child in Plum street school.

On Plum street as in some other Negro communities color of skin is a determining factor in social position.[5] Mary had cared for that. Jasper was fair and she became fair. From the days of buttermilk and lemon juice to these of scientific “complexion beautifier” she kept watch on herself and Eva Lou.[6] When Eva Lou came back from school in Washington she was whiter and more fashionable than ever; the street wondered, envied, resented.

Gradually Mary grew to feel that the glory of her ambition would come through her daughter. She centered all her love and energies upon Eva Lou—the promise and fulfillment of her life. Occasionally she thought Eva Lou indiscreet in bringing city fashions among small town people, yet she trusted her to have learned on her expensive trips what the great world does. Eva Lou and a few kindred spirits who had ventured far afield—to Chicago and Washington, Boston and New York—had established a clique of those who wore Harper’s Bazaar clothes unadulterated, smoked cigarettes in semi-privacy, and played from house to house. Plum street’s scandalized gossip joyfully reported by Lucy she ascribed to envy. Lucy, black and buxom, hated Eva Lou’s lithe pallor. Mary smiled. Only those in high places are envied.

William Bullard. Portrait of Betty and Willis Coles. Photograph, circa 1902, courtesy of Frank Morrill, Clark University and the Worcester Art Museum. Public Domain.

That June morning as she sat at Mother Stewart’s window, she had breathed a sigh of relief. At last, she could relax. Jasper was a thirty-third degree Mason and Eva Lou was engaged to Sargeant Hawkins of Washington.[7]

Then Gordon’s prophecy smashed in upon her soul. For one panic stricken hour she was filled with terror. But the qualities that had fought for her family for twenty-five years came to her rescue. She knew the prophecy was of Eva Lou. And she who had believed implicitly and fearfully set out to give that yellow tree the lie. She shuddered with dread but she would not retract.

“If I tell Babe,” she reasoned, “wor’y will make her sick. I’ll just have to fight it out alone.”

January was here now. Never a winter before had Eva Lou been so plagued with good advice and flannels. At first she had listened civilly but unheedingly. Finally she firmly refused both. She wore as many as she needed. As for spats and rubber—

“Well, I’ll say not. Pumps ah the thing this wintuh. An’ what if I do cough! Ev’rybody’s got a cold this weathuh. You have yuhself.”

Daily tears did not move her. Fear and a hacking cough were breaking the splendid courage of Mary. Plum street, informed by Lucy, waited the prophecy’s fulfillment in sympathetic certainty.

Down the street Mary saw Dr. Dancey’s car come slowly rolling. She had heard him say flu and pneumonia were rampant again. Suppose Eva should get either! She could not recover. That yellow tree would win and life come crashing to her feet.

“I’ll just have to take care of myself and get rid o’ this grip I have—”[8]

Dr. Dancey was stopping at her door and helping Eva Lou alight.

“O Babe!” Mary cried as she dragged her unwilling body to the door and snatched it open. “Babe, are you sick? Are y’sick?”

Dr. Dancey tried to quiet her. Eva Lou had an attack of grip—nothing more. A hot bath, hot drink, and long night’s sleep would set her right. Mary knew he lied. Grip did not make you look as Babe did. Mary knew for days that the aching limbs and throbbing head she had were signs of grip. When she asked Babe she said she just felt weak.

After Jasper and Eva Lou were asleep, Mary lay in bed and racked her fevered brain for means to thwart the threatening evil. Ah—the sure solution shone clear before her. Her tortured mind felt free and calm. A smile of cunning triumph crept over her face. She eased out of bed, slipped on her flannelette kimono and bedroom slippers. She crept in to look at Babe. She stared, then stooped and kissed the girl’s hot lips. Sweet little Babe! Mother would save her. She raised her head and smiled in calm defiance across the sleeping girl at the shrouded figure of the waiting Death Angel near the window. Not yet would it get her!

She smiled with cunning triumph again at the silent figure. Why didn’t it move? She knew. It was sorry. It had come in vain.

Down the back stairs and into Jasper’s tool room she floated. All pain had left her. Her thinking was clear and her body light as air. As she bent over the tool box she chuckled. She had never felt so certain of success since the day she married Jasper. Softly she drew out the bright, keen saw. In the kitchen she stopped for salt to sprinkle on the ice. She might slip. She floated around the house and to the youngest maple. Carefully she anointed its ice covered trunk and limbs with salt. Every crackle of the melting ice brought joy to her heart. When she felt a bare wet space on the tree she began sawing—haltingly, unrhythmically. Over and over she whispered exultantly.

“The yellow tree lied! The yellow tree lied!”

Once she stopped to wonder why she was not cold, but she was so light and warm it seemed a waste of time. Not even her feet were cold.

The saw was almost through the tree. She raised herself to gloat over its fall.

But it was not a tree. It was that same Angel of Death. The laugh froze in her throat. His face was uncovered and he was smiling. He swayed toward her once —twice. Suppose he should rush over her and get Babe anyway! She laughed now— sweet, carefree. She still would win. She would hold him—if it were forever. The Angel swayed again and fell into her outstretched arms. They held each other.

Early in the morning slow moving Jasper found her there on the ice with the tree over her.

They buried her yesterday. Eva Lou wore white mourning. Lucy, voicing the query of Plum street, asked Reverend Gordon why the yellow tree took the wrong one.

Anne Brigman. The Heart of the Storm. Print, 1914, The J. Paul Getty Museum, LA, Gift of the Michael and Jane Wilson Collection. Public Domain.
BUSEY, DEREATH BYRD. “THE YELLOW TREE: A STORY.” THE CRISIS 24, NO. 6 (OCTOBER 1922): 253-56.

Jun Fujita. Couple Moving During the 1919 Chicago Race Riots. Photographic print, 1919, Chicago History Museum. Public Domain.

