Indian-proud past, uncertain future
Who are the Haskell Institute students? What are their backgrounds, their heritages? What is their attitude toward the white man, toward Haskell? What image do they have of Haskell?
Haskell Institute serves as a melting pot of the Indian nation. It brings together Indians from 85 tribes in 29 states. During the past 20 years 126 tribes from 36 states have been represented in the enrollment.
LAST NAMES FROM the school roster re-echo their linkage to the past when their ancestors roamed the plains to kill the buffalo and were pushed on reservations by the invaders: Bad Heart Bull, Bright Wings, Bringing Good, Chasing Hawk, Crazythunder, Fast Horse, Good Bird, Little Axe, Old Bull and War Bonnet.
Second in a series
They come from proud tribes: Arapahoe, Blackfeet, Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokee, Hopi, Kiowa, Seminole and Sioux.
Their hatred of the white man is gone but they cling with stubborn tenacity to many of the ideals and cultural traits of their forefathers.
TO UNDERSTAND THE young Indian who leaves his family and friends, his tribe and reservation to come to Haskell one needs only to recall the famous Kiowa legend. It is a legend that has a similar telling in all tribal histories.
It is the story of how the Great Spirit created man. After the Great Spirit created the world he wanted to create the perfect man. So he built an oven.
He found some light-colored clay under a maple tree, shaped it and baked it. The result did not please him because it was pale in color. He called him "white man" and sat him aside.
Next the Great Spirit found a dark gumbo under a hackamore tree and baked it longer than the first. But when he opened the oven the man was black and was set aside.
FINALLY THE GREAT Spirit searched until he found a rich, reddish-brown clay that was under an oak tree. He moulded it and took extreme care to bake it properly. The result was a strong, reddish-brown man that had the strength of the oak and the knowledge of the earth.
Every Indian youth knows this legend and because of it he is proud He does not have a feeling of superiority, but he does not feel sorry that he is not a white man.
Their childhood training is quite different from what is considered typical in America. Indian children look at the floor when their elders speak and they reply in a soft tone of voice.
AN INSTRUCTOR AT Haskell, who has made a study of the Indian culture, C. Fayne Porter, said, "The Indians do not necessarily mistrust us, but they are skeptical."
Porter said, "It takes about eight weeks before a new student here begins to communicate with an instructor. The Indian student takes a long time to make up his mind whether or not he thinks you are okay."
The young Indian has been made aware of the white man's superiority and dominance. He watches it every night on television. And he has only to recall that almost every treaty has been violated at one time or another.
Consequently, the Indian student often takes the role of a rabbit or fox and relies on cunning.
THE RABBIT IS a key symbol of the Seminole Indians of Florida, and the Indian takes great pride in tricking or hoodwinking the white man; however, he does not consider it lying.
One student told of a friend who worked at a service station near the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. The station was on a main highway where several tourists passed.
They would stop and, seeing the Indian attendant,
ask him if there were any Indians around and what time and where could they be seen.
The student said his friend would look at his watch, ponder a moment and then say, "Well, it's about 3 o'clock—if you'll drive down the road three miles and wait on the hill, they'll be out in a few minutes."
ONE WONDERS HOW many tourists waited on the hill and how long.
And so the Indian comes to Haskell to receive his training. He is proud and he is shy. Many are uncertain as to what experiences will be encountered.
They know Haskell and they consider it a great opportunity to learn a trade. They have heard their relatives and friends talk of Haskell.
Older Indians know it as a school that used to massacre such football giants as Minnesota, Michigan State and Notre Dame. They know it as the school that was denied membership into the Missouri Valley Conference because the Haskell teams outclassed the others.
THEY KNOW HASKELL as the school that produced John Levi, the All-America football player, and Billy Mills, who attended Haskell from 1953-1957, and who last year won the United States a gold medal by winning the 10,000 meter race in the Olympic games at Tokyo. Now the great football teams are gone and so is the high school that produced so many outstanding athletes.
Former Haskell students associated these great athletes with the warriors of old age and the image of Haskell was a symbol of change for the Indian—from warrior to athlete.
Now, with the great teams gone and Haskell offering only vocational training, the image has undergone another change—from athlete to welder. Thus, a conflict has arisen between the student and the institution.
Tomorrow: The Conflict. — Robert J. Rollins
The People Say...
The editors welcome letters of opinion from all Kansan readers. We reserve the right to edit all letters for style, content and unreasonable length. All letters must be signed. Opinions expressed in letters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors.
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To the Editor:
THE STUDENT AND FACulty opponents of our Viet Nam policy have used many and varied concoctions of fancy and fact (always twisted) to show why we should abandon South Viet Nam, ranging from colored analyses, to parables, to pure bunk. However, each of their techniques utilizes rationalization. Some of the policy opponents have such sophisticated powers of rationalization that it makes one feel they could have, if called upon, given a suave set of excuses for handing Anne Frank over to her tormentors — provided, of course, her tormentors were Communists instead of Nazis. Doubtless, they could say "Anne Frank isn't concerned with ideological questions," or "It's none of my business; I'm not her guardian," or "She's ignorant." But who am I to suggest anything to the Pros! They have demonstrated they
can handle themselves quite well in matters of rationalization. They have made an art of it. For example:
They portray a campaign of aggression via internal subversion, terror, and guerrilla warfare as "a glorious, indigenous revolution."
THEY CLAIM WE make Communists by resisting Communists; but they refuse to remember that Truman and Marshall, in explicit accordance with their viewpoint, left China alone . . . to become a Communist nation of 700 million.
They spill crocodile tears over how much the war is hurting the South Vietnamese; yet, when the U.S. marines used tear gas in order to capture a village from the V.C. without injuring the civilian population, they decry it as a "monstrous atrocity."
They tear their hair out about the prestige we are losing among such notable friends of peace and freedom as Sukarno, who has vowed to "crush Malaysia" and who threatened to "shoot" student demonstrators. Yet, they hold little regard for the opinions of the free people of Australia, New Zealand, or West Berlin, people who still have faith in our word.
We were thinking...
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
- Abraham Lincoln
They insist we should provide economic assistance alone, but remain silent about the Viet Cong destroying our medical aid stations and murdering their personnel.
They apologize for practically every Communist action, but denounce all of ours.
The rest of us want peace, also, but we know it can't be won by ignoring disguised aggression. Even from the Left.
WE ARE PRESENTLY at both the brightest and, yes, the darkest moments in our history. We are in our brightest moment because we are keeping our word to defend millions of human beings (not their government) from a militant enslavement far more ruthless and permanent than anything they have ever known. We are doing this alone in the midst of a storm of howls from the Look - the - Other - Wayers, at great cost but no profit to ourselves. We are merciful enough to forgive the South Vietnamese for being a far away, yellow, poor, and ignorant people; we are keeping alive for them the hope, and chance at least, for freedom. And we are at our darkest moment because our own freedom is being threatened, not only by Communism and by a population explosion of the uneducated, but by some of the educated. The very people who have benefited most from freedom are taking it for granted and are denouncing its defense.
Paul Lindouist
Prairie Village
Pharmacy
2
Daily Kansas
Thursday, January 13, 1966
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LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
by Dick Bibier