Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1898 — AMERICAN INDIANS’ CHILDREN. [ARTICLE]

AMERICAN INDIANS’ CHILDREN.

They Have Good Times Until They Are 15 Years Old. From the time he is born until his fifteenth year the Indian baby lives the perfect life. He knows no care and has not a want. He fares as well as the best in the tribe; his days are spent in play and the enjoyment, like the little animal that he is, of eating and sleeping; his thoughts are not for Ixioks or work; he knows that he has a place to sleep,, and that if any family has anything to eat he can share it. His clothing is sufficient for his needs, which are brought within the limits of the supply. His toys are home-made and his games are traditional. What then could afford a better target for the camera than this perfect human animal? He has an Individuality, it Is true, and a name, but his animal instincts are predominant from the beginning. His mother gives him his name at birth—a name that is never told, but is kept as secret as the sacred name of the Almighty. The boy gets his name from the skies and the girl from the earth, rather paradoxical, to be sure, but I have tried in vain to convince the Indian mothers that it should be the other way. When it is known that the boy is the delight of the father, and the girl looked upon only as a chattel which will bring value later in life, it is not so paradoxical after all. It is not an easy matter to photograph an Indian baby. They are hedged about with superstition in most cases, and avarice in others. The mothers, until they learn the ways of the whites, are much afraid that some harm will come to their little ones if they are shot with a camera, and after they (find out that It does no harm, they place an extraordinary value on the privilege. The little ones themselves learn this money idea early, and it is not an uncommon thing to see a whole squad of them fleeing at the top of their speed just because they were not paid as much as they thought they were worth for the few minutes of posing. There is one kind of game which I have never been able to photograph among the Indian children, and that is the kind where kissing comes in as part of the pleasure. The Indians do not kiss. Story telling is a favorite amusement among the Indian children, and if you see a group of them gathered about some old crone and listening with rapt attention, you may be sure that they are hearing a ghost story or that she is telling them of the “Kitchi Manitou,” or bad spirit, who carries off and eats bad Indian boys, just as the mythical “bad man” that our nurses used to terrorize us with was supposed to put bad little white boys in his sack and carry them off. The difference between the two races is, however, that while the white boys soon learn to disbelieve the stories, the Indian believes in the “Kitchi Manitou” until his dying day.—San Francisco Call. <