[1] A likely reference to the Great Migration (1910-1970), one of the largest movements of people within the United States. Almost six million African American southerners moved to Northern, Midwestern, and Western states to escape racial violence and pursue better opportunities.

[2] In the year 1919, a particularly brutal outburst of violence against African Americans across the United States became what we know now as the Red Summer.

[3] “White flight,” which refers to the movement of white city residents to the suburbs to escape the influx of minorities, explains why racial gregariousness would have caused house prices to drop in African American neighborhoods. Redlining and blockbusting promoted a wave of “white flight” to the suburbs after World War II; however, a new study suggests that “white flight” really started during the first decades of the twentieth century.

[4] During Reconstruction (1863-1877), missionary societies and African Americans established over 3,000 schools in the South for the pubic education of freedmen.

[5] Colorism, which refers to the prejudice against dark skin, is prevalent within African American communities.

[6] In her essay “Black No More: Skin Bleaching and the Emergence of New Negro Womanhood Beauty Culture,” Treva B. Lindsey connects the popularity of bleaching products and procedures in African American communities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to “perceived and real desires for social mobility and aesthetic valuation within a cultural hierarchy premised upon white cultural supremacy.”

Illustration From a Prince Hall Masonic Convention, 1920. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

[7] Jasper Hunley probably belonged to the Prince Hall Masons, a Masonic lodge for African American men that dates back to 1787. Due to racism and segregation, African Americans could not join most Masonic lodges until the late twentieth century. The thirty-third degree is an honorary Masonic degree.

[8] The grip is a common name for epidemic influenza (flu).

Contexts
Original cover from The Crisis‘ number that included “The Yellow Tree.”

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

According to the Early Black American Playwrights and Dramatic Writers: A Biographical Directory and Catalog of Plays, Films, and Broadcasting Scripts, in the same year The Crisis published “The Yellow Tree” Irene DeReath Busey adapted her short story into a dramatic play produced by the Howard University Players in Washington, DC.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

exodus: The departure or going out, usually of a body of persons from a country for the purpose of settling elsewhere. Also, the title of the book of the Old Testament which relates the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt.

for a song: For a mere trifle, for little or nothing.

thoroughfare: A passage or way through.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations.”

Greenidge, Kaitlyn. “Why Black People Discriminate Among Ourselves: The Toxic Legacy of Colorism.”

Hall, Ronald. “Women of Color Spend More Than $8 Billion on Bleaching Creams Worldwide Every Year.”

Categories
1880s Cats Dialogue Education Native American Poem

The Kittens’ Lessons

The Kittens’ Lessons

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
Cat and Kittens, by Clementine Nielssen. Oil, late nineteenth or early twentieth century.
Public domain. 
“Now children,” said puss as she shook her head,
	“It is time your morning lesson was said,”
So her kittens drew near with footsteps slow,
	And sat down before her, all in a row.

“Attention, class!” said the cat mamma,
	“And tell me quick where your noses are.”
At this all the kittens sniffed the air
	As though it were filled with a perfume rare.

“Now, what do you say when you want a drink?”
	The kittens waited a moment to think;
And then the answer came clear and loud—
	You ought to have heard how the kittens meow’d!

“Very well. ’Tis the same with a sharper tone,
	When you want a fish, or a bit of a bone.
“Now what do you say when the children are good?”
	And the kittens purred as soft as they could.

“And what do you do when the children are bad?
	When they tease and pull? Each kitten looked sad.
“Pooh! said the mother, “that isn’t enough;
	You must use your claws when the children are rough.”

“Now sptiss as hard as you can,” she said;
	But every kitten hung down its head.
“Sptiss! I say,” cried the mother cat;
	But they said: “O mammy! we can’t do that.”

“Then go and play,” said the fond mamma;
	“What sweet little idiots kittens are!
Ah, well! I was once the same I suppose,”
	And she looked very wise and rubbed her nose.
Anonymous. “The Kittens’ Lessons.” The Youth’s Companion 16, no. 2 (September 1882): 104.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this poem was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. The poem provides some basic natural history lessons about cats. It may also offer advice to students that as they get older, they should reject ill treatment by others.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.

“Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1880s Education Farm life Humor Native American Poem

Mary’s Goat

Mary’s Goat

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
The Goat. Colored engraving. Compte de Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, c. 1749.
Mary had a William goat,[1]
	And he was black as jet;
He followed Mary round all day,
	And liked her? you just bet!

He went with her to school one day;
	The teacher kicked him out;
It made the children grin, you know,
	To have that goat about.

But though old Whack’em kicked him out,
	Yet still he lingered near;
He waited just outside the door
	Till Whack’em did appear.

Then William ran to meet the man—
	He ran his level best;
He met him just behind, you know—
	Down just below the vest.

Old Whack’em turned a summersault;[2]
	The goat stood on his head,
And Mary laughed herself so sick
	She had to go to bed.
Anonymous. “Mary’s Goat.” The Youth’s Companion 19, no. 2 (December 1882): 196.

[1] A male goat. The author plays with the common term “billy goat.”

[2] A somersault.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this poem was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. Here the author eludes a moral by parodying “Mary’s Lamb,” which was a popular nineteenth-century endeavor. This form also enables the author to indirectly criticize—and imaginatively injure—someone who punished students regularly and without cause: “old Whack’em.”

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.

“Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1880s Dogs Education Native American Short Story Sketch

The Dog and the Shadow

The Dog and the Shadow

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
The Old Dog Looks like a Picture. Engraving, 1853, by Thomas Landseer. Courtesy New York Public Library.

A dog, with a piece of meat in his mouth, was crossing a stream on a plank, and saw in the water what he took to be another dog, with a piece of meat twice as large as his own. Letting go what he had, he jumped at the other dog to get the larger piece from him. He thus lost both,–the one he grasped at in the water, because it was a shadow; and his own, because the swift current swept it away.

