confidence because of her sincerity, tact, and warm human sympathy.
She not only learned their speech and manners but also the language of
their hearts. Her love of Nature helped her to a ready understanding of
these children of Nature or Wakonda--as they called the spirit of life
that breathes through earth and sky, rocks, streams, plants, all living
creatures, and the tribes of men. The beautiful ceremony by which,
soon after his birth, each Omaha child was presented to the powers of
Nature showed this sense of kinship between the people and their world.
A priest of the tribe stood outside the wigwam to which the new life
had been sent, and with right hand outstretched to the heavens chanted
these words in a loud voice:
Ho, ye Sun, Moon, Stars, all ye that move in the heavens,
I bid ye hear me!
Into your midst has come a new life;
Consent ye, I implore!
Make its path smooth, that it may reach
The brow of the first hill.
Next the forces of the air--winds, clouds, mist, and rain--were called
upon to receive the young child and smooth the path to the second hill.
Then hills, valleys, rivers, lakes, trees, and all growing things were
invoked, after which the spirits of birds, animals, and all moving
creatures were summoned to make the path smooth to the third and fourth
hills. As the priest intoned the noble appeal to all the powers of the
earth and air and bending heavens, even those who could not understand
the words would know that the four hills meant childhood, youth,
manhood, and age, and that a new life was being presented to the forces
of the universe of which it was a part. So it was that each child was
thought of as belonging to Wakonda--to the spirit of all life--before he
belonged to the tribe. For it was not until he was four or five years
old that he gave up his "baby name," such as Bright Eyes, Little Bird,
or Baby Squirrel, and was given a real name and received into the life
of the people.
Miss Fletcher soon became interested in the music of the Indians. Her
trained ear told her that here was something new. The haunting bits
of melody and strange turns of rhythm were quite different from any
old-world tunes.
"At first it was very hard to hear them," said Miss Fletcher. "The
Indians never sang to be heard by others. Their singing was a
spontaneous expression of their feeling--for the most part, religious
feeling. In their religious ceremonies the noise of the dancing and of
the drums and rattles often made it very hard to really catch the sound
of the voice."
Day after day she strove to hear and write down bits of the music, but
it was almost like trying to imprison the sound of the wind in the
tree-tops.
"Do you remember," said Miss Fletcher, "how the old Saxon poet tried to
explain the mystery of life by saying it was like a bird flying through
the windows of a lighted hall out of the darkness to darkness again?
An Indian melody is like that. It has no preparations, no beginning. It
flashes upon you and is gone, leaving only a teasing memory behind."
While this lover of music was vainly trying to catch these strangely
beautiful strains of melody, the unaccustomed hardships of her life
brought upon her a long illness. There was compensation, however, for
when she could no longer go after the thing she sought it came to her.
Her Indian friends who had found out that she was interested in their
songs gathered about her couch to sing them for her.
"So my illness was after all like many of our so-called trials, a
blessing in disguise," said Miss Fletcher. "I was left with this
lameness, but I had the music. The sigh had become a song!"
You have, perhaps, heard of the great interest that many learned people
have in the songs and stories of simple folk--the folk-songs and
folk-tales of different lands. Did you know that Sir Walter Scott's
first work in literature was the gathering of the simple ballads of the
Scottish peasants which they had long repeated just as you repeat the
words of "ring games" learned from other children?
Did you know that most of the fairy stories and hero tales that you
love were told by people who had never held a book in their hands, and
were repeated ages and ages ago before the time of books? Just as it
is true that broad, flowing rivers have their source in streams that
well up out of the ground, so it is true that the literature of every
nation has its source in the fancies that have welled up out of the
hearts and imaginations of the simple people. The same thing is true of
music. Great composers like Brahms and Liszt took the wild airs of the
Hungarian gypsies and made them into splendid compositions that all the
world applauds. Chopin has done this with the songs of the simple Polish
folk. Dvorák, the great Bohemian composer, has made his "New World
Symphony" of negro melodies, and Cadman and others are using the native
Indian music in the same way.
