[Illustration: DOG DANCER]
“Tomorrow is Indian Day,” said the boy named Billy, “and there
isn’t going to be any school; we’re all going out to see their
games and get acquainted; anybody seen my scout suit? It isn’t in
my closet.”
“It has gone to the cleaner’s,” said Mother. “I knew you’d want
it tomorrow and so I sent it out; it will be back this afternoon.”
“Thanks, Mom,” said Billy, “you always do think of everything.
Why are the Indians called Indian? Did they name themselves that
the way other people do?”
“No,” said Somebody. “That was the name Columbus gave to the
natives when he reached the islands and mainland of our country
under the impression that he had arrived at the coast of Asia,
which he had set out to find.”
“How did those people ever come to be here?”
“It is supposed,” said Somebody, “that they had crossed from
Asia to Alaska, and were cut off in some way from returning and
so drifted inland and started colonies which prospered until it
spread across the whole continent. Some may have come from China,
and there is even a tradition that some were from the lost tribes
of Israel, but no one really knows. All we know is that if they
were not really natives of this land that they must have come
from somewhere and that they had degenerated into savages or had
never been lifted above it.
“But take it all in all they were pretty good savages until they
were aroused by the whites; they had laws of their own, and a
religion, and real languages distinguishing the different tribes;
they had kings and principalities, and the Great Spirit was very
real to them. To the Indian everything in Nature had a real
personality and was inhabited by a spirit either good or bad.
“They believed in monsters, and fairies and witches. The women
were the only ones who could declare war, and when prisoners were
brought in they had the right to adopt them into the tribe, or if
they did not like them to send them to death.”
“Sweet and gentle ladies, weren’t they?” said the boy named
Billy. “I’m glad that they’re just folks nowadays.”
“I’m glad also,” said Somebody, “and this move to have a day set
aside for the purpose of getting better acquainted is a move in
the right direction.”
“I wonder who thought of doing that,” asked the boy named Billy.
“The idea of having a day set apart for the celebration of
the deeds of the red race belongs to Mr. A. C. Parker, State
Archaeologist of New York, who launched it at the National
Conference at Denver; but no date being set at that time it was
later taken up at the Lawrence Kansas conference, when President
Coolidge of the Society of American Indians moved to have May
13th appointed as Indian Day, which was done. The different
states, in addition to this, have nearly all set apart days of
their own as Indian days. That of Illinois being September 4th.”
“We folks in America do get around to doing our duty in time, if
you give us time enough,” said the boy named Billy.
“It was high time in this case,” said Somebody.
“Sure was,” said Billy. “I’m going to get acquainted with some
Indian about my own age and get some pointers about how to use
that bow and arrow Uncle Ned brought me from out west!”