WAHIAH—A SPARTAN MOTHER
THE BOOK OF THEAMERICAN INDIAN
From a casual point of view the Indian Agency at Darlington was dull and commonplace if not actually dispiriting. The sun blazed hot in the roadway which ran between the licensed shops, the office and the issue house. Lean dogs were slinking about. A few bedraggled red women with shawls over their heads stood talking softly together on the trader’s porch. A group of warriors in the shade of the blacksmith shop were discussing some ancient campaign, while now and then a clerk in shirt sleeves, his hands full of papers, moved across the plaza, his step quickened by the sting of the sun.
A little back from the street the school building sat bleakly exposed on the sod, flanked on each side by still more inhospitable dormitories—all humming with unseen life. Across the river—the one grateful, gracious touch of all—the yellowed conical tents of the Cheyennes rose amidst green willows, and far beyond, on the beautiful velvet green of the prairies, their untethered ponies fed.
To the careless observer this village was lonely, repulsive; to the sympathetic mind it was a place of drama, for there the passions, prejudices, ancestral loves and hates of two races met and clashed.
There the man of the polished stone age was trying, piteously, tragically trying, to take on the manner of life of a race ten thousand years in advance of him, and there a few devoted Quakers wereattempting to lead the nomads into the ways of the people of the plow.
The Cheyennes, at the time practically military prisoners, had given but a nominal consent to the education of their children, and many individuals openly opposed it. For the most part the pupils in the school wore buckskin shirts and were the wastrels and orphans of the tribe, neglected and stupid. The fine, bold sons of the principal chiefs would not surrender their freedom, and their contempt for those who did was expressed in the cry, “Ahyah! Whiteman, Whiteman!”
It will appear that the problem before the teacher of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe school in those days was not merely to govern the pupils in the schoolroom, but to induce men like Tomacham and Tontonava to send their own brave and handsome sons. With great native wit and shrewdness, Seger, the newly appointed master, said to the agent: “Our point of attack is the child. The red man’s love for his offspring is very deep. We must also convince the mothers. They are the conservative forces.”
The young teacher, Seger, had already won many friends among the chief men by his unfailing helpfulness as well as sympathy with their ways, and not content with the few pupils he had, he went out among the tepees pleading the cause of education with the fathers in the hearing of the mothers.
The old men listened gravely and for the most part courteously—never interrupting, weighing each word as it fell. Some of them admitted the reasonableness of his plea. “We think you are telling us the truth,” they said, “but our hearts will not let us go with you on the road. We love the old things. We do not like these new things. We despise the white man’s clothing—we do not want our sons to go crop-haired like a black man. We have left the warpath—never to go back to it. What is before us we do not know—but we are not yet ready to give our children into your hands.” And the women sitting near applauded and said, “Aye, aye!”
Seger argued: “What will you do? The buffaloes are gone. The elk and deer are going. Your sons cannot live by hunting—they must live as the white man lives—by tilling the earth.”
“All that is strange,” darkly answered Tomacham. “We are as the Great Spirit made us. We cannot change. If the Great One wished us to be white why did He not make us so in the first place?”
Nevertheless, Seger’s words sank deep in the ears of Tomacham and Wahiah, his wife, and one day the chief appeared at the door of the school bringing his son Atokan, a splendid young lad of fourteen—handsome as a picture of Hiawatha, with his fringed leggins, beaded shirt, shining, braided hair and painted cheeks. Behind—a long way back—came the mother.
“You see I have brought my son,” began the chief after Seger’s delighted greeting.
“It is good. He will make a fine man.”
The chief’s face clouded. “I do not bring him to become like these,” and he pointed at a couple of stupid, crop-haired boys who stood gaping at him. “I bring my son to learn to read and write, but he must not be clipped and put into white man’s clothing. He can follow your ways without losing his hair. Our way of dress pleases us better.”
Seger was obstinate. “I will not take him. If he comes he must do as the rest—and he must obey me!”
