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PATHETIC INDIAN TALES
RELATED BY ONE WHO HAS
LIVED AMONG THEM.
The Burial of Beautiful Blossom-—
The Name Indian is a Misnomer—
The Red Man Hates a Half-breed—
The Aristecratic Cheyennes.
Tears camé to the eves of many
members .of the New York Indian As
sociation as Mrs. Ida Vose Woodbury,
New England field sceretary of the
American Missionary association, told
of the burial of Beautiful Blossom, the
youngest child of the Rev. Mr. Wach
acwastiwm, an ordained clergyman;
of the healing of Kagle Feather, de
serted, with her three children, by her
husband, Swallow; of the burning of
an aged Indian mother at the stake
by her son, because he said she was
too old any longer to spear the salmon
or snare the rabbit, and of the erec
tion, less than three years later, of a
church on the spot where her little
heap of gray ashes had fallen.
“There is a difference between
knowing about Indians and knowing
Indians,” said Mrs. Woodbury. *“I
don’t suppose I know very much about
Indians, but I think I may say I know
Indians. I can almost claim to belong
to them, for I have been among them
all my life, and have been invited to
membership in one of the tribes. In
my girlhood there were usually from
one to half a dozen Indians rolled in
buffalo robes sleeping around my
father’s open fire of a night, and I used
to go into their wigwams freely, mak
ing them little presents and some
times buying their baskets and bead
work. I recall one day going to one
of their tepees where two of the
young braves looked curiously at me.
“‘H'm: that Vose girl!’ said one,
‘make good squaw.’
: A Cause of Reproach.
“The name ‘lndian’ is a misnomer.
They are not Indians. They are na
tive Americans, the only native Ameri
cans. Nor are they red men. They
may be brown, copper, or practically
white. They have no pigment under
the skin, as a negro has, and with civ
ilization they whiten. For an Indian
to hdve a fair skin is a cause of re
proach among the fiercer tribes. The
North American Indian is the native
aristocrat of this country, and he is
proud of his birth.
“l once asked the daughter of an
old chief, who had bhecome converted
and taken a new name, ‘How many
Indians go back to the blanket? ‘Al
most none of the second generation,’
she replied; ‘of course, of the first
generation some go back, but I have
heard of white people who backslide.
However civilized an Indian family
may be, it has a tepee, and in summer
for a little while it likes to go off and
pitch the tepee far away from man
and play heathen for a few weeks.
The Indian wants to brown himself in
the smoke of his fire, go around in the
blistering sun hatless, and have a va
cation from civilization. I have known
white men who liked to play heathen
a little while.
“The new name of this girl’s father
was Kitto, after the author of the his
tory of the Bible. He was one of a
band of hostile Indians who were im
prisoned as a consequence of some
warlike raids. Father Ridge went
among them and converted them, and
when President Lincoln pardoned
them they marched out, 200 strong,
singing the fifty-first Psalm to the
tune of ‘Old Hundred. When an In
dian becomes a Christian and is bap
tized, they give him a new name to
indicate something that he is to strug
gle to attain to. This is simply an
adaptation of the Indian system of
nomenclature. An Indian father who
calls his son Shoot-in-the-Ear thereby
expresses his hope that when the boy
grows up he will be able to shoot his
foe or his quarry straight and clean
in the ear. I know one Indian whe
ghristened Lhimself Eli. Abraham. 1
gsuppose he admired both characters
and annexed them to his Indian name,
in the hope of attaining to their vir
fues.
They Are Very Religious.
“Indians hate half breeds. Once 1
had this same young girl with me at a
meeting in Tremont Temple, Boston,
when a young negro preacher who was
almost white, thinking to show his
friendliness, said to her, ‘I have a lit
tle Indian blocd in me.” The girl drew
herself up, and, looking at him in
scorn, said: ‘You have a little Indian
blood in you. Then I thank God that
I am not like you.””
Indians, according to Mrs. Wood
bury, are pre-eminently religious. “If
it were not for their religious wants,
they would ask very little odds of the:
missionary and Indian associations of
the country,” she said.
“You may recall how aboout 15
vears ago the Messiah craze swept
over the Sioux, who number about
one-third of all the Indians. The ad
vent of ‘the Messiah, they believed,
was to be heralded by an immense
tidal wave. which would land on the
prairies all the buffalo the Indian
could ever want to hunt or eat, and
would bury all the white men three
feet deep. Messiah would bring for
every Indian a shirt, a ghost _shirt,
which would render him invulnerable
to the white man. They thought that
the Messiah was coming to make a
temporal kingdom, so they destroyed
all their totems and became a godless
nation. Some burned up their totems.