Just as the Grimm brothers went about among the German peasants to learn
their interesting stories, just as Sir George Dasent worked to get the
tales of the Norse, so Alice Cunningham Fletcher worked to preserve the
songs and stories of the Indians. Others have come after her and have
gone on with the work she began, following the trail she blazed. All
musicians agree that this native song with its fascinating and original
rhythms may prove the source of inspiration for American composers of
genius and give rise to our truest new-world music.
Much of Miss Fletcher's work is preserved in great learned volumes, such
as "The Omaha Tribe," published by the National Government, for she
wrote as a scientist for those who will carry on the torch of science
into the future. But realizing that the music would mean much to many
who cannot enter upon the problems with which the wise men concern
themselves, she has presented many of the songs in a little book called
"Indian Story and Song." We find there, for instance, the "Song of the
Laugh" sung when the brave young warrior recounts the story of the way
he has slain his enemy with his own club and so helped to fill with fear
the foes of his tribe.
We find, too, the story of the youth who begins his life as a man by a
lonely vigil when by fasting he proves his powers of endurance.
The Omaha tribal prayer is the solemn melody that sounded through the
forests of America long before the white man came to this country--a cry
of the yearning human spirit to Wakonda, the spirit of all life.
Try to picture Miss Fletcher surrounded by her Indian friends,
explaining to them carefully all about the strange machine before
which she wants them to sing. For the graphophone was a field worker
with her--for a time her chief assistant in catching the elusive
Indian songs. Perhaps there could have been no greater proof of their
entire confidence in her than their willingness to sing for her again
and again, and even to give into the keeping of her queer little
black cylinders the strains that voiced their deepest and most sacred
feelings. For Indian music is, for the most part, an expression of the
bond between the human spirit and the unseen powers of Nature. It must
have been that they felt from the first that here was some one who
understood them because she, too, loved the Nature they knew and loved.
While Miss Fletcher was thus happily at work she became aware, however,
that there was keen distress among these friends to whom she had
become warmly attached. Some of their neighbors, the Ponca Indians,
had been removed from their lands to the dreaded "hot country"--Indian
Territory--and the Omaha people feared that the same thing might
happen to them, for it was very easy for unprincipled white men to
take advantage of the Indians who held their lands as a tribe, not as
individuals.
Always on the frontier of settlement there were bold adventurers who
coveted any promising tracts of land that the Indians possessed. They
said to themselves, "We could use this country to much better advantage
than these savages, therefore it should be ours." They then would
encroach more and more on the holdings of the Indians, defying them
by every act which said plainly, "A Redskin has no rights!" Sometimes
when endurance could go no further the Indians would rise up in active
revolt. Then what more easy than to cry out, "An Indian uprising! There
will be a massacre! Send troops to protect us from the mad fury of the
savages!" The Government would then send a detachment of cavalry to
quell the outbreak, after which it would seem wiser to move the Indians
a little farther away from contact with the white men, who now had just
what they had been working toward from the first--the possession of the
good land.
Miss Fletcher realized that the only remedy for this condition was for
each Indian to secure from the Government a legal title to a portion
of the tribal grant which he might hold as an individual. She left her
happy work with the music and went to Washington to explain to the
President and to Congress the situation as she knew it. The cause was,
at this time, greatly furthered by the appearance of a book by Helen
Hunt Jackson, called "A Century of Dishonor," an eloquent presentation
of the Indians' wrongs and a burning plea for justice.
There was need, however, of some practical worker, who knew the Indians
and Indian affairs intimately, to point to a solution of the problem.
The conscience of the people was aroused, but they did not know how it
was possible to prevent in the future the same sort of wrongs that had
made the past hundred years indeed "a century of dishonor." Then the
resolute figure of Miss Alice Fletcher appeared on the scene. She was
well known to the government authorities for her valuable scientific
work. Here was some one they knew, who really could explain the exact
state of affairs and who could also interpret fairly the mind of the
Indian. She could be depended on as one who would not be swayed by mere
sentimental considerations. She would know the practical course to
pursue.