Moral. Greediness is a bad fault, especially in children. Always avoid it, dear little friends. Be satisfied with the little you have, and never envy or covet the greater possessions of others.

Anonymous. “The Dog and the Shadow.” In “Our Little ONes’ Corner.” The Youth’s Companion 12, no. 1 (May 1882): 304.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this sketch was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. Student newspapers frequently published work by students, but it’s often difficult to identify authorship even if contributions included the author’s name. The moral that ends the sketch may be an addition by one of the school’s teachers. If an older student wrote the sketch and added the moral, the advice to avoid coveting others’ possessions carries heavy irony, given that settlers appropriated Native lands and belongings from the beginning of the settlement era.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.

“Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1880s Birds Dialogue Drama, dialogue Education Native American Sketch

[A Mathematical Conversation]

[A Mathematical Conversation]

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
Tulalip Indian School Classroom, May 1914.
Courtesy J. A. Juleen / Everett Public Library’s Northwest History Room.

Teacher. “Now Mary, my dear, suppose I were to shoot at a tree with five birds on it, and kill three, how many would be left?”

Mary: “Three, ma’am.”

Teacher: “No, two would be left.”

Mary: “No there wouldn’t though. The three shot would be left and the other two would be flied away.” [1]

Anonymous. [A Mathematical conversation.] The Youth’s Companion: A Juvenile Monthly Magazine Published for the Benefit of the Puget Sound Indian Missions 2, no. 1 (July 1881): 39.

[1] Presumably the observer uses “flied” to indicate that Mary is very young. We should assume that the teacher is white and that Mary is a Tulalit student.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

Like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, this conversation was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. This story represents a significant change from the didactic texts that students were normally expected to compose. It showcases Native intelligence in a period when most white Americans regarded the nation’s Indigenous people as inferior or even subhuman. The conversation also emphasizes how the Tulalip child sees the world differently, and in some ways more clearly than her white teacher. Humorous sketches like these were common in Native American texts.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe.

“Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1880s Cats Education Native American Sketch

A Knowing Cat

A Knowing Cat

By Anonymous
Annotations by Karen Kilcup
Detail, cat with game. Oil painting, Alexandre-François Desportes,
late 17th-early 18th century. Public Domain.

A blind girl in a hospital had learned to feed herself, and at meal times a tray containing her dinner was placed on her knees. One day while she was eating, the pet cat of the establishment placed herself before the girl and looked long and earnestly at her, so earnestly that the attendant, fearing the animal meditated some mischief, took her out of the room. Again, the next day, at the same hour, the cat entered the room, but this time walked quietly to the girl’s side, reared herself on her hind legs, and noiselessly reached out her paw to the plate, seized a morsel that pleased her, and, silently as she came, departed to enjoy her stolen meal. The girl never missed her loss, and when told of it by her companions laughed heartily. It is evident that the cat, from observation, had entirely satisfied herself that the girl could not see, and by a process of reasoning decided she could steal a good dinner by this practical use of knowledge.

Tulalip Indian School Classroom, May 1914.
Courtesy J. A. Juleen / Everett Public Library’s Northwest History Room.
Anonymous. “A Knowing Cat.” The Youth’s Companion: A Juvenile Monthly Magazine Published for the Benefit of the Puget Sound Indian Missions 2, no. 1 (July 1881): 39.

Contexts

Begun in 1881, The Youth’s Companion—a name that many nineteenth-century publications shared—was a monthly student magazine that published articles written by pupils of the Catholic-run boarding school located on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. A federally recognized tribe located in the mid-Puget Sound area, the Tulalip Tribes received reservation lands—22,000 acres—in 1855, with its legal boundaries established by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1873. According to the Tulalip Tribes website, “it was created to provide a permanent home for the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skagit, Suiattle, Samish, and Stillaguamish Tribes and allied bands living in the region.”

Nineteenth-century Indian boarding schools aimed to assimilate Native Americans into white culture. They separated children from their families, required students to dress like white Americans, and prohibited them from speaking their language. They also emphasized so-called “industrial” training: boys learned agricultural and industrial skills, while girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean a household. Students were often expected to become servants or to provide manual labor help for whites.

“A Knowing Cat,” like many contributions to Native American student periodicals, was published anonymously. Students living on reservations during this time often received educations governed by white religious authorities who emphasized moral training. This story represents a significant change from the didactic texts that students were normally expected to compose. It showcases feline intelligence, a common theme in nineteenth-century American children’s writing.

Resources for Further Study
Contemporary Connections

“Tulalip History Minute 04—The Tulalip Indian School presented by Mary Jane Topash,” the Tulalip History Project. Provides Tulalip-sponsored background on the tribe. “Editorial: Getting to the truth of Tulalip boarding school,” September 26, 2021, HeraldNet (Everett, Washington). Caution: includes information about abuses at the school.

Categories
1910s African American Education Folktale Wild animals

Mr. Hare: A Story for Children

Mr. Hare: A Story for Children

By Anonymous [1]
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Cover Page of the The Crisis magazine from October, 1912, the first Children’s Number and the one in which “Mr. Hare: A Story for Children” appeared. Public Domain.

Mr. Hare and Mr. Tortoise were, of course, great friends. Well, one nice warm day, when the sun was very hot in the thick African forest, they went out together a-hunting food, for they were very hungry. They walked and talked and talked and walked, when suddenly Mr. Tortoise stopped.

“Hello!” said Mr. Tortoise, pointing ahead.
“Well, I never!”[2] answered Mr. Hare, beginning to scamper, for there right before them arose in the air, in one tall, slim column, a nice tall white-ant hill.[3]
Now everybody in Africa knows what sweet morsels fat white ants are, and you can believe that Mr. Hare and Mr. Tortoise were overjoyed at the sight of the hill and lost little time getting to it. Carefully they dug a nice little hole at the bottom of the hill and then sat down patiently to await the coming out of the ants.