Others, more prudent, hids theirs in
the ground, thinking that if the Mes
siah did not come, they might prove
useful again. - Poor Wolf hid his totem
in a haystack out in a field, and the
lightning struck the haystack and
burned up the totem.
“But the Messiah did not come, nor
the buffalo, nor the ghost shirts. In
stead, the government intervened.
My point, however, is that the Sioux
were left a literally godless people,
and that in consequence they came
crowding into the schools to learn ‘the
shining Jesus way.’
The Aristocrats.
“l was in Oklahoma at one of the
distributions of the government semi
annual dividend. ¥or acres the land
was dotted with Indian tepees, but be
tween the tepees of the Cheyennes
and the Arapahoes there was a broad
avenue, for the Cheyenne is the aris
tocrat of the Indians. Any Arapahoe
would feel himself flattered to be
asked, ‘Are you a Cheyenne? and
every Cheyenne would feel himself in
sulted to be asked, ‘Are you an Arapa
hoe? Over the plain a thousand In
dians came driving, each with two or
four of their ponies, their blankets
flying, and followed by packs of In
dian dogs. half dog and half coyote.
“Here was Black Wolf, with 70
gashes received in the willow dance
and the ghost dance ,and there was
old Left Hand, whose wife was doctor
ing his rheumatism.
“I visited the tepee of Lowing Buf
falo, who is 102 years old, if son, who
is a Christian, is to be believed. On
the other side of the fire was his aged
wife, paralyzed from the waist down
and nearly blind. Opposite sat Eagle
Feather, their daughter, very sorrow
ful because her husband, Swallow, had
left her. The poor thing was sitting,
her hands clasped over her heart, and
all she would say was ‘Heap sick
about Swallow.” I got out my Testa
ment and read part of the eleventh
'chapter of Matthew, ‘Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.” I saw her
face begin to soften. Then we sang,
‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Safe in the Arms
of Jesus,” and the missionary who was
with me offered prayer.
“One day, years before, that same
missionery came upon a little pile of
gray ashes in the grass. ‘That is
where I burned my mother day be
fore yesterday,’ a young brave told
him.
“‘What was the disease?
‘“‘She had none, but she was old—
she c¢ould no longer spsar salmon or
gnare rabbits.’
“That day he showed me a church
which had been built where the old
Indian woman had been burned to
death, and as I looked at it three
young Indian men came slowly up the
path. Two of them had their arms in
teriaced to form an armchair, in which
they carriad their old mother, while
the third followed, carrying a blanket
to put around her. There were no
backs to the seats, so one of the boys
sat beside his mother, and she leaned
against him and rested her head on
his shoulder, as they all listened to the
Gospel. So much had Christianity ac
complished in three years! .
“And then there was the time when
Beautiful Blossom died. They laid her
in a little white coffin, but, as there
were no flowers at iliat season, they
took come yellow tissue paper they
found in a missionary box, and twist
ing it into a cross and some little flow
ers. placed them in the coffin. All the
old chiefs—warriors who had slain
their men and knew what it was to
dabble in human blood—came to the
funeral.
MASCOTS OF CELEBRITIES.
Talismans Carried by Some Famcus
Men and Women.
Among the men and women who
have won name and fame in profes
sional life, quite a number are to be
found who believe in the supernatural
power of some curious talisman which
they possess. Sarasate, the famous
Spanish violinist, for instance, K would
not dream of playing at a concert un
less he carried somewhere about his
person a tiny replica, in silver, of the
famous Guaranelius violin on which
Paganini used to play.
Paderewski, the famous pianist, also
possesses a mascot which is always
with him in the shape of a ring once
worn by his first wife. Most people
are doubtless aware of the sad story
of Paderewski’s first marriage; how
his wife died in giving birth to a sor
just as the pianist was on the thresh
hold of success, and how the world
would probably never have heard of
hini had not the necessity: of provid
irng for his son compelled the musician
to continue his professional career.
Paderewski does not wear the ring on
his finger. It rests in a tiny pocket in
side his waistcoat, and is attached to a
fine gold chain which encircles the
pianist’s neck.
From the musical profession to the
race course is rather a far cry, but it
may nol be out of place to mention
here the curious luck-bringer carried
by Sam Loates, the famous jockey. It
consists of an ordinary smoked pearl
button, without which he never rides
a race. This pearl button saved the
life of Mr. Loates when he was a child
by catching in the upholstery of a rail
way carriage door which had not been
properly fastened, and thus preventing
him falling on to the line. Since ther
the jockey has come to believe that
the button has an influence for good
over all his fortunes.