"Let the Indians hold their land as the white men hold theirs," she
said. "That is the only way to protect them from wrong and to protect
the Government from being a helpless partner to the injustice that is
done them."
[Illustration: Alice C. Fletcher]
Now, it is one thing to influence people who are informed and interested
and quite another to awaken the interest of those who are vitally
concerned with totally different things. Miss Fletcher realized that
if anything was to be actually accomplished she must leave no stone
unturned to bring the matter to the attention of those who had not
heretofore given a thought to the Indian question and the responsibility
of the Government. She presented a petition to Congress and worked early
and late to drive home to the people the urgent need of legislation
in behalf of the Indians. She spoke in clubs, in churches, in private
houses, and before committees in Congress. And actually the busy
congressmen who always feel that there is not half time enough to
consider measures by which their own States and districts will profit,
gave right of way to the Indian Land Act, and in 1882 it became a law.
There was the need of the services of some disinterested person to
manage the difficult matter of dividing the tribal tracts and allotting
to each Indian his own acres, and Miss Fletcher was asked by the
President to undertake this work.
"Why do you trust Miss Fletcher above any one else?" asked President
Cleveland on one occasion when he was receiving a delegation of Omahas
at the White House.
"We have seen her in our homes; we have seen her in her home. We find
her always the same," was the reply.
The work which Miss Fletcher did in allotting the land to the Omahas
was so successfully handled that she was appealed to by the Government
to serve in the same capacity for the Winnebago and Nez Percé Indians.
The law whose passage was secured by her zeal was the forerunner the
Severalty Act of 1885 which marked a change in policy of the Government
and ushered in a better era for all the Indian tribes.
"What led you to undertake this important work?" Miss Fletcher was asked.
"The most natural desire in the world--the impulse to help my friends
where I saw the need," she replied. "I did not set out resolved to have
a career--to form and to reform. There is no story in my life. It has
always been just one step at a time--one thing which I have tried to do
as well as I could and which has led on to something else. It has all
been in the day's work."
Miss Fletcher has been much interested in the work of the Boy and Girl
Scouts and in the Campfire Societies, because she feels that in this way
many children are brought to an appreciation of the great out-of-doors
and win health, power, and joy which the life of cities cannot give. For
them she has made a collection of Indian games and dances.
"Just as the spirit of Sir Walter Scott guides us through the Scottish
lake country and as Dickens leads us about old London, so the spirit of
the Indians should make us more at home in the forests of America," said
Miss Fletcher. "In sharing the happy fancies of these first children of
America we may win a new freedom in our possession of the playground of
the great out-of-doors."
THE "WHITE MOTHER" OF DARKEST AFRICA:
MARY SLESSOR
I am ready to go anywhere, provided it be forward.
DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
God can't give His best till we have given ours!
MARY SLESSOR.
THE "WHITE MOTHER" OF DARKEST AFRICA
Among all the weavers in the great factory at Dundee there was no girl
more deft and skilful than Mary Slessor. She was only eleven when she
had to help shoulder the cares of the household and share with the frail
mother the task of earning bread for the hungry children. For the little
family was worse than fatherless. The man who had once been a thrifty,
self-respecting shoemaker had become a slave to drink; and his life was
a burden to himself and to those who were nearest and dearest to him.
"Dinna cry, mither dear," Mary had said. "I can go to the mills in the
morning and to school in the afternoon. It will be a glad day, earning
and learning at the same time!"
So Mary became a "half-timer" in the mills. At six o'clock every morning
she was at work among the big whirling wheels. Even the walls and
windows seemed to turn sometimes as the hot wind came in her face from
the whizzing belts, and the roar of the giant wheels filled all her day
with din and clamor.
But as Mary worked week after week, she learned more than the trick
of handling the shuttle at the moving loom. She learned how to send
her thoughts far away from the noisy factory to a still place of
breeze-stirred trees and golden sunshine. Sometimes a book, which she
had placed on the loom to peep in at free moments, helped her to slip
away in fancy from the grinding toil. What magic one could find in the
wonderful world of books! The wheels whirled off into nothingness, the
walls melted away like mist, and her spirit was free to wander through
all the many ways of the wide world. And so it was that she went from
the hours of work and earning to the hours of study and learning with a
blithe, morning face, her brave soul shining through bright eager eyes.