As Mr. Hare waited he got so hungry that he began to reckon that after all there would be just about enough ants on that hill for Mr. Hare himself, and it seemed a shame to give up any of this fine food to a great sleepy tortoise.

So greedy Mr. Hare began to look about with one eye, keeping the other on the ant hill. Pretty soon Mr. Tortoise fell sound asleep just as Mr. Hare, pricking up his ears, heard some of his friends going through the forest. He ran quickly to them and asked them to carry the sleepy tortoise into the tall grass, where Mr. Hare knew it would he hard for him to crawl out.

“But be careful not to hurt him,” said Mr. Hare.

When the tortoise was out of the way, Mr. Hare sat down and ate and ate until he could hardly waffle, and then crept off home. Poor Mr. Tortoise, awaking in the tall thick grass, had a long hard journey to get out. When at last, late and exhausted, he arrived at the ant hill, lo! there was nothing left and Mr. Hare was gone.

“So ho! my fine friend,” said Mr. Tortoise, angrily.

“I’ll be even with you yet,” and he crawled off home.

Mr. Hare met him and made a great fuss.

“My dear old fellow!” he cried, “how glad I am to see you safe! I feared you were dead. I myself escaped by the merest chance. Three spears grazed me!” and Mr. Hare pointed to a very small scratch on his soft side.

‘”Humph,” said Mr. Tortoise, busily making his bed.

“We must not go to that ant hill again.” said Mr. Hare, licking his chops.

“Humph,” said Mr. Tortoise as he went to sleep.

Now Mr. Tortoise knew full well that early in the morning Mr. Hare would make a beeline to the ant hill for breakfast. Sure enough, up jumped Mr. Hare at dawn and slipped away. No sooner was he out of sight, however, than up jumped Mr. Tortoise and also crept quickly away to his friends.

“Wait for him.” he told them,” and when he has his head deep in the hole pounce on him.”

But Mr. Tortoise was kind hearted, and he remembered that Mr. Hare had been careful not to let his friends injure him when they carried him to the jungle. So he added:

“But don’t kill him.”
“Oh, but we like rabbit—we want to eat him!” cried the friends.
“Very well,” said Mr. Tortoise, “but if you kill him quickly he will be tough. You must take him home and make a big pot ready, half filled with fine oil and salt and nice herbs. Put Mr. Hare in it, but leave a hole in the cover so that you may add cold water from time to time. For if you let the oil get hot it will spoil the meat. So be very careful and not let it boil.”

The friends of the tortoise did exactly as they were told. Just as Mr. Hare was finishing the nicest breakfast imaginable, and stopping between mouthfuls to chuckle over the outwitting of the tortoise, he was suddenly seized from behind, and despite his frantic struggles hurried through the forest and dropped, splash! into a big pot of oil and herbs. Salt was added and the pot raised on sticks. Soon the crackling of a fire struck the scared ears of Mr. Hare, while Mr. Tortoise’s friends sat around in a circle and discussed the coming meal.

Albrecht Durer. Young Hare. Watercolor, 1502. Public Domain.

“I certainly do like rabbit,” said one.

“Do you think it as good as elephant steak?” asked another.

“Oh, better—much better,” said a third.

Here Mr. Hare, faint with fear and heat, was just about to give up, when, splash! and through a hole in the cover of the pot came a nice dash of cold water. Mr. Hare revived and looked about cautiously. This program was kept up for some hours, making poor Mr. Hare very nervous, indeed, until at last the patient cooks decided that their meal was ready; and indeed, the oil and herbs were giving off a most tempting smell.

All the feasters washed their hands, laid out the dishes, and, seating themselves in a circle, ran their tongues expectantly over their lips. The pot was placed in the middle and the cover removed, when, presto! out popped the very scared and bedraggled Mr. Hare and leaped into the jungle like a flash leaving a thin trail of oil.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Tortoise, as Mr. Hare rushed gasping into the house, “wherever have you been?”

“Whew!” cried Mr. Hare, “but I surely had a narrow escape. I was nearly murdered. I’ve been caught and cooked, and only by a miracle did I escape,” and he began hastily licking his oily sides.

Mr. Tortoise with difficulty kept back his laughter and watched Mr. Hare lick himself. Mr. Hare kept on licking and Mr. Tortoise crept nearer. Mr. Hare took no notice and Mr. Tortoise perceived that bit by bit the fright on Mr. Hare’s oily face was being replaced by the most emphatic signs of pleasure as Mr. Hare continued to lick himself greedily. Mr. Tortoise was interested, and stepping over quickly he began to lick the other side.

“My! how delicious,” he exclaimed in rapture, tasting the fine oil and salt and the flavor of the herbs.

“Get away!” cried the greedy Mr. Hare. ” You have not been in the pot and boiled. Keep off!”

Mr. Tortoise, feeling that he had had a hand in that oil and salt, began to get angry.

“Let me have your left shoulder to lick,” he demanded.
“I will not,” said Mr. Hare, who was now thoroughly enjoying himself. Mr. Tortoise stormed out of the house in a great fury and almost ran into the arms of his friends. They, too, were in a towering rage.
“What did you mean?” they cried. “Through your advice we’ve lost our hare and all our beautiful oil and salt.”
”Dear me!” exclaimed Mr. Tortoise, losing in his indignation all thoughts of friendship. “This is very, very sad. Now I will tell you what to do. Arrange a dance and invite Mr. Hare. When he is dancing to your tom-toms seize him and kill him.”

And this should have been the end of Mr. Hare. But it wasn’t.