The old chief stood in silence looking on his son, whose grace and dignity appealed even to the teacher’s unæsthetic mind, and his eyes grew dim with prophetic sadness. The mother drew near, and Tomacham turned and spoke to her and told her what the white man said.
“No, no!” she wailed.
Then Tomacham was resolved: “No, my friend, I cannot do it. Let me have him one more day. I cannot bear to leave him to become a white man to-day. See, there is his mother, waiting,weeping; let him be a small, red brave till to-morrow. I have given my word; I will bring him.”
With some understanding of the chief’s ache in the heart Seger consented, and Tomacham let his young warrior stay home for one more day of the old kind.
What sorrowful ceremonies took place in that well-smoked tepee Seger did not know, but next day the chief came again; he was very sorrowful and very tender, but the boy’s face was sullen, his head drooping.
Slowly the father said: “Friend, I have thought all night of what you have said to me. The mother is singing a sad song in our tepee, but we have decided. We give our boy into your hands; teach him the road.”
And with a quiet word to his son the heroic red man turned and went away to hide his quivering lips. It was as if he had given his son to an alien tribe, never to see him again.
When the mother saw her boy next day she burst into a moan of resentful pain. All his wild, free grace was gone. His scissored hair was grotesque. His clumsy gray coat pinched his shoulders, his trousers were absurdly short, and his boots hard and clumsy. He slunk into the circle of the fire like a whipped dog and would not lift his head even in reply to questions. Tomacham smoked hard to keep back the tears, but his mind was made up, his word given. “We are on the road—we cannot turn back,” he said, though it cut him to the heart to see his eaglet become a barnyard fowl.
By this time Seger had reduced the school to something like order, and the pupils were learning fast; but truancy continued to render his afternoon sessions farcical, for as soon as they had eaten their midday meal many of the children ran away to the camp across the river and there remained the entire afternoon. Others paid no heed to the bell, but played on till weary before returningto the school. In all this rebellion Atokan was a leader, and Seger, after meditating long, determined on a form of discipline which might have appalled the commander of a regiment of cavalry. He determined to apply the rod.
Now this may seem a small thing, but it was not; it was a very momentous thing. It was indeed the most dangerous announcement he could make to a warlike tribe chafing under restraint, for red people are most affectionate parents and very seldom lay violent hands upon their children or even speak harshly to them. Up to this time no white man had ever punished a red child, and when Seger spoke to the agent about it he got no help; on the contrary, the old Quaker said:
“Friend Seger, I think thee a very rash young man and I fear thee will involve us all in a bloody outbreak.” Then he added, “Can’t thee devise something else?”
“I must have discipline,” argued Seger. “I can’t have my pupils making a monkey of me. There are only four or five that need welting, and if you give me leave to go ahead I’ll make ’em toe the mark; otherwise, I’ll resign.”
“Thee can go ahead,” testily exclaimed the agent. “But thee sees how we are situated. We have no troops in call. Thee knows, also, that I do not approve of force; and yet,” he added, in reflection, “we have made a failure of the school—thee alone seems to have any control of the pupils. It is not for me to criticize. Proceed on thy way, but I will not be responsible for any trouble thee may bring upon thyself.”
“I will take all that comes,” responded Seger—who had been trained in the school of the Civil War, “and I will not involve you in any outbreak.”
That night Seger made his announcement: “Hereafter every scholar must obey my bell—and return to the schoolroom promptly. Those who do not will be whipped.”
The children looked at him as if he had gone crazy.
He went on: “Go home and tell your people. Ask them to think it over—but remember to be here at sunset, and after this every bell must be obeyed instantly.”
The children ran at once to the camp, and the news spread like some invisible vapor, and soon every soul in the entire agency, red and white alike, was athrill with excitement. The half-breeds (notoriously timorous) hastened to warn the intrepid schoolmaster: “Don’t do that. They will kill you.” The old scouts and squaw-men followed: “Young feller, you couldn’t dig out of the box a nastier job—you better drop it right now and skip.”
“I am going to have discipline,” said Seger, “or tan the jacket of every boy I’ve got.”