"When we're all dragged out, and feel like grumbling at everything and
nothing seems of any use at all, Mary Slessor is still up and coming, as
happy as a cricket," said one of the girls who worked by her side. "She
makes you take heart in spite of yourself, and think it's something to
be glad over just to be living and working."
"It's wonderful the way your hand can go on with the shuttle and do the
turn even better than you could if you stopped to take thought," Mary
would explain. "That leaves your mind free to go another way. Now this
morning I was not in the weaving shed at all; I was far away in Africa,
seeing all the strange sights the missionary from Calabar told us about
last night at meeting."
Heaven was very near to Mary Slessor, and the stars seemed more real
than the street lamps of the town. She had come to feel that the
troubles and trials of her days were just steps on the path that she
would travel. Always she looked past the rough road to the end of the
journey where there was welcome in the Father's house for all His tired
children. There was, moreover, one bit of real romance in that gray
Scotch world of hers. The thrill of beauty and mystery and splendid
heroism was in the stories that the missionaries told of Africa, the
land of tropical wonders--pathless forests, winding rivers under
bending trees, bright birds, and brighter flowers--and people, hundreds
of black people, with black lives because the light of truth had never
shone in their world. She knew that white people who called themselves
Christians had gone there to carry them away for slaves; and to get
their palm-oil and rubber and give them rum in exchange--rum that was
making them worse than the wild beasts of the jungle. How Mary Slessor
longed to be one to carry the good news of a God of Love to those people
who lived and died in darkness! "Somebody must help those who can't help
themselves!" she said to herself.
"The fields are ripe for the harvest but the laborers are few," one of
the missionaries had said. "We fear the fever and other ills that hide
in the bush more than we fear to fail in God's service. Men have gone to
these people to make money from the products of their land; they have
bought and sold the gifts of their trees; they have bought and sold the
people themselves; they are selling them death to-day in the strong
drink they send there. Is there no one who is willing to go to take life
to these ignorant children who have suffered so many wrongs?"
These words sank deep into Mary Slessor's heart. But it was plain that
her mission was to the little home in Dundee. She was working now among
the turning wheels all day from six until six, and going to school in
the evening; but she found time to share with others the secret of the
joy that she had found, the light that had made the days of toil bright.
The boys that came to her class in the mission school were "toughs" from
the slums of the town, but she put many of them on the road to useful,
happy living. Her brave spirit won them from their fierce lawlessness;
her patience and understanding helped to bring out and fortify the best
that was in them.
Once a much-dreaded "gang" tried to break up the mission with a battery
of mud and jeers. When Mary Slessor faced them quietly, the leader,
boldly confronting her, swung a leaden weight which hung suspended
from a cord, about her head threateningly. It came nearer and nearer
until it grazed her temple, but the mission teacher never flinched. Her
eyes still looked into those of the boy's--bright, untroubled, and
searching. His own dropped, and the missile fell forgotten to the ground.
"She's game, boys!" he cried, surprised out of himself.
And the unruly mob filed into the mission to hear what the "game" lady
had to say. Mary Slessor had never heard of the poet, Horace; but she
had put to the proof the truth of the well-known lines, which declare
that "the man whose life is blameless and free from evil has no need of
Moorish javelins, nor bow, nor quiver full of poisoned arrows."
As in her work with the wild boys of the streets, so in her visits
to the hopeless people of the dark tenements, Mary Slessor was a
powerful influence because she entered their world as one of them,
with a faith in the better self of each that called into new life his
all-but-extinguished longing for better things.
"As she sat by the fire holding the baby and talking cheerily about her
days at the mills and the Sabbath morning at chapel, it seemed as if
I were a girl again, happy and hopeful and ready to meet whatever the
morrow might bring," said a discouraged mother to whom Mary had been a
friend in need.