Jean-Charles Chenu. Grinning Tortoise. Drawing, 1856, Encyclopedie d’histoire naturelle, Reptiles et Poissons (1856). Public Domain.
ANONYMOUS. “Mr. Hare: A Story for Children.” the crisis, Vol. 4, No. 6 (October 1912): 292-94

[1] “Mr. Hare: A Story for Children” appeared in the October, 1912 edition of The Crisis under the following byline: “Adapted from the folk tales of the Banyoro Negroes in Uganda, Central Africa, as reported by George Wilson in Sir Harry Johnston’s Uganda Protectorate.”

[2] British colloquial expression used to express surprise or indignation.

[2] White ants are not ants at all, but termites, social insects that build large nests and, due to the damage the cause to wooden structures, are widely classified as pests. Termites are actually edible. A good source of protein, fat and minerals, they probably figured in our ancestors’ diet. Many people eat them today.

Unknown. Single Termite Mounds or in Clusters. 1884-85, Popular Science Monthly. Public Domain.
Contexts

Starting in 1912, the October issues of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, were dedicated to children. A typical edition of these children’s numbers would contain a special editorial piece and two or three literary works specifically for children, while still including the serious pieces about contemporary issues with a focus on race that The Crisis was known for. These October numbers were sprinkled with children’s photographs sent in by the readers.

In his first editorial for the Children’s number in 1912, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote that “there is a sense in which all numbers and all words of a magazine of ideas myst point to the child—to that vast immortality and wide sweep and infinite possibility which the child represents.”

The success of The Crisis’ children’s number led to the standalone The Brownies’ Book, a monthly magazine for African American children that circulated from January 1920 to December 1921 under the editorship of Du Bois, Augustus Granville Dill, and Jessie Fauset.

Categories
1910s African American Education Folktale Short Story Wild animals

The Boy and the Ideal

The Boy and the Ideal

By Joseph S. Cotter Sr.
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Bullard, William. Portrait of a Boy Sitting on the Grass. Photograph, c. 1904, courtesy of Frank Morrill, Clark University and the Worcester Art Museum. Public Domain.

Once upon a time a Mule, a Hog, a Snake, and a Boy met. Said the Mule: “I eat and labor that I may grow strong in the heels. It is fine to have heels so gifted. My heels make people cultivate distance.”

Said the Hog: “I eat and labor that I may grow strong in the snout. It is fine to have a fine snout. I keep people watching for my snout.”

“No exchanging heels for snouts,” broke in the Mule.

“No’” answered the Hog; “snouts are naturally above heels.”

Said the Snake: “I eat to live, and live and cultivate my sting. The way people shun me shows my greatness. Beget stings, comrades, and stings will beget glory.”

Said the Boy: “There is a star in my life like unto a star in the sky. I eat and labor that I may think aright and feel aright. These rounds will conduct me to my star. Oh, inviting star!”

“I am not so certain of that,” said the Mule. “I have noticed your kind and ever see some of myself in them. Your star is in the distance.”

The Boy answered by smelling a flower and listening to the song of a bird. The Mule looked at him and said: “He is all tenderness and care. The true and the beautiful have robbed me of a kinsman. His star is near.”

Said the Boy: “I approach my star.”

“I am not so certain of that,” interrupted the Hog. “I have noticed your kind and I ever see some of myself in them. Your star is a delusion.”

The Boy answered by painting the flower and setting the notes of the bird’s song to music.

The Hog looked at the boy and said: “His soul is attuned by nature. The meddler in him is slain.”

“I can all but touch my star,” cried the Boy.

“I am not so certain of that,” remarked the Snake. “I have watched your kind and ever see some of myself in them. Stings are nearer than stars.”

The Boy answered by meditating upon the picture and music. The Snake departed, saying that stings and stars cannot keep company.

The Boy journeyed on, ever led by the star. Some distance away the Mule was bemoaning the presence of his heels and trying to rid himself of them by kicking a tree. The Hog was dividing his time between looking into a brook and rubbing his snout on a rock to shorten it. The Snake lay dead of its own bite. The Boy journeyed on, led by an ever inviting star.

Bridges, Fidelia. Bird on a Stalk, Singing. Chromolitograph, 1883, Library of Congress.
cotter, joseph s, sr. “the boy and the ideal,” in negro tales, 141-43. the cosmopolitan press, new york, 1912.
Contexts

This short story was also included in The Upward Path: A Reader for Colored Children, compiled by Myron T. Pritchard and Mary White Ovington, and published in 1920.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

  • beget: To get, obtain, acquire; to win, gain; to procure (something) for someone, furnish, provide. Also: to take hold of, seize.
  • kinsman: A man of one’s own kin.
  • meddler: A person who meddles or interferes in something; a nuisance, a troublemaker.
Resources for Further Study

Categories
1920s Birds Education Folktale Native American Short Story

The Raven and The Fish Hawk

The Raven and The Fish Hawk

By Chief William Shelton/Wha-Cah-Dub (Snohomish)[1]
Annotations by Jessica cory
Original yellowish cover depicting a Native man in traditional dress (including war bonnet) holding a flag (maybe a U.S. flag?). Beneath him are the words "The Story of the Totem Pole or Indian Legends by William Shelton."
Original cover for the 1923 publication.

On the banks of a beautiful river lived a Raven and a Fish-Hawk and as they were neighbors they were very friendly and congenial. Now, as winter drew near and the fish in the river became scarce and food of all kinds was very
difficult to find, they began to experience some rather hard times. The fish-hawk was noted for his skill in fishing and he was also known for his honesty and truthfulness throughout the country, while on the other hand, the raven was unskilled and poor and a great deceiver. This the Fish-Hawk did not know and he always believed that his neighbor, the Raven, was a very good man.

