The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-11-17
LIFE OF The INDIAN BOY.
NOW ONE PAPPOOSE Made HIM
SELF SOLID WITH hes DADDT.

Cleveriy That he Won the Praise of
the Chiefs-How the Indian Boy
Gains Distinction. ~
Compared with the lives led by the
full-booded Indian children of the
Northwestern reservation the misera-
BILE urchins who play in city's cutters
dwell in paradise Of joys. The gut
tersnipe is almost certain to have some
marbles or a top in his clothes; he can
earn few pennies for himself upon oc-
casion; he is quick-witted and brim-
ming with nervous energy; of mirth-
provoking expedients he is as full as
an egg is of meat, and at repartee he
has no equal.
Indian children, on the other hand,
are born grave and solemn and stolid.
The art of self-repression practised for
centuries by their ancestors has be-
come a second nature to them-is In
herited-with the result of transform
ing what should be their golden age into
mere existence, joyless and apathetic.
III babyhood their training compels
them to endure without Whimpering
discomforts and hardships which would
destroy children of the white race.
Strapped lightly to the back of squaW
or left to themselves so tied in blan-
ket that use of their limbs Is denied
them, they are mere silent bundles,
voiceless, without will or power. There
is no dandling, no coddling, no one to
teach them to smile, no effort to devel-
OPP the softer side of their natures The
squaw is too busy heWing wood or car
rying water or preparing food for her
buck and brood or in making beaded
wares to sell to the trader for that.
And when they are old enough to be
trusted upon their legs alone and un-
fettered they are left to themselves
with less care than litter of pigs re-
ceives from its SOW mother-until such
time as the squaw perceives that she
may tighten her own labors by compell-
ing the pappooses to share in them.
There is no running ito meet papa
no clngng to his legs as he walks, no
riding "cockhorse" on his feet Until
they have shown character in some I'M
expected way or performed some uneX-
pected deed the buck father will bestow
upon them less attention than he gives
his pony, or his herd of ponies if he is
rich.
Gene, the eight-year-old son of Stand
ing Elk, on this Ohe Cheyenne) reser-
walton. crawled out of his blanket one
dark night, and guided by the beating
of tom-toms and the ky-yi-ing that usu-
~, of fair Do1da
his way alone to the Rosebud where
White Bulls bucks were having a
"ghost dance" He did not dare to
mingle with the dancers, so he hid in
the bunch grass near by and watched
the bucks as they stamped and chanted
around the fire.
Gene had unsupported powers of
mimicry The dancing made a strong
on him. Next morning,
when Standing Elk darted out of his
wickiup to chastse the noisy youngs-
ter, he was astonished at what he saw
and heard There was Gene stamping
about with the grace and vigor of a.
practised dancer to no other accom- |
paniment than his own ki-yi-ing. He
twisted and contorted and stamped !
like an old timer, and he had the steps
down so pat that his genius for that |
sort of thing was borne in on Standing
Elk in flash.
Calling to his squaw, Standing Elk |
babe her find bells and headdress and |
fallals of the conventional sort for the |
boy, and when the youngster was thus
logged out his father babe him dance |
before the chiefs of the tribe. Gene ac-
quilted himself so well that he won the |
approval of the chiefs and is now the |
most enved boy on the reservations |
Little Indian maidens you'd walk |
miles Just to have him say How to |
them
Sometimes this recognition Is won for |
the Indian boy by skill in the chase, or
in breaking ponies, or in doing what |
eastern children would call stunts" on |
But until it is won the In
dian boy is a nonentity and few OBJ
tain it so early in life as did Standing |
E1k's papoose.
1t is in that period when the white
boy of the same age is suffering the
pangs of puppy love that the young |
buck Indian begins to get something
out Of life. He grows vain after recog-
milton and becomes ambitious to do |
more and better, after the Indian fash
ion, than the others who may have !
found favor. He engages with these
others In pony races and strives to out
10 them in skill and in mischief. This
Is the danger period for whites living
near the reservation, for the theft of
cattle, the intimidation of women and
sometimes unprovoked murder all make
,or the reputation and glory of the
young buck VINO can do these things
ind avoid detection or punishment.
Indian females except in rare in
stances, are doomed from earliest child
rood to life Of drudgery, almost Of
slavery The cares of the tribe are
packed upon their shouders-excepting
,nly such troubles as call for the
of blood All of the physical
abor falls to their lot.
In the adjoining reservation it is the
Srow women who till the fields where
arming is done. There is no farming
worth speaking of on the Cheyenne res
rvation, although the government
leeps a hired man on the ground to
each farming to those Indians who
are to learn 1t is also the squaw
Who hews and carries in the winters