"It is like hearing the kirk-bells on a Sunday morning at the old home,
hearing your voice, Mary Slessor," said a poor blind woman to whom Mary
had brought the light of restored faith.
For fourteen years this happy Scotch girl worked in the factory for ten
hours each day, and shared her evenings and Sundays with her neighbors
of the mission. Besides, she seized moments by the way for study and
reading. Her mind was hungry to understand the meaning of life and the
truths of religion. One day, in order to find out the sort of mental
food she craved, a friend lent her Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus."
"How are you and Carlyle getting on together?" he asked quizzically when
they next met.
"It is grand!" she replied with earnest enthusiasm. "I sat up reading
it, and was so interested that I did not know what the time was until I
heard the factory bells calling me to work in the morning."
Thus her mind was growing and expanding, while her spirit grew through
faithful work and loyal service. Her simple, direct speech had an
eloquent appeal that went straight to the heart. In spite of an
unconquerable timidity that made her shrink from platform appearances,
her informal addresses had wide influence. Once she rose in her place at
a public meeting and gave a quiet talk on the words: _The common people
heard him gladly._ "And," it was said, "the common people heard _her_
gladly, and crowded around, pleading with her to come again."
In 1874, when every one was stirred by the death of David Livingstone,
Mary Slessor's life was transfigured by a great resolve. The years had
brought changes. Her father was dead, and her sisters were old enough to
share the burden of supporting the family.
"The time has come for me to join the band of light-bearers to the Dark
Continent," said Mary, with a conviction that overcame every obstacle.
"It is my duty to go where the laborers are few. Besides, there must be
a way to work there and send help to mother at home."
She knew that the missionaries were given a stipend to support them
in the manner of the country from which they came. "I shall as far as
possible live on the food of the country," she said. "It may be that
by sharing to a greater extent the conditions of life of the people, I
can come to a fuller understanding of them and they of me. Besides, it
will not be so hard to leave home if I can feel that I am still earning
something for mother."
So Mary Slessor went, after a few months of special preparation to
teach the natives of Calabar. She was at this time twenty-eight years
old. Ever since she was a mere slip of a girl, she had longed to serve
in that most discouraging of fields--"the slums of Africa," it was
called. The people who inhabited that swampy, equatorial region were
the most wretched and degraded of all the negro tribes. They had for
ages been the victims of stronger neighbors, who drove them back from
the drier and more desirable territory that lay farther inland; and of
their own ignorance and superstitions, which were at the root of their
blood-thirsty, savage customs.
It was in September, 1876, that the vessel _Ethiopia_ sailed out of
the clean, blue Atlantic into the mud-colored Calabar River. At its
prow stood Mary Slessor, gazing soberly at the vast mangrove swamps and
wondering about the unknown, unexplored land beyond, where she should
pitch her tent and begin her work. Though white men had for centuries
come to the coast to trade for gold dust, ivory, palm oil, spices,
and slaves, they had never ventured inland, and the natives who lived
near the shore had sought to keep the lion's share of the profit by
preventing the remoter tribes from coming with their goods to barter
directly with the men of the big ships. So only a few miles from the
mouth of the Calabar River was a land where white people had never gone,
whose inhabitants had never seen a white face. It was to this place of
unknown dangers that Mary Slessor was bound.
For a time she remained at the mission settlement to learn the language,
while teaching in the day school. As soon as she gained sufficient ease
in the use of the native speech, she began to journey through the bush,
as the tropical jungles of palms, bananas, ferns, and thick grass were
called. Her heart sang as she went along, now wading through a spongy
morass bright with orchids, now jumping over a stream or the twisted
roots of a giant tree. After the chill grayness of her Scottish country,
this land seemed at first a veritable paradise of golden warmth,
alluring sounds and scents, and vivid color. Now she paused in delight
as a brilliant bird flashed through the branches overhead; now she went
on with buoyant step, drinking in the tropical fragrance with every
breath. Surely so fair a land could not be so deadly as it was said. She
_must_ keep well for the task that lay before her. She could not doubt
that each day would bring strength for the day's work.