The winter became even more severe and the Raven found very little food indeed, in fact, he was very nearly starving to death. The Fish-Hawk, however, did not fare quite so badly for although the fish in the river were scarce he managed to get enough to keep him comfortably in food. He would climb a tree one limb of which overhung the river and then would let himself fall down on the ice, breaking through it and so enabling him to get at the fish. It required great skill to do this stunt, but then we know that the Fish-Hawk was very skillful.

Chief Shelton, his wife, and daughter all wearing traditional regalia in a black and white photograph. Chief Shelton is wearing a large war bonnet and his daughter and wife are displaying handicrafts.
Chief Shelton (middle) with his wife Siastenu Sehome Shelton (Northern Klallam and Samish) on the left and his daughter, Hiahl-tsa, later known as Harriette Shelton Dover, on his right. Image housed as Hibulb Cultural Center.

The Fish-Hawk was under the impression all this time that his neighbor was getting along quite well, until one day he heard that the Raven was starving to death. Fish-Hawk walked around the bend to his neighbor’s house that day to see for himself how the Raven was getting along and he found that it was really true that the Raven was starving to death, so he invited the Raven over to his house the next day for a feast. The Raven was greatly pleased with the invitation and the next morning he made ready for his visit and started off bright and early. As he approached the house of his neighbor he noticed particularly how beautiful everything seemed and how well taken care of the grounds were. The Raven came to the house and was very cordially received by the Fish-Hawk. Here the Raven began to look around for something to eat, for he had not eaten anything for several days and was feeling rather weak. To his dismay, he could see no food and he began to wonder why he had been called over to the house of the Fish-Hawk if the Fish-Hawk had no food for him; yet he noticed that the Fish-Hawk built his fire and made ready for the feast. Then he bade the Raven sit down close to the fire so that he might warm himself. The Fish-Hawk then excused himself and went out doors; the Raven watched him and saw that he went down to the stream, that he climbed a tall tree, one limb of which was overhanging the river, and when he reached this limb and got away out on the end of it he sang a weird song that the Raven could not understand. Then suddenly he saw the Fish-Hawk fall as if he were dead, right down on the ice, right through the ice, and the Raven was certain that he had been killed at once. The Raven ran to the edge of the river, but could find no trace of the Fish-Hawk until after a few seconds he saw him come up from under the ice with a number of trout. Of course the Raven was greatly surprised at this new way of fishing and decided he would like to try it himself. So after the Fish-Hawk had given him a feast and the Raven had all he could possibly eat, he started back home again and invited the Fish-Hawk over to his house for a feast the next day.

The next day Mr. Fish-Hawk went over to the Raven’s house and as he entered the place he was aware of the fact that there was no food anywhere in sight, yet he felt quite sure that the Raven would not have asked him to visit him if he had no food at all. He watched the Raven carefully and saw that he built the fire and then walked out of the house. The Fish-Hawk wondered what he was going to do; he saw the raven climb a high tree growing close to the river. When he reached the top of the tree, the Fish-Hawk heard him singing and his song sounded very much like the one the Fish-Hawk himself had used the day before, so the Fish-Hawk was certain that the Raven could do just as he did. When the Raven finished his song he permitted himself to fall down swiftly and he hit the ice with a great thud, but did not break through the ice as the Fish-Hawk had done and so when he landed on the ice all the bones in his body were broken and he died instantly.

Black and white photograph (artist unknown) of a river bordered by pine trees and mountains.
Original artwork (artist unknown) from The Story of the Totem Pole. This image appeared on page 60, directly above “The Raven and the Fish Hawk.”

The Fish-Hawk, who was watching from the window in the house could not see down to the river and did not know that the Raven had been killed; he thought that the Raven was as skilled in doing this stunt as he himself was and therefore he waited to see the Raven come up towards the house with a catch of fish. After he waited for him several minutes he suspected some evil, so he walked down to the creek and there he discovered the broken body of the Raven. It made the Fish-Hawk feel very badly that his neighbor was killed just because he was foolish enough to try to do this trick and so he tried his best to bring him to life again. He picked up the pieces and placed them together and then he sang and danced around them until the raven finally came back to life. The Raven looked up and said: “Why, I must have been asleep for quite a time,” but the Fish-Hawk told him that he had not been asleep, but dead, adding: “I did not think that you were foolish enough to try to perform such a dangerous stunt as you must have known that you were unable to do it. In the future, you want to be sure you know how to do a thing before you try it.” Then he carried the Raven up to his house and came down to the stream again. He climbed the tree from which the Raven had fallen and after singing his great song, he let himself fall to the ice, breaking through it and after a second or two he came up with several fine fish. These he took up to the Raven’s house and left them there so that the Raven might have food while he was recovering from his fall.

Mr. Fish-Hawk went home that day very much disgusted with his neighbor, the Raven. He had discovered that the Raven was not a great man at all, but merely a fraud, and he was greatly disappointed in him.

Now the lesson part of this story is that one should not attempt to do the impossible; if you know you are not qualified to do certain things, do not try to do them just because you see someone else doing them, and so cause others to laugh at you and call you a fool. Test your strength, your power, your knowledge, and then act accordingly!

Shelton, William. “The Raven and the fish hawk.” The Story of the Totem Pole or Indian legends. (Everett, Wash., Kane & Harcus co., printers, 1923), 60-63. [3]

[1] The Snohomish Tribe are a people whose ancestral territory is in the Puget Sound area of Washington. Currently, the Tribe is not recognized by the state or federal governments. Many Snohomish have joined the federally recognized Tulalip Tribe, which is comprised of “direct descendants of and the successors in interest to the Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish, and other allied bands signatory to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott.” Because Chief Shelton was not enrolled in the Tulalip Tribe, I have identified him as Snohomish. According to this source, the spelling of “Snohomish” in Lushootseed, the language spoken by the Snohomish, is ‘Sdoh-doh-hohbsh.’ However, I’ve kept it as “Snohomish” in this case, as the traditional spelling is not commonly used.

