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About The Chemawa American (Chemawa, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 11, 1928)
THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN PAGE 2 The CHEMAWA AMERICAN Published Weekly at the Salem,Indian Training School Please address all communications to Chemawa, Oregon. Ruthyn Turney, Manager. OSCAR H. LIPPS SUBSCRIPTION Superintendent - - 50 Cts PER ANNUM ATHLETIC NOTES Our basketball team, under the coach, Mr. Downie, with three veterans, have played with some of the best teams. So far the team has played five games, lost three and won two. The best game was played on the local floor and was a thriller from start to finish. During last few seconds the opposing team was a point a lead and Clifford Meachem made the winning basket for the warriors. The game with the Oregon Deaf School was somewhat different. The silent five were not able to stop the fast team work of Chemawa and our team made baskets almost at v^|l. It was some what difficult to name the outstanding players. All of the players under Chemawa’s colors understand the game and are good sports. The team has a hard schedule ahead of them. Win or lose, our student body is behind them. Rassmussen, who is playing at center, has done some fine playing. Rassmussen is a senior and will be a great loss to the team next year. However, Spencer is another valuable man for the position. Meachem and Peralrovich at guard are hard for the opponents to get through. Pretty man and George are good for wards.—P ercy R ousche . THE POVERTY OF THE INDIAN SERVICE From the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior Fiscal Year, 1927 The Indian Service has not kept pace with the pro gress elsewhere along health, educational, .industrial and social lines. The appropriations for general pur poses for the fiscal year 1923 were $10,316,221.30, and in the five fiscal years since they have been in creased by about $2,338,463.70, principally for medi cal and health activities. But the cumulative effect of many years of financial neglect has demanded even larger appropriations, if the Government may perform its full duty to the American Indian. Underrating the requirements of the Indian Service has continued so long that it has become a habit difficult to correct. The direction of Indian Affairs today affects the education, health, moralsand religion of approximate ly 350,000 people, all of them recently made citizens of the United States. There are 193 Indian tribes, speaking 58 languages; 200 reservations, widely separ ated in 26 different States and occupying a territory as large as New England and New York combined; 106 superintendents in charge of reservations; 202 In dian schools, with 700 teachers; and 96 hospitals, with 178 physicians and 146 nurses. The efficiency of an organization depends on the rank and file of its personnel. Supervision may be competent, but the struggle with untrained, incompet ent, or dissatisfied help, especially when far removed from final administrative authority, is discouraging. With a more stable field force, the officers of the In dian Service could devote more attention to construc tive work and less to training new employes and doing the work of the inefficient. Authority could then be de centralized by transferring more of the administrative responsibility from Washington to the field, where it be longs. The Assistant Secretary of the Interior in Washington, having supervision over the Bureau of Indian Affairs, for example, was required to take 18,- 000 administrative actions on Indian cases last year, in addition to many thousands receiving final action in the Indian Bureau. Much ot this work should have been handled in the field offices. That this situation has not been entirely hopeless is due to a great extent to competent supervision and to the innate missionary spirit of many employes. Ad vancement among Indians has been accomplished despite the financial handicap, but the missionary spirit largely depended upon to hold underpaid em ployes in the Indian Service years ago is not now adequate in itself. The greater opportunities for remunerative employment in all lines which have de veloped during the past decade have made it more difficult each year to find capable young people willing to sacrifice their most productive years to a service that offers a restricted social life and little opportunity for a successful career. A TRYING TEST Long ago the Neah Bay boys proposed to their girls by showing their strength. It was a very strange way to ask and obtain, or lose, a wife. The young man desiring to marry must on a certain day go to the girl’s home and there with the help of the friends he takes with him the “back fish spirit song” is sung and the lumbering whale dance is danced. A harpoon is then given the young man and he stands within about fifteen yards of the house of the girl and on a small mound that is prepared by his relatives he draws the harpoon and throws it through the house—if he can. If it goes through then he gets the girl without further ceremony, but if the harpoon bounces back he is told to go home. He, his family, and dear relatives are disgraced. When a Neah Bay boy thinks of marrying he pre pares himself by training his whole body. He runs, rows, and does all kinds of physical exercises and works for months in advance. He first starts out by fasting from one to three weeks. He also prays. After two months of this he returns to the village where further training is given, and finally when he is thought physically fit the day is set and he wins or loses his bride.—L awrence B uzeroff .
