The Portland daily press., 1882-10-04

~, nlgner up the Missouri, where the Roman
Oathoho BeDedictines are in charge OF the
government school, under q Father and two
sisters, and also have schools of their own
uhuer apsfest, four lay brothers and four lay
struotion
" While it is to be hoped that the government
WIN enlarge its school work. the religious soc1-
cues should put forth new efforts.
ihe teachers at Peoria Bottom wish to open
small Home for girls in which to receive
ssenoiars, not from the Bottom, but from the
Miiihneconlou and Sans Arc and other distant
yilages The girls who come to the Home
would he taught with the Peoria Bottom schol-
ofs, ~ the present school-house. Miss Collins
ana Miss Irvine think they can manage a
Home With small expense. The Committee
nave nave asked MIR. Riggs to prepare plan with
carefui estimates OF the cost OF such Home.
Another m visionary family, Rev. Henry M.
Bisseil and wife, of Hartford, New York, are
upder appointment and designation to the
fort Sully station, and will enter upon their
work immediately.
FORT BERTHoLD STATION.
In 1876, mission was begun at Fort Ber-
thold, among the Indians who are not Sioux
but Ariekarees Gros Ventre and Mandans.
These three bands of broken tribes have been
living for many years in one village, for mutu-
al protection against their old enemy the Sioux.
The Gros Ventres, who number AS, and Man
dams, who number 223, have many things in
common; the Rees, who number 67S, are not
on good terms with the other two tribes.
The reservation is the northwestern part OF
Dakota, not far from the British Possessions. 1t
has an area of 1850 square miles, 2,900,0 900
acres, on both sides of the Missouri. Fifty
thousand acres of the land are reported tilla-
BILE; bat it has not been surveyed, and the In
dians are huddled together near the Agency.
Fort Esrthold is not military station, but
was traaing post of the American Fur Com
pany.l Fort Stevenson, seventeen miles down
the Missouri, and fort Buford, one hundred
miles up the river, are army posts.
The Indians are in their heathen degrada-
tion. The Mandan oval lodges are covered
with earth, on which grass grows, as Catlin
pictured them fifty years ago. Poles, with bits
of cloth, fur and similar charms against evil,
project above the buffalo skulls on the conicsl
roof Over the medicine lodge Sioux scalp
was dangling. Some 800 of the Indians dress
in part ike whites. A few gather at Fort Bu-
ford and elsewhere, but they chiefly live in this
village, where the accumulation Of fltb for %
years partly explains death.rat of 81 deaths
to 26 births last year.
The Indians have 1000 acres under cultiva-
tion, with the assistance of the agent, and
raised last year some wheat, $500 bushels of
cor 1000 bushels of oats and vegetables and
800 tons of hay. They have 800 horses
but only rs cattle. They sold robes and furs
to the value of $2860 For 70 per cent. of
their living they depend upon government ra-
for these 1,946 Indians was $4,000. For their
education there was expended by the govern
ment $1,600. There is no boarding-school,
only the agency day school and that Of our
mission, The number who can read is report
ed to be fifty.
Rev Charles T.. Hall began work here, and
has faithfully labored on amidst great discour-
agements. Miss Ward and Miss Pike are as
sistant missionaries. The mi sion dwelling
stands on on a pleasant bluff, where is view
8 81. +
The chapel, which also serves as aschool-house.
The squalid Indian village is a quarter Of
mile distant, and the agency buildings are a
mile off The missionaries have been learning
the three languages, and the teaehing in them
to some extent. The Mandan and Gros Ven
tres languages are somewhat alike, and schol-
ars OF those tribes are classed together. Fer
the future it IS proposed to teach in English
OILY. The temptations OF the idle village life
make it impossible to secure regularity of at
tendance. Scholars come and go as they will,
with no parental constraint or restraint. Re-
ligious services are held regularly, ami while
no church has yet been gathered, the mission
aries believe there have been some conver-
sious The teachers go into the homes Of the
pagans, and use various means to win them.
