NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
The Indian: He Will Not Change 
The Story of a Navajo Girl of New Mexico. 
Change Indian Ways 
By M. J. Brown 
Cannot 
On tthe streets of Alburgurque I 
saw a drunken Indian girl—and I af- 
terward found the reason and a story. 
The sight of a drunken squaw is 
unusual. If there is any boozing the 
bucks do it, but there is little, for the 
reason that the risks are too great 
to serve the fire water to Lo. 
But this Indian girl was one you 
will seldom see in the southwest. Not 
because she was drunk, that was not 
remarkable, but because of the way 
she was dressed. 
No Navajo blanket around _ this 
girl; no leggins, ear rings, bracelets or 
beads. Nothing about her indicated 
the Indian, and only a view of her 
face revealed her ancestry. But she 
was full blood Navajo. 
She was dressed in full fashion and 
she wore a picture hat that probably 
cost more than ther father’s six 
months’ grocery bill. Her clothes 
were expensive, and in good taste. 
She wore a tailored suit of brown, 
with shoes to match and was an all 
around swell-dressed woman. 
And she was drunk—not staggering 
drunk, just noisy. 
Whiskey always fires Indian blood. 
Give the most peaceful buck a couple 
of drinks and he will go to hunting 
an argument, Give him a couple more 
and he will want to sound the war 
whoop, hunt a hatchet and scalp some- 
one. 
But the Indian girl: 
She was handsome as Indian girls 
go, but her eyes were wild and she 
was everything that Minnehaha 
wasn't. 
There were two white men with 
her, two sporty looking fellows, who 
were no doubt ‘‘pasteboard artists.” 
They were trying to persuade her to . 
go up a side street, and she was de- 
termined to parade down the main 
business street, and when one of the 
men took her arm and tried to pull 
her along, she broke loose with aall 
kinds of deliveries of wild west slang 
and protests—and tried to fasten her 
white teeth in the man’s wrist. 
“Shove along you geeks, beat it,” 
she exclaimed, “Any old time I can’t 
walk down the street without help, 
I'll call a taxi. I’m going to give Main 
street a benefit, and, listen now, if 
you fellows butt in I'll have you walk- 
ing lame. Get me?” 
And down the street she went. She 
met. a woman who was leading a pet 
dog and tried to trade her hat for it. 
She sad she wanted to eat the dog 
alive and give the yaps a free show. 
She went into the postoffice and 
told the girl clerk to give her a hand- 
ful of letters or ring for the ambu- 
lance. A deputy sheriff tried to quiet 
her, but she would not tame down. 
She had a dray go with her to a groc- 
ery store and there she told the clerk 
to load up the rig and deliver it to 
the “heathens and orphans.” 
The deputy foresaw that the girl 
would run amuck before her jag wore 
off. He did not want to arrest her. 
He returned in a few minutes with 
a venerable old Isleta Indian. He 
talked with the girl, and soon per- 
suaded ther to leave with him. 
And the story, here it is: 
This girl was one of quite a num- 
ber of the brightest girls picked from 
the Navajo reservation to be taken to 
an Indian school. 
The white man was going to make 
a demonstration. He was going to 
show Lo what he could convert his 
daughter into. 
And the finished product was this 
street scene. 
The white man was going to show 
the beauty of a white man’s educa- 
tion, training and _ civilization. He 
was going to take the real raw ma- 
terial and polish it for usefulness — 
was going to point a moral uplift, 
show to the world that the Indian 
could be moulded to the white man’s 
ways. 
The finished result was a drunken 
Indian girl, associating with gamblers 
and sports. 
The girl was an apt student at the 
school. She was above the average 
in intellect, was ambitious, and 
worked hard. She was the favorite 
and pet of the school. She easily 
mastered the English language. She 
was taught the common branches, do- 
mestic ‘science land sewing. ' 
Then she graduated. 
And then she fell. 
Completing ther school she return- 
ed to her home on the reservation. 
But what a home it was now, seen 
through the white peoples’ eyes. 
The schools impress it upon the stu- 
dents that their work and duty is to 
go back to the reservation and work 
to improve and uplift their people. It 
is a noble mission but it doesn’t work. 
The girl went back, fresh from the 
comforts of the white way of living— 
went back to the hogan of her father, 
back to that home that was nothing 
but a hole in a hill, a dugout without 
the least furnishings or comforts — 
back to the savage life. 
The girl went back and tried. She 
had nothing to do with and she fail-— 
ed. The squaws and her girl friends © 
LOOKED DOWN ON HER, they 
ostracized her. There was one kettle 
and perhaps a dozen tin plates in that 
cellar home to teach and illustrate do- — 
mestic science with, and there was — 
none to teach. ‘The girls of her age ; 
would not associate with her. They — 
thought she was better than her peo- — 
ple. . 
After utterly failing to interest her — 
associates, she realized there were ~ 
two courses ahead of her, one to drop — 
back into the animal ways of her peo- — 
ple, the other to leave them. : 
She left and went to Santa Fe, Her — 
education did not qualify her for sten- — 
ography, book keeping or typewriting. ; 
The only position she could find was — 
a waitress job in a railroad eating — 
house. She tried it for a time, and 
the end was the spectacle I saw on 
the streets of Alburqurque. i 
She might a thousand times better — 
have been left on the reservation — 
happy in ignorance. 
And this illustration is generally 
true of the whole reservation, and in 
fact any reservation I ever saw. 
On the Rose Bud reservation in 
South Dakota a few years ago I saw 
a Carlisle graduate sitting with the © 
bucks and squaws around a kettle of — 
filthy, rancid meat, and hogging his 
portion out of the slimy mess with a — 
sharpened stick, 
The young Sioux returned, saw 
conditions as the Indian girl found 
them on her reservation. He could 
not teach them what he had been 
taught, so he gave up iand dropped 
back. 
I have visited the largest of the In- 
dian reservations and tried to under- 
stand the people and it has seemed 
to me folly to try to change them and 
their ways, for they won’t or can’t 
change. They are of another age. 
The superintendent of the Chin Lee 
Indian school told me the work was 
slow and discouraging, for the reason 
the young Indians made no progress 
with their people after they had 
graduated, 
He said the reservation had never 
been allotted, the land was all owned 
in common, and there was. little en- 
couragement or incentive for the 
young Indian who had been taught 
new things to demonstrate and work 
them out. . 
The land is owned in common. It 
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