Evening star., 1935-10-20

have been, to the red man, almost
meaningless artificialities.
The basis Of the new system is the
almost accidental rediscovery Of the
Sioux "tioshpaiya," which will be the
political unit of the new system.
Just what this tioehpaiya is can
not be told simply, because its counter
part does not exist in the Caucasian
scheme Of things and hence there Is
no synonymatic expression for it.
Even Q Sioux would have dificulty
explaining 10 himself just what it Is.
He only knows that 1t is.
When Mr.. Collier took charge Of
Indian affairs one Of his chief OBJ
jectives was to restore self-govern-
ment to the Indians, but he realized,
more clearly than any Of his prede-
cessors, that this could not be accom-
pished by rule of thumb methods. The
Indian was not brown-skinned,
beardless white man. His mental
processes-or rather. the structure of
his thinking-were not the same.
And Mr.. Collier wanted to avoid,
above all things, continuation of the
destructive process of changing the
Indian into a white man. That
process had gone on too long already
1t had resulted in the destruction of
some of the finest human values
the race has known. Yet the red
man was living in a white mans
world and the white man showed no
great inclination to alter it very much
for his red Hother's convenience.
There must be some sort Of COM
promise whereby the Indian could
continue to live as an Indian in p
native land dominated by the alien
Caucasians.
MIR. COLLIER turned to anthro-
N biologists and ethnologistS for
help-particularly to the Bureau OF
American Ethnology. For half a CEN
tury they had been studying the
Indian as an Indian-not to reform
him or conquer him, but only to
know him. Whatever was done must
be done with the Indian as he was
not as missionaries or Congressman
imagined he was, or thought he ought
to be. Only the ethnologists knew
the actual Indian. divested of white
rationalizations.
The work Is now under the direc-
tion of DR.. Duncan Strong of the
Bureau of American Ethnology. He
detailed aides to make intensive
studies of the ways Of life of these
peoples, that whatever governmental
system was adopted might be adapted
to those ways of life. That is how
the tioshpaiya, which may be the
solution Of very important problem
came to be discovered.
The Sioux, as is we'll known, hao
been a bison-hunting people. They
were continually shifting their camp
to keep up with the herds. or, ir
later days, to keep away from the
soldiers. They we're tenacious o.
their customs and, perhaps more thar
any other tribe, they made the Whit
man respect them for a time. The!
were the chief agents in inflictine
the most crushing defeat ever suf'
| fered by American troops-the battle
of the Little Big Horn.
| Now, during these years of rapic
movements the carlps always pre-
sented a similar picture. The tent:
were pitched in a great circle. Ir
the middle of the circle was a single
1 large tent occupied by the dog sol
diers the native police
who we're members of certain secret
society whose function was to keer
order
This great circle of tents was g
very good arrangement for defense, a.
the white man learned. He supposed
that was all there was to it. AS 9
] matter of fact, the arrangement hae
j a much deeper significance. The lont
buffalo hunter, absent fo- days or
the. prairie, might find that in hi
| absence the camp had been moved
many miles away. Yet. in spite o.
all the confusion that had attended
moving, he could go instantly to hi
own tepee without asking any ques.
tions, find his family just as ht
had left it, and all his belongings ir
order 1t was an almost perfect
community arrangement.
To him it seemed perfectly natura
that this should be the case. He be.
| longed to a group-the tioshpaiya-
whose position in the tribal circle hac
been fixed from time immemorial
Other members saw to 1t that home
was just as he had left it. 1t was
the fundamental unit of his society
much as the family might be consid-
cred the fundamental unit of white
society. It was, or had been in the
beginning, a kinship group within the
tribe. It included all kin within a
certain degree of blood relationship
Later 1t had become much more COM
plicated. There were members Of the
tioshpaiya by birth and members by
adoption. It was further involved
with all sorts of ceremonial relation
ships.
TO THE white men, except the
trained ethnologist. it was alto
gether incomprehensible. To the In
dian it was the most fundamental of
all social realities. This the average
trader and the Indian agent never
grasped. Some of the more intelli-
gent missionaries comprehended 1t
vaguely and built upon it. The church
has usually been more successful
among the Indians than the govern
ment. The missionaries were not
business men nor executives. They were
not predetermined and hence
this is just one Of many paradoxes in
InGian relations-in the end more
practical and more successful.
The time came when the Sioux
could stand up against the soldiers
~ lI|I,Io,!|,,