Printed at Chemaua, Oregon, and Devoted to the Interests of Indian Education
Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1930
Vol. XXXII
A GUEST FROM THE NORTH
Last week Supt. and Mrs. Lipps had as a guest
Mrs. Matilda W. Minthorn, aunt of President Hoover.
Dr. Minthorn, deceased husband of the guest above
mentioned, was one of the first superintendents of
this school and was in charge during a period when
our institution was located at Forest Grove.
For
some years Mrs. Minthorn has lived in Metlakatla,
Alaska, where she has been engaged in missionary
work among the native people of the north. She is
a staunch supporter of these people and is in every
sense proud of them and their achievements. She
was in Oregon on a vacation and shortly after her
visit to Chemawa she returned to Metlakatla. While
in Portland she was interviewed by a staff writer on
The Oregonian and in that paper of the date of
September 29th the followihg most interesting ar
ticle appeared:
Now when the storms sweep down the indented
coast of Alaska back of Prince of Wales Island to
Metlakatla, tiny fishing vill ige, the Indian inhabitants
no longer shiver and pray to strange gods in their frail
shelters; thev listen in comfort in neat wooden houses
to symphony concerts in New York and Philadelphia,
jazz music from San Francisco, elaborate programs
from Portland and keep in touch with the world’s
events by radio.
The picture of the new life of an Indian of Metlakat
la, founded in 1896by William Duncan, was sketched
Saturday by Mrs. Matilda W. Minthorn, aunt of Pres
ident Hoover who has been in charge of the religious
work there for the past seven years. For 13 years she
has been stationed at Metiakatla where the late Dr.
Herbert J. Minthorn was physician under William
Duncan and later head of the mission work.
Even William Duncan who founded the mission
near Fort Simpson in British Columbia in 1857, after
Admiral Prevost had praised the Indians to mission
ary groups in London, and who brought the tribes out
of savagery in his teaching of three generations, would
probably be surprised at what his followers are doing,
she said.
No longer do they dry berries as was the custom of
their ancestors of centuries before them, because they
can them effectively by the cold-pack method; no long
er do they smoke fish, for they can it now; no longer
do they go without fruit, for they pack peaches and
pears in from Ketchikan to preserve as do housewives
No. 5
here; no longer do they rely on the outside world for
many things, because they build or make them with
the skill they have aquired in the years under William
Duncan.
Some remnants j>f their former life they have pre
served, however, including the spoken language, in
which they give sermons and make long speeches about
the glories of their tribes, their love of feasting and
their childlike geniality and freedom.
Governors of Alaska have described them as the most
highly civilized and Christianized Indians in North
America. Admiral Prevost noted their exceptionally
intelligent faces when he made his trips in the ’50s
and his observations have since been proved.
Stocky, healthy, bright, genial, they took quickly
to the teachings of William Duncan, whose memory
they revere. For 12 years they have held the basket
ball championship of southeastern Alaska; they man
their own sawmills, build their own houses, construct
their own boats and carry on energetically their fish
ing industry. Five hundred Indians out of 1000—
for some of them have drifted away to neighboring
cities—remain at Metlakatla, sincerely proud that
they are independent and happy.
Seventy years ago, before the coming of William
Duncan, these Indians were living in savagery be
tween Nass and the Skeena rivers, warring with
other tribes in northern British Columbia. They are
known as the Tshimpsian people, nine of the 12 tribes
of which are represented now at Metlakatla. William
Duncan learned their language—which is said to be
more expressive than other Indian tongues—preached
to them eloquently in it and literally led them out of
savagery to civilization. His was a romantic story;
one which Mrs. Minthorn, his successor, told feelingly
last night. When William Duncan moved the mis
sion to Metlakatla in 1896, his followers—828 by act
ual count—went with him.
The high light of their history came on July 8, 1924,
when President Harding—the only president ever
to visit Alaska—raised a huge flag on a 60-foot
flagpole which they had brought out of the forest.
Assiduously they work and as quickly do they spend
the proceeds on parties, feasts and’good times. Music
attracts them—which accounts for the popularity of
the radio—and they have a brass band, a 12 piece or
chestra, a choir of 40 voices, a choral society of 100
(Continued on page 4)