Show the old settler my dear san Jua Juanc ners rs I 1 was 12 years old when I 1 got a particularly fine pocket knife with bright sharp blades and the albring glitter of being brand ne new nev v As I 1 whittled with it on a soft pine board an old navajo v ajo stood watching me and men hen asked me to let him take it to his hogan across the river where he was going to butcher a goat lie ile said he would bring it back the next day I 1 hesitated but remembering that indians are said never to betray a trust that is repose reposed d in them I 1 let him take the knife next day he came back smiling and grateful and we both felt good about it I 1 lent horses to navajos cavajos and aiutes and had confidence in their honor but as the time passed a new and different generation grew up among them there are still some old men of both tribes whose word is good but experience has taught me as a hopi woman said about not accept the promise of the younger men and women it is her son ile he was talking to us loud and long telling everything he knew and much he did not know khow and his mother house beckoned us to come to standing in the doorway of the her dont listen to him she said hes been too much with the white men honor and virtue used to be the rule among the indians my in mother 0 ther grew up in the country of the Pau said that the women at that time lime were absolutely true to their husbands but now the standards of all the tribes have been vitiated by what we speak of as civilization the poor helpless indian has been lied to and cheated and imposed upon til in his despair he has tried to hold his own with the avaricious avara cious white man by adopting the white mans methods A shining example of this is the promise made and recorded 60 80 or more years ago to the navajos cavajos by the U S government that it would educate the navajo children if the tribe would conform to certain tain conditions dit ions the navajos cavajos kept their part of the contract yet their children have been shamefully neglected in the face of this and numberless similar instances of white man fraud the indian could not be blamed if he believes with the chinaman who sang 0 me lie and cheat and steal me cussy aