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THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1969
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Uhe only good
Indian is a . . .
White businessmen, interested in the tourist dollar,
are suggesting that a $10,000,000 -shrine with a 40-foot
tower and an eternal flame be constructed on the site
of the Wounded Knee Massacre, just north of Gordon,
Neb.
Supposedly, it would commemorate the slaughter
that marked the last Indian uprising.
IT WOULD BE more appropriate to construct a
40-foot screw. That would more accurately tell the story
of Cowboys and Indians.
Whites screwed the Indians out of nothing less than
a" continent. But people being people, and nations be
nations, that should have been expected. The Indiana
really got the short end of the peace pipe when they
were consigned to reservations too small for immediate
needs, and pathetically unsuited for future needs.
.
ENCOURAGED, EVEN REQUIRED, to become
dependent on the U.S. government, Indians as a group
have lost self-respect and identity. And the whites, fear-
ihg and hating a minority group, as always were very
happy to convince themselves that the Indian wanted
" to be'left alone in the wilderness reservations.
To those who believe this, and to those who believ
the Nebraska Indian is too lazy and drunken to take
advantage of his opportunities:
Get out of your own filthy apathy ... go to the
Pine Ridge Reservation or to the Omaha-Winnebago
Reservation.
Imagine yourself living in an area with 70 per cent
unemployment. Imagine the disease. The utter dejection
of poverty. The paternalism of the White Fathers.
THEN YOU'LL KNOW why an Indian drinks. So
"" Would you.
Then you'll know why he must, deep down, have
something far from an abiding love for the whites.
So would you.
' Then, put it all in perspective. The Americans have
screwed the Indians in only a few generations in a
way that is hardly believable.
Because the Indian's religion was different, white
men tried to change him. And because his social insti
tutions were alien, white men tried to wipe those out and
replace them with the ideals of capitalism.
Well, naturally, the whites couldn't change a wlwle
' race, culture, heritage.
The problems are too myriad to' discuss in one
"'editorial, one paper. Solutions are entirely absent. But
it all can best be summed up this way:
If you think the white man has messed around
the Negro, take a look at the Indian. The black American
is finally moving out of the bondage of prejudice and
discrimination. But those who know will say that the
Indian American is being forced deeper and deeper
into that bondage.
Ed Icenogle
J year later . . .
Indians have become
Impawns in chess game
Pine Ridge one year later.
I was there last Easter with Bobby Kennedy. He
""""yas there campaigning and, more importantly, listening
llto the Indians troubles at a hearing in Billy Mills Hall.
After the hearing he was given a peace pipe with this
-aC.harge from the Indians:
71 "It (the presentation of a peace pipe) Is both a
rledge of friendship and a promise on the part of the
VJttceipient to carry always in his heart a concern for
;ffin people he has pledged to help."
Bobby Kennedy is dead, but his concern should be
- carried on. The problems still exist. The facts and
&tures get worse before they get better. It's a year
TUfter, and progress is slow.
APPARENTLY the situation Is still the same. It's
all a game. "You be the dumb guy and I'll protect
"-you," as P.S. Deloria, a full-blooded Sioux now doing
......graduate work at Yale, put it.
A government official hovers over a schoolboard
-win posed of first grade dropouts, illiterates teach II
ZEirates and people with problems help other people
-wth the same problem. As Deloria put it, "We are
"HSCCasionally used as authenticators never a i
...-originators."
JT" 1 saw more of the reservation this time and got
ikwper into the geographic Isolation which must have
rrrjf.dramatic effect on the Indian's social isolation. Small
Mups of shacks on a badland prairie.
SAW THE historic Wounded Knee. In 1890 the
ffivemmen.t called the action there a battle, the Indians
."aTVd it a massacre. Today, there is nothing but a
efciirch, a museum, a burail ground and a handful of
j3lltler memories.
'"-Today, we sit in our warm complacency, not thinking
gbout starving people in tumbledown shacks, not feeling
..-what the 16 Vista volunteers see and feel every day,
JOt really concerned about the Indians.
And the words of P.S. Deloria still echo on deaf
"-ears. "Above all, we must see Indian communities as
mSiLrinsically valuable, worthy of preservation worthy
of attention and not as pawns In a thousand games
of self-perpetuation."
Pine Ridge has changed very little- Our attitudes
toward tho situation haven't changed very much either.
