We were sitting about the fire in
the lodge on Two Medicine. Double Runner, Small Leggings, Mad
Wolf, and the Little Blackfoot were smoking and talking, and I
was writing in my notebook. As I put aside the book, and reached
out my hand for the pipe, Double Runner bent over and picked up
a scrap of printed paper, which had fallen to the ground. He
looked at it for a moment without speaking, and then, holding it
up and calling me by name, said:
"Pi-nut-u-ye is-tsim-okan, this is education. Here is
the difference between you and me, between the Indians and the
white people. You know what this means. I do not. If I did know,
I should be as smart as you. If all my people knew, the white
people would not always get the best of us."
"Nisah (elder brother), your words are true. Therefore
you ought to see that your children go to school, so that they
may get the white man's knowledge. When they are men, they will
have to trade with the white people; and if they know nothing,
they can never get rich. The times have changed. It will never
again be as it was when you and I were young."
"You say well, Pi-nut-u-ye is-tsim-okan, I have seen
the days; and I know it is so. The old things are passing away,
and the children of my children will be like white people. None
of them will know how it used to be in their father's days
unless they read the things which we have told you, and which
you are all the time writing down in your books."
"They are all written down, Nisah, the story of the
three tribes, Sik-si-kau, Kainah, and Pik[)u]ni."
For additional information about this author and his
insight into the Indian and our government, please read
Indians and their Stories... or
about the Author.
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