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United States. Office of Indian Affairs / Annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the year 1905, Part I
([1905])
Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, pp. 1-155
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Page 12
12 REPORTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. it so distinctly in her mind that she needed no pattern. Now, 4t what point can we break into this chain and substitute a foreign link without changing the character of the whole? A connoisseur in Navaho blankets, who loves them for the humanity that has been woven into them, and not merely for their waterproof texture or their warmth, balks when he discovers in the design one shape which is not Indian or one color which bears the aniline taint. The charm begins to fade away with the first intrusion of the Caucasian hand into the work. So, if we first waive the questions of Indian wool and native dyes, and then set up a loom of modern device, why not make a clean sweep of the whole business and get rid of the Navaho woman, too? The product of these changed conditions would bear about the same relation to the real Navaho blanket that Lamb's Tales bear to Shakespeare. The made-over Indian is bound to be like the. Navaho blanket from which all the Navaho has been expurgated-neither one thing nor the other. I like the Indian for what is Indian in him. I want to see his splendid inherited physique kept up, because he glories, like his ancestors, in fresh air, in freedom, in activity, in feats of strength. I want him to retain all his old contempt for hunger, thirst, cold, and danger when he has anything to do. I love the spirit of manly independence which moved a copper- colored sage once to beg that I would intercede with the Great Father and throttle a proposal to send rations to his people, because it would pauperize their young men and make them slaves to the whites. I have no sympathy with the sentiment which would throw the squaw's bead bag into the rubbish heap and set her to making lace. Teach her lace making, by all means, just as you would teach her bread making, as an addition to her stock of profitable accomplishments; but don't set down her beaded moccasins as, merely barbarous, while holding up her lace handkerchief as a symbol of advanced civilization. The Indian is a natural warrior, a natural logician, a natural artist. We have room for all three in our highly organized social system. Let us not make the mistake, in the process of absorbing them, of washing out of them whatever is distinctly Indian. Our aboriginal brother brings, as his contribution to the common store of character, a great deal which is admirable, and which needs only to be developed along the right line. Our proper work with him is improvement, not transformation. PRESERVING INDIAN MUSIC. It is in pursuance of the general idea of saving instead of crush- ing what is genuinely characteristic in the Indian and building upon this, that with your approval . and authority I have taken steps
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