[3] No publication location was provided. Additionally, an alternate title (or perhaps a subtitle) appears on the inside title page: The Story of the Totem Pole: Early Indian Legends As Handed Down from Generation to Generation Are Herewith Recorded by William Shelton of Tulalip. While Chief Shelton was not enrolled in the Tulalip Tribe, he did live in the Tulalip, WA area.

Contexts

Chief Shelton was also a master carver, creating many story poles (sometimes called spirit poles). Often these poles are carved from cedar and depict tribal stories used to teach lessons to youth. For additional information on Chief Shelton’s carvings, see the “Contemporary Connections” section below.

Not much scholarship has been written on Chief Shelton, particularly on the stories that comprise this book. One source that discusses his depictions of Native children is the article “Reading into the Voice: The Representation of Native Voices in Three Early Twentieth-Century Children’s Story Collections” by Melinda Li Sheung Ying. Ying’s article can be found in Knowing Their Place? Identity and Space in Children’s Literature, edited by Terri Doughty and Dawn Thompson, published by Cambridge Scholars in 2011.

Margaret Riddle provides additional biographical information about Chief Shelton’s life.

Resources for Further Study
  • For information on the Snohomish Tribe, please look at their tribal website.
  • The Tulalip Tribes’ website is especially helpful for understanding the differences and similarities in the Tulalip and Snohamish Tribes.
  • The Washington Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs provides the full text of the Treaty of Point Elliott, 1855, which resulted in the ceding of Native lands in Washington State. It’s important to remember the power dynamics and structures at play between the U.S government and Tribal Nations at the times many of these treaties were ratified.
  • Alexa Koenig and Joshua Stein explain the differences between state-recognized and federally-recognized tribes. Essentially, for federal recognition, a tribe has to prove that’s it has existed in an uninterrupted fashion for hundreds of years. However, federal and state policies since contact have made this difficult to prove for many tribes.
  • Gabriel Furshong explains why some tribes remain unrecognized by state or federal entities.
Pedagogy

Many lesson plans that focus on totem poles are, frankly, terrible and encourage cultural appropriation. Make sure that if you’re teaching about totem/spirit/story poles that you include education about what they are, what they represent, and how they are important to specific tribes.

Contemporary Connections

In 2010, Shelton’s massive 71-foot story pole, “Lifting the Sky,” (pictured below) was removed from the Capitol grounds in Olympia due to fear of rot and potential injury. It appears to still be in storage, though the Burke Museum in Seattle has shown interest and there is also talk to returning it to the Tribe.

Another of his story poles, a 36-foot work of art displayed at Krape Park, Illinois was also removed in 2008 and is now housed at the Burke Museum in Seattle, WA, waiting its next move. The Burke Museum features a discussion of his work as a carver and the inspiration for his work. In 2018, a biographical documentary was made of Shelton’s daughter, Harriette “Hiahl-tsa” Shelton Dover (pictured earlier).

Categories
1900s Autobiography Book chapter Education Native American

The Indian Girl

The Indian Girl

By Zitkála-Šá (Yankton Nakota)[1]
Annotations by Jessica Cory
Two Native females, one a mother and the other, her daughter, sit on blankets outside of their tepee.
Original illustration for Zitkala-Sa’s story in the The Jones Fifth Reader, p. 443.

I was a wild little girl of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buckskin, and light – footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These were my mother‘s pride, — my wild freedom and overflowing spirits. She taught me no fear save that of intruding myself upon others.

In the early morning our simple breakfast was spread upon the grass west of our tepee. At the farthest point of the shade my mother sat beside her fire, toasting a savory piece of dried meat. Near her I sat upon my feet, eating my dried meat with unleavened bread, and drinking strong black coffee.

Soon after breakfast mother sometimes began her bead work. On a bright, clear day she pulled out the wooden pegs that pinned the skirt of our wigwam to the ground, and rolled up the canvas on its frame of slender poles. Then the cool morning breezes swept freely through our dwelling, now and then wafting the perfume of sweet grasses from newly burnt prairie.

Untying the long, tasseled strings that bound a small brown buckskin bag, my mother spread upon a mat beside 5 her bunches of colored beads, just as an artist arranges the paints upon his palette. On a lapboard she smoothed out a double sheet of soft white buckskin; and drawing ‘from a beaded case that hung on the left of her wide belt a long, narrow blade, she trimmed the buckskin into shape. Often she worked upon moccasins for her small daughter. Then I became intensely interested in her designing. With a proud, beaming face I watched her work. In imagination I saw myself walking in a new pair of snugly fitting moccasins. I felt the eyes of my playmates upon the pretty red beads decorating my feet.

Close beside my mother I sat on a rug, with a scrap of buckskin in one hand and an awl in the other. This was the beginning of my practical observation lessons in the art of beadwork. It took many trials before I learned how to knot my sinew thread on the point of my finger, as I saw her do. Then the next difficulty was in keeping my thread stiffly twisted, so that I could easily string my beads upon it. My mother required of me original designs for my lessons in beading. At first I frequently insnared many a sunny hour into working a long design. Soon I learned from self – inflicted punishment to refrain from drawing complex patterns, for I had to finish whatever I began.

After some experience I usually drew easy and simple crosses and squares. My original designs were not always symmetrical nor sufficiently characteristic, two faults with which my mother had little patience. The quietness of her oversight made me feel responsible and dependents upon my own judgment. She treated me as a dignified little individual as long as I was on my good behavior; and how humiliated I was when some boldness of mine drew forth a rebuke from her!