Perhaps the time has come for a change towards under-
, itanding and for concern.
John ttcnmiai
AH photography
by Mike Hnyman
and Dan Ladcly
DAILY NEBRASKAN
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Editorial Staff
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Money available, but only 3 at NU
If the probability of the American Indian's success
can be gauged by his enrollment numbers at the
University of Nebraska, then it must be termed a dismal
failure.
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Currently, there are three American Indians amone
the 18,000-plus enrollment at the University this sem'ster
acceding to records in the scholarship and flnanclai
aids office.
Administration officials are aware of the need t0
respond to this situation.
"Comparing the relatively large Indian population
in the state to the few Indian students at the University
indicates this need," says Dr. Harry J. Canon, director
of the counseling service.
"BUT IT is unrealistic to bring Indians here, dump
them into the system and hope that they sruvive,"
he added.
Indians come from a different cultural background
To be successful at the University, they need speciai
introductory courses, Bfwcuu jeauiiig programs and
tutorial assistance, he said.
Russel Brown of student affairs said that Indian
youth are inclined to go to places offering programs
which the University does not provide.
Finances are rarely a problem for an Indian who
wants a college education.
"INDIANS, UNLIKE members of other minority
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groups, gei an ui me uuam-icu ueip uiey neea trom
the federal government," said Dr. Edward Lundak
scholarship and financial aids director.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs provides loans and
grants for tuition, fees, board and room, books and
other expenses for any Indian high school graduate
who needs assistance.
The only requirements are that the applicant bi
at least of one-fourth Indian blood, a member of
a tribe served by the Bureau and living on an Indian
reservation or other Indian-owned trust land.
"We did have one student who was unable to receive
Bureau aid because he could not prove that he was
an Indian. Our office helped him with an educational
opportunity grant," Dr. Lundak said.
HE ADDED that the drop-out rate for Indian students
is high and that he did not know of any who had
stayed the full four years to receive their degree.
Bruce Miller, a graduate assistant at the counseling
service, worked with the Omaha tribe at Macy, Neb.,
three years ago.
At that time, one or two Indians from the Macy
area attended the University, he said, adding that many
who do continue their education attend private Catholic
colleges or the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kan.
Haskell Institute is one of five federal schools in
the nation offering Indians vocational-technical training
beyond the high school Jevel.
"MOST INDIANS lack the educational skills needed
to succeed at the University. This is because their cultiirn
does not push education.
"They are not able to cope with the college pressures
here. So they get lonely and go home. There is nothing
here for them, he said.
Columbus misnamed only real Americans
by John Dvorak
Nebraskan Staff Writer
Misconceptions and tragedy fill the long history of
the Indians the only real Americans.
Even the very name of the race is a misnomer.
When Columbus first set foot in the new world, he
found an already established civilization. Thinking he
had discovered India, Columbus named the people "In
dians." The popular nickname "redskins" or "redmen" is
also Invalid. Indian complexions vary from dark brown
to yellow to white.
IN REALITY, the new world was discovered long
before 1492. The Indians had inhabited the Americas
for thousands of years. But they did not originate here.
No one knows for sure where they came from.
The Indian migrated to America during the latter
part of the Pleistocene glaclation, probably around ten
to fifteen thousand years ago.
Scientists generally agree that the Indians spread
south from the Alaska area into Mexico. Others went
east of the Rockies, over the plains and towards the
Atlantic.
OLIN C. BARJENBRUCII, a senior in anthropology
who specializes in early Great Plains man, pointed out
that little physical evidence exists to tell the story of
these early Americans.
Apparently, the earliest inhabitants east of the
Rockies were the Clovis People, groups of nomadic
hunters. They lived primarily by killing mammoths.
Contrary to some modern opinion, these people were
not dumb, said Donald J. Blakeslee, associate curator
of the Anthropology Division of the State Museum.
They knew what they were doing and were well adapted
to their environment, continued Blakeslee.
Early nomadic hunters spread throughout the two
Americas. Some Indians travelled all the way to Cape
Horn; others settled further north in South America.
Indians crossed tho Mississippi and formed tribes which
eventually became the great Iroquois of New York and
Cherokees of the Appalachians.
New social organizations were also emerging. The
gathering of food became more common, although hun
ting was by no means outmoded.
