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
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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 .