Soon after this he met Tomacham and Tontonava, both men of great influence. After greeting him courteously Tomacham said:
“I hear that you said you were going to whip our children. Is this true?”
“It is!” answered Seger, curtly.
“That is very wrong and very foolish,” argued Tontonava. “We did not give our children into your care to be smitten with rods as the soldiers whip mules.”
“If the children act like mules I will whip them,” persisted Seger. “I punish only bad children—I do not beat good ones.”
“It is not our custom to strike our children. Do you think we will permit white men to do so?” asked Tontonava, breathing hard.
Assuming an air of great and solemn deliberation, Seger said, using the sign language to enforce his words: “Go home and think of this. The Great Father has built this schoolhouse for your children. He has given them warm clothing and good food. He has given them beds to sleep in and a doctor to help them when they are sick. Now listen. Miokany is speaking. So long as they enjoy all these things they are bound to obey me. They must obey me, their teacher,” and he turned and left the two old men standing there, amazed and indignant.
That night all the camps were filled with a discussion of this wondrous thing. Seger’s threat was taken up formally by the men in council and informally by the women. It was pivotal, this question of punishment—it marked their final subjection to the white man.
“If we lose our children, then surely we are doomed to extinction,” Tomacham said.
“Let us fight!” cried fierce Unko. “What is the use of sitting here like chained wolves till we starve and die? Let us go out against this white man and perish gloriously.” And a few applauded him.
But the graver men counseled patience and peace.
“We do not fear death—but we do not wish to be bound and sent away into the mysterious hot lands where our brethren languish.”
“Then let us go to the school and frighten ‘Johnny Smoker’ so that he will not dare to whip any child,” cried Unko.
To this Tomacham answered: “‘Johnny Smoker’ is my friend. I do not wish to harm him. Let us see him again and counsel with him.”
“No,” answered Unko. “Let us face him and command him to let our children alone. If he strikes my child he must die.”
And to this many of the women cried out in piercing nasal tones: “Ah, that is good—do that!”
But Wahiah, the mother of Atokan, looked at the ground and remained silent.
When the pupils next assembled they were as demure as quails, and Seger knew that they had been warned by their parents not to incur their teacher’s displeasure; but Atokan looked aside, his proud head lifted. Beside him sat a fine boy, two years younger, son of Unko, and it was plain that they were both ready to rebel.
The master recognized the gravity of the moment. If he did not punish, according to his word, his pupils would despise him, his discipline was at an end; and to stripe the backs of these high-spiritedlads was to invite death—that he knew better than any white man could tell him. To provoke an outbreak would be a colossal crime, and yet he was a stubborn little man—persistent as a bulldog—capable of sacrificing himself in working out a theory. When a friendly half-breed came late that night and warned him that the camp was in debate whether to kill him or not he merely said: “You tell them I am doing the will of the Great Father at Washington and I am not afraid. What they do to me will fly to Washington as the light flies, and the soldiers will come back as swiftly.”
Immediately after school opened next morning several of the parents of the children came quickly in and took seats, as they were accustomed to do, along the back wall behind the pupils. They were graver than usual—but otherwise gave no sign of anger and remained decorously quiet. Among them was Wahiah.
The master went on with firm voice and ready smile with the morning’s work, well aware that the test of his authority would come after intermission, when he rang the bell to recall his little squad to their studies.
As the children ran out to play all the old people followed and took seats in the shade of the building, silent and watchful. The assistant teacher, a brave little woman, was white with excitement as Seger took the bell some ten minutes later and went to the door personally to give the signal for return. He rang as cheerily as if he were calling to a feast, but many of the employees shuddered as if it were their death knell.
The larger number of the children came scurrying, eager to show their obedience, but a squad of five or six of the boys remained where they were, as if the sound of the bell had not reached them. Seger rang again and called personally: “Come, boys, time to work.”
At this three others broke away from the rebellious group and came slowly toward him, but Atokan and the son of Unko turned toward the river.