The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, May 13, 1904, Image 3

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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.