Always after these confining lessons I was wild with surplus spirits, and found joyous relief in running loose in the open again. Many a summer afternoon a party of four or five of my playmates roamed over the hills o with me. I remember well how we used to exchange our necklaces, beaded belts, and sometimes even our moccasins. We pretended to offer them as gifts to one another. We delighted in impersonating our own mothers. We talked of things we had heard them say in their conversations. We imitated their various manners, even to the inflection of their voices. In the lap of the prairie we seated ourselves upon our feet; and leaning our painted cheeks in the palms of our hands, we rested our elbows on our knees, and bent forward as old women were accustomed to do.

While one was telling of some heroic deed recently done by a near relative, the rest of us listened attentively, and exclaimed in undertones, “Han! han!”(Yes! yes! ) whenever the speaker paused for breath, or sometimes for our sympathy. As the discourse became more thrilling, according to our ideas, we raised our voices in these interjections.

No matter how exciting a tale we might be rehearsing, the mere shifting of a cloud shadow in the landscape near  by was sufficient to change our impulses; and soon we were all chasing the great shadows that played among the hills. We shouted and whooped in the chase; laughing and calling to one another, we were like little sportive nymphs on that Dakota sea of rolling green.

On the far left is a Native man in a war bonnet. In the middle is a long pipe. Below the pipe are a pair of moccasins.
Original illustration for Zitkala-Sa’s story in The Jones Fifth Reader, page 447

One summer afternoon my mother left me alone in our wigwam, while she went across the way to my aunt’s dwelling.

I did not much like to stay alone in our tepee, for I feared a tall, broad – shouldered crazy man, some forty years old, who walked among the hills. Wiyaka – Napbina (Wearer of a Feather Necklace) was harmless, and when ever he came into a wigwam he was driven there by extreme hunger. In one tawny arm he used to carry a heavy bunch of wild sunflowers that he gathered in his aimless ramblings. His black hair was matted by the winds and scorched into a dry red by the constant summer sun. As he took great strides, placing one brown bare foot directly in front of the other, he swung his long lean arm to and fro.

I felt so sorry for the man in his misfortune that I prayed to the Great Spirit to restore him, but though I pitied him at a distance, I was still afraid of him when he appeared near our wigwam.

Thus, when my mother left me by myself that after noon, I sat in a fearful mood within our tepee. I recalled all I had ever heard about Wiyaka – Napbina; and I tried to assure myself that though he might pass near by, he would not come to our wigwam because there was no little girl around our grounds.

Just then, from without, a hand lifted the canvas covering of the entrance; the shadow of a man fell within the wigwam, and a roughly – moccasined foot was planted inside.

For a moment I did not dare to breathe or stir, for I thought that it could be no other than Wiyaka – Napbina. The next instant I sighed aloud in relief. It was an old grandfather who had often told me Iktomi legends.

“Where is your mother, my little grandchild?“ were his first words.

“My mother is soon coming back from my aunt’s tepee, “I replied.

“Then I shall wait a while for her return, “he said, crossing his feet and seating himself upon a mat.

At once I began to play the part of a generous hostess. I turned to my mother’s coffeepot.

Lifting the lid I found nothing but coffee grounds in the bottom. I set the pot on a heap of cold ashes in the center of the wigwam, and filled it half full of warm Missouri River water. During this performance I felt conscious of being watched. Then breaking off a small piece of our unleavened bread, I placed it in a bowl. Turning soon to the coffeepot, which would not have boiled on a dead fire had I waited forever, I poured out a cup of worse than muddy warm water. Carrying the bowl in one hand and the cup in the other, I handed the light luncheon to the old warrior. I offered them to him with the air of bestowing generous hospitality.

“How! how!“ he said, and placed the dishes on the ground in front of his crossed feet. He nibbled at the bread and sipped from the cup. I sat back against a pole watching him. I was proud to have succeeded so well in serving refreshments to a guest. Before the old warrior 5 had finished eating, my mother entered. Immediately she wondered where I had found coffee, for she knew I had never made any and that she had left the coffeepot empty. Answering the question in my mother‘s eyes, the warrior remarked, “My granddaughter made coffee on a heap of dead ashes, and served me the moment I came.”

They both laughed, and mother said, “Wait a little longer, and I will build a fire.” She meant to make some real coffee. But neither she nor the warrior, whom the law of our custom had compelled to partake of my insipid hospitality, said anything to embarrass me. They treated my best judgment, poor as it was, with the utmost respect. It was not till long years afterward that I learned how ridiculous a thing I had done. [1]

Zitkala-Ša. “the indian girl.” in the jones fifth reader, edited by L.m. Jones, 441-447. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1903.

[1] The Yankton Nakota are also sometimes called the Yankton Sioux. Located in South Dakota, “the reservation is the homeland of the Ihanktonwan or Yankton and the Ihanktowanna or Yanktonai who refer to themselves as Nakota.” Some sources have noted Zitkála-Šá as being Yankton Dakota. Legends of America explains the differences in Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota, as well the problematic term “Sioux.”

Contexts

This piece, published in 1903, appears to be a cross-written version of Zitkála-Šá’s “Impressions of An Indian Childhood” which was originally published in 1901 in the Atlantic Monthly. The piece also begins her 1921 book American Indian Stories. American Indian Stories is largely autobiographical and highlights the stark contrast between Zitkála-Šá’s childhood on the reservation, as the piece above shows, and her experience at White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a boarding school for Native children that was operated by Quaker missionaries.

Resources for Further Study
  • This document provides a bit more information on Quaker-run boarding schools and specifically mentions Zitkála-Šá’s American Indian Stories.
  • To learn more about the Yankton Reservation, please see the transcribed treaty that the U.S. government entered into with the Yankton tribe in 1858. This short article by the National Parks Service explains the pressure the Yankton were under in signing the treaty and the National Archives gives additional background on the 1858 treaty..
Contemporary Connections

Concerned about waste management facilities encroaching on and polluting the reservation, the Yankton tribe sued the state of South Dakota twice, once in 1995 and again in 1997. In both cases, the courts rejected the Tribe’s claims.

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