Two hundred miles east OF Fort Berthold
is Devils Lake Agen sy, where are many Sioux
who have taken farms, and who desire schools
and Protestant preaching. Mr.. Hall has over
sight OF this field also, AID has organized
church OF fifteen members, to which David
Greycloud, pastor of the Ma asan ehurch,
nlinistered last winter. The Prudential Com
mittee is arranging for a regular and per-
manent minister and teacher here.
Fort Berthold is a difficult field, but one
which strongly appeals to Christian pity. In
no distant heather community is there greater
need of making known the gospel. The Com
mIttee have long been seeking for another
suitable missionary family to station here AS
soon as one can be- found, our friends who are
toiling here will be REINFORCED.
The IndiSn Agent, Major Kaufman, is kind
~ disposed TO the mission 1t is hoped the
government will undertake more in the direc-
ton OF education; this has not received 80
much attention as the agricultural and in
dustrial work of the Agency.
Fort Berthold is reached by way of st. Paul
and the Northern Pacific Railroad to Bismarck
on the Upper Mi souri,. From Bismarck there
is transportation for some months of the year
in Steamboats, The Visiting Committee found
no boats going at the right time, and made the
journey IN an open wagon, more than one hum
dred aud eighty miles, up and down, from
Bismarck. For the seventeen miles between
Fort Stevenson and this Agency there was no
house or ranch or hut, and even the telegraph
wires to Fort Buferd turn away without touch
ing Fort Berthold
THE PoNcAs.
AT the Santee Agency Wednesday, April
26th, a deputation of Poncas called upon the
Visiting Committee Standing Bear, Buffalo
Chip, Smoke Maker, Yellow Wolf and others
represented that they were suffering for want
of due provision from the government, and
asked that a school might be established
among them.
These Poncas live about thirty miles from
the Santee Agency. They number, according
to Standing Bear, one hundred and seventy.
They are under charge of the Santee Agent,
who furnishes them from government appro-
prations. The number of school children is
about twenty-five. There had been ten Ponca
children in the Agency school, but they had
left, it was said, because their parents were
going back to the Indian Territory. There is
abundant room in the several schools at San
tee for the Ponca children. The agent says the
government will build a school house for them
if they remain where they are. We have also
learned that the Presbyterian Board is prouos-
ing to take care of them The chiefs were in-
formed that, in view of these facts, the Ameri-
can Board would not be justified in opening
g mission.
THE FUTURE OF THE INDIAN WORK.
1t is evident from what has been said that
the Indians at Santee and Sissiton are in very
different condition from the Indians at Fort
SuJy and Fort Berthold. The former may
fairly be regarded as Christian communities.
A great change has been wrought among them
by the blessing of God upon the labors OF
faithful missionaries. Less than fifty years
BILE, as closely welded to heathen practices, as
hostile TO civilization and Christianity, as Sit
ting Bull and his followers are now. The re-.
suits already reached are not only reasons for
gratitude 10 God, but for renewed efforts in
behalf OF Indians who are yet in their savage
degradation A larger proportion of the San
tees and Sissirons are church members than is
the casa in the adjacent white communities.
The churches are thoroughly organized and
equipped, and have formal relations with the
Presbyterian church in the United States
They do not seem to be any longer proper OBJ
1ects of labor for the American Board Of For
eign Missions. When the Cherokees had
reached similar condition, in 1860, the Amer
lean Board ceased its care and responsibility
Tor them, and they became connected with the
Presbyterian church boards The indian COM
munites at Sautee and Sisston still need en-
coaragement and Christian fellowship, and to
some extent pecuniary aid. II they were Con-
gregational churches the American Home
missionary Society might be asked to do what
Is necessary fer them. In 1866, the Seneca In
dian church on the Allegheny reservation be-
ing sufficiently advanced in Christian knowl-
edge TO pass from the care Of a foreign to
home missionary society,"" was relnquished by
the American Board and received under care
OF the American Home Missionary Society.
The Santee and Sissiton churches and oommu-
mites were gathered while the New School
Presbyterian body was still cooperating in the
American Board, and all the missionaries
among them were PreSbyterians. For their