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The Indian as an Artist
As an artist in wood-carving, the Indian, I should say,
stands almost without a rival. He will elaborate the most
beautiful specimens in this kind of work; though he generally
directs his skill to the embellishing of walking sticks and the
like articles, which (their ornate appearance alone precluding
their practical use) the white only buys with the view of
preserving as ornaments. The Indian, therefore, would do well to
allow his skill in this line to take a wider range, since, by so
doing, he would not only bring about larger sales to enrich his
not over-filled money-chest, but he would also extend his fame
as an artist. The pencil, in the hand of the Indian, is often
made to limn exquisite figures, and to trace delightful
landscape-work. I am confident that he would, with appropriate
training, cause his fame to be known in this line also. The
Indian woman is a marvelous adept at bead-work, though her
specimens disclose, usually, finer execution, than they do a
tasteful or faultless associating of colors.
His Schools
The New England Company, an English
Corporation have established, and maintain, in addition to the
Mohawk Institute, which is on unreserved lands, a large number
of schools for the education of the Indian youth. It is a
question whether these schools really secure the patronage that
the philanthropic spirit of their founders hoped for. The
shyness of the girls is so marked (a trait I have observed even
among the adult women) as to lead to a small attendance, of this
element, at least, where the teacher is a white young man--in
truth, a very ultra-manifestation of the peculiarity.
The Mohawk Institute contemplates the receiving of
pupils who have reached a certain standard of proficiency, their
boarding, and their education. It is an institution the aim of
which is truly a noble one, the throwing back upon the Reserve
of educated young men and women, who shall be qualified to go
about life's work, fortified with knowledge, to pave the way to
success in any walk of life that may be chosen. The Mohawk
Institute has secured, in the person of its principal and
directing power, one who is imbued with the desire so to use its
powerful agency as to compass the maximum of good among the
Indians.
Considerations Upon His
Standing As A Minor
Is it a wise or a politic thing in
the Government to seek to brand the Indian, in perpetuity, as a
minor in the eye of the law? Repressing in him anything like
self-assertion, is not, to hold him such, fatal to his
self-respect? Does it not make him doubt his manhood entirely?
Does it really, save in the single respect of the restraining of
his drinking, conserve his true interests?
Is that a judicious law, which, while decreeing the
Indian's disability for making a contract with a white man, yet
visits upon him no penalty when he evades and contemns such law;
which, guaranteeing to him immunity for violating or dishonoring
his engagement, prompts him to cast about for some new and,
haply, more admired expedient, whereby he may circumvent and
defraud his creditor? Is that an enviable position for one to be
placed in, who, ignorant of the disability I have mentioned, and
guileless enough to suppose, that an Indian, who has fair
worldly substance, when he gives a promissory note, means to pay
it, and who, in that belief, surrenders to him valuable
property, only to find afterwards that the debt is irrecoverable
by legal process, and the chattels are likewise, by moral, or
any other effectual, process?
It will be said that the white should not be a party to
a contract with an Indian. Well, man is often trustful, and he
does not always foresee the disaster that his trustfulness shall
incur. He frequently credits his white fellow with an honorable
instinct: why may he not, sometimes, impute it to the Indian?
The law, so far as it involves the restraining of the
Indian's drinking, cannot be impeached: and in the application
to the white of a similar law lies the only solution of the
temperance problem.
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