Quite a number of our leading ac
tresses firmly believe that their suc
cess in a piece depends to a certain
extent on peculiar mascots which they
invariably carry. Miss Violet Van
brugh always wears a long chain of
uncut turquoises on the stage, while
Mrs. Langtry never feels comfortable
unless she carries a turquoise on
which a Persian love letter is en
graved. Mrs. Langtry, 1t i 8 sald,
fished up this peculiar mascot while
diving in the Lido at Venice.—Tit-Bits.
Women’s Losses in Rochester Fire,
The terrible conflagration which laid
low the main part of the drv goods
section of the city brought crushing
losses to a large number of women
engaged in various lines of business.
In no other district would the fire have
such a chance to work mischief for
this alert, industrious part of the com
munity, and pitful indeed is the (:c»n-}
dition today of the dressmakers, music
teachers, manicurists, pattern makers
and workers in embroidery and nr'l
work, etc.,, who saw their plants, ex.
tensive and successful, or small and”
etrugeling, wiped out of existence.|
The result of years of hard work and|
patient thought and planning, the ac|
cumulation of books relating to special !
lines of work, of costly tools, all went,'
and the future lies full of perplexity |
and trouble for even the bravest and,
most hopeful among the losers.-—-!
flochester Union. |
Where Ships' Sails Sing, . |
Some curious facts have been notgd
with regard to the sound conducting
qualities of ships’ sails. When render
ed concave by a gentle breeze the
widespread sails of a ship are said
to be excellent cenductors of sound.
A ship was once sailing along the
coast of Brazil, 'far out of sight of
land. Suddenly several of the crew,
while walking along the deck, noticed
that when passing and repassing a
certain spot they always heard with
great distinctness the sound of bells
chiming sweet music, as though being
rung but a short distance away.
Dumbfounded by this phencmenon,
they quickly communicated the dis
covery to their shipmates, but none
of them were able to solve the enigma
as to the origin of these seemingly
mysterious sounds which came to
them across the water. _
Months afterwards, upon returning
to Brazil, the crew determined to
satisfy their curiosity. Accordingly
they mentioned the ctrcumstance to
their friends, and were informed that
at the time when the sounds were
heard the bells in the Cathedral of
San Salvador, on the coast, had been
ringing to celebrate a feast held in
honor of one of the saints.
Their sound, wonderful to relate,
favored by a gentle, steady breeze,
had traveled a distance of upwards
of ‘'one hundred miles over the smooth
water, and had been brought to a
focus by the sails at the particular lo
cality in which the sweet sounds
were first heard.
This is but one of several instances
of a similar kind, trustworthy authori
ties claiming that this same music is
often heard under somewhat identical
circumstances, and especially in a
moisture laden atmosphere.
A Half Solved Mystery.
Detroit has a suburban grocer who
is something of a joker, and, having
bought a ereck—of butter of Uncle
Reuben a few days ago, he slipped a
five pound stone in the empty crock
and exhibited it to the® farmer and
said:
“Uncle Reub, I've known you for
the last flve years, and I'd have
sworn that you were an honest man.
I'm sorry to see this.”
‘“Waal, that half solves the mys
tery,” replied the old man as he¢ pick
ed up the stone, hefted it and looked
it over in a puzzled way.
“What mystery?” queried the gro
cer.
“Three or four days ago a strange
dog came along by our place, and my
son Bill heaved this rock at him. The
dog and the stone disappeared like a
flash, and, though Bill hunted around
for half an hour, he couldn’t find
either. 1 can’'t say where the deog
got to, but the rock must have come
down on this crock of butter and sunk
to the bottom out of sight.”—Detrcit
Free Press. j
DID HIS WORST.
“Now do your worst,” the hero cried
Unto the villain bold.
They saw him act, and then they
sighed,
“He did as he was tcld.”
"—Washington Star.
Any one can dye with PUTNAM P‘ADE
LESs DYES; no experience required.
Usually when two women quarrel they
are both in the wrong.
H. H. Greex's Soxs, of Atlanta, Ga,, are
the only successful Dropsy Speciulists izxfihe
world, See thelr liberal offer in advertiso
ment in another column of thigvpna._per.
A lot of misery comes to the man who
gits down and waits.
Mrs, Winslow’s Boothing Syrup forchiidren
teething, soften the gums, reducesinflammas
tion allays pain,cu remvmi&&gfi&c. abottle
Many a man falls in love with a work of
art and marries it.
Piso’s Cure is thehest medicine we ever qs'ed
for all affections of throat and iungs.—Wn,
0. ExpsLey, Vanburen, Ind., Feb. 10, 1900,
No woman is always right and no woms
an’s husband is always wrong.