The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-01-11
INDIANS MAY
COMPETE HERE
Something About the Educated
Redskins" of the
Northwest.
By a "Washingtonian.

Do you remember the first real In
dian story that your grandmother read
you out of that big, redcovered books
Or did you happen to have one of
those fine old grizzled veterans of a
grandfather who fought against the
redskins himself, and could say
that he had really killed one of the
varm.nts''? If so, you may be pre-
pared to believe everything that is
now told of the Indian and his ways
of living and the things he does.
The Anticipated idea that an Indian
is a demon just because he is an In
dian has pretty well disappeared, yet,
just as there are great many laugh
able things said and written about Ha-
waii and Hawaiians by people who
haven't the slightest conception of the
real truth, so it is with the Indian and
his race My good friend, Alexander
Hume Ford, who in his interesting ar
ticle on the Chemawa Indian School
made the statement that the Indians
might come to these Islands to com
pete in the Pan-Pacific Carnival, must
have been slightly muddled when he
said that they would live in their te-
pees and wigwams during their stay
here. To one who has lived in the
Northwest, the suggestion that a
%'school Indian while going to
school, would think of domiciling him.
self in a wigwam or tepee, is absurd.
They don t do that sort of thing IN
the wild and woody West any more.
Clean built, 1.-THE and altogether ath-
letic is the ordinary Indian, especially
the class that is selected to attend
the government schools such as Car
isle and Chemawa. AS the Carlisle
Indians are to the Eastern colleges, so
are the Chemawa Indians to the col
leges and universities of the West in
ali branches of sport They are
usually beaten. except in certain kinds
of games, but their grittiness is al
ways apparent.
They are fighters; their forefathers
were fighters of different stock, but
they have imbibed just enough of civ.
ilization to carry with their old spirit
of barbaric fighting the modifying
sense of what is right and what is
wrong to do.
Chemawa Indian School, situated
near Salem, Oregon, stands on the edge
of the famous Willamette river, along
whose SHORES some Ol IHt piooNio9'
battles of the frontier days in the
Far West were fought. The school
students are recruited from among all
the MANY different tribes in the States
of Oregon and Washington. Only
picked young men and young women
are sent there, these being chosen by
a board of commissioners which han
dies Indian affairs in the Northwest
The athletic teams of this school are
famous for their never-give-up spirit
In football games, some of the red
skinned players have been known to
play throughout the greater part OF a
contest with such serious injuries that
almost anyone else would have given
up. But these fellows realized that a
Esub' could not hold the team to-
gether as well as the regular man, and
rather than be beaten too badly, the
regular man remained in the game, in
spite of the pain he was caused. They
are mostly small, lean, boneand muscle
men, and, to some extent, this accounts
for their qualities of great endurance
They are speedy, and when one of those
high-cheeked little demons tucks a foot
ball under his arm, with a clear field
before him, there are few white run
ners who make the gain necessary fol-
flying tackle.
In foot racing, they are especially
proficient. Long distances never bother