Around the time of Christ, the first evidence of
corn cultivation appeared with the "Plains Woodland"
people. Although this was the first sign of agriculture
in the plains region, Barjenbruch noted, hunting as a
way of life still flourished.
AROUND 900 AD, village people began permanent
settlements, although they spent part of each year on
hunting trips.
A popular notion Is that Indians, throughout history,
were always savage warlike creatures. Blakeslee
quickly dispelled that legend.
Early settlements were scattered, small and un
fortified, which probably means that warfare was not
of major importance. In some areas, however, set
tlements were fortified with dry moats and palisades.
Nor was the Indian an Ignorant person, capable
only of shooting a bow and arrow as some people believe,
Blakeslee said. Indian dwellings of that time should
disprove that. Dugout lodges, forerunners of the earthen
lodges were constructed.
While the farmers of the east were beginning to
construct earthworks and mounds, the farmers of the
Southwest had already built their own buildings in caves
and on ledges of rock. These early dwellings preceded
the greater community apartment building such as the
famous cliff apartments at Mesa Verde, Colorado.
Throughout the United States, as well as on the
Great Plains, hundreds of Indian tribes were making
rapid advances in all phases of life. Weapons, as well
as warfare, were perfected. Agriculture and hunting
procedures were refined and tools were modified and
Improved.
Disaster struck In the 18th century. White men came
to America to stay The seeds for the eventual downfall
of the Indians were sown.
THE SPANISH first landed in the southern parts of
North America. The English built settlements in New
England.
With the new Americans came guns and horses
, . . and trouble. European diseases, for which t h
Indians had no immunity, struck the Indians. Large
portions of many Indian villages succumbed. White men
introduced the Indians to liquor.
Originally, the Indians were trusting and amiable
to white settlers. But white men began to push westward
from New England and northward from Mexico. Indian
territory, once comprising two entire continents, was
being slowly compressed.
THE CRUELTY and rapacity of some whites an
tagonized and embittered the Indians. Often violent ac
tion was to drive or scare the white interlopers away
from territory which the Indians considered theirs by
right of prior occupation.
Television and the fiction writer have created the
image of the screaming Indian war party sweeping
down on unknowing and innocent settlers.
Actually, it was white men who introduced killing
on a massive scale to many of the Indian tribes, Blakeslee
commented.
Before the coming of the whites, warfare was highly
developed among the Indians, but killing often did not
play a large part in It. Blakeslee said the Indians con
sidered merely hitting an enemy more honorable than
killing. Sometimes deaths occurred, but bloody battles
and massacres were scarce.
AS THE SETTLERS pushed west, bringing with them
a new way of life, problems increased. In essence the
trouble was that the whites thought the Indains were
"simple savages," according to Barjenbruch. This was
not true.
Some Indian cultures were highly advanced.
Architecture and art styles among the more advunccd
groups rivaled anything t:i existence at that time. Some
Indians had a complicated social organization. Religion
was Important to their lives. They had ancient music
and oral traditions.
The coming of the white man disrupted everything
and forced the Indians to change their ways of life,
As white men desired more land, the government tried
to push the Indians onto reservations and consciously
made them dependent on federal handouts.
NATl'RALLY the Indians resisted with all means
available. War, scalping, killing, tragedy.
White men conducted campaigns to contain the In
dians. One time, the army started a prairie fire from
Denver into Western Nebraska. At one point the fire
burned to the Arkansas River. Little by little, with
their food supply and home land gone, the Indians
became federal dependents.
Following I860, Indian uprisings spread throughout
the west. Perhaps the last two great battles were the
most tragic. In 1876 Colonel George Custer, with less
than 3()0 men under his command, charged a
heavily populated Indian village. Custer's force was an-
mliated.
THE TROUJLE .S, when the Indians defeated the
whites, it was usually called a massacre, Blakeslee
said. When the whites anniliated the Indians it was
called a victory,
Such a "victory" occurred in late 1890's, the last
real fight of the Indian wars. The Battle of Wounded
Knee took place about 30 miles north of Gordon,
Nebraska. A large group of soldiers were sent to arrest
a group or Indian braves, squaws and children. Someone
fired a shot, and when the firing ceased most of the
Indians were dead. Babies were sabred, women wero
ridden down by horses and the dead were buried in
a mass grave. Only a few troopers suffered Injuries.
With that defeat most Indian reslstence to confine
ment on reservations died too.
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