Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1909-05-13

ing such a nj
the past betwee
fights in which, on the Indian side, wei
feathers, blankets, moccasins and leggin!
TO be In the summer time, wearing not
paint.
Many of the old picturesque chiefs
happy hunting ground. Among them W.
member the day when the rifle was I'll
weapon in the hands of the adver-
sary.
Old Rain-in-the-Fac died not long
ago and his epitaph is found in the
f1ippant paragraph that the Sioux
warrior and chieftain is at last a good
Indian.
Every redskin who ever raised his
hand against a white mar is dubbed
a bad Indian. Rain-in-the-Face living
was Of service to the world. He add
ed picturesqueness and a spirit of
savagery to the dull canva of civil
liked life. Something is lost every
time that one of the old-time warriors
of the plain goes to tie land where
the buffalo grass is always green and
where the herds await the Indian
hunter.
In the deaths of most of the great
Indian chiefs of old there was always
some tragic note. Most of them met
violent deaths. Perhaps Geronimo,
who passed away at Fort Sill, Okla,
some months ago, was the only one of
many aged chieftains to die a natural
death. The Indians picture of the
happy hunting ground is said by stu
dents to have made violent death the
safest mode of entrance to the portals
of the redskin heaven in the Indian
mind. The quality Of bravery dis,
played, the Indians also believed in
the old days, had much to do with
their happiness after death, and as a
consequence to die fighting for their
tribe was the aim of most of the old
school of warriors.
Rain-in-the-Face followed Little
Wound; Little Wound followed
American Horse; American Horse fol
lowed Young Man Afraid, and Red
CiNed 10 SlOoC hliOu llbll TRAIL. SIOuX
chiefs and warriors all! Shall no
voice lament their passing?
Most of these chiefs were Chris
tians-in a way. The water of ban.
tism sprilkled But it never washed
the war paint from their heather
hearts, The only good thing the
white men ever offered them was his
religion, but they suspected it as they
suocumbed to it's outward forms. 1t
takes more than a prayer or two and
more than a little water from a font
to remove from the administering
clergyman the suspicion which the
red man attached to all of the white
race as the result of "a century Of
sdishonor."
Out at Pine Ridge Is years ago the
little Episcopal mission church was
turned into a hospital for the care of
the wounded survivors of the band of
Big Foot, the Sioux chief. The pews
and the altar had been removed and
straw had been strewn on the floor
and there lay the stricken women and
'~children-all the men of the band had
TQset death-every one sore wounded
by the bullets of the soldiers.
. Where the altar had been lay the
wife of a chief and her four little
children, bearing the pain of their
wounds with what We are pleased to
call a savage stoicism, The sun came
up over the pine-topped ridges and
sent its light through the stained.glass
window over and above the place of
the altar.
The red and the yellow and the
blue fell upon the family group and
or the blankets covering the wounded
children one read, transmitted by the
sun and the glass, the words: GLORY
to God in the Highest" Yet the wond,
ism still lays hold on the heart of tho
The tragedy of the fight at Woundef
Foot's warriors, the women and the
a few, were slain, was not the fault NJ
men Of the Seventh cavalry lost SEQ
rades, killed and wounded. They w,
duty enforced upon them by years of
and misruIe Tho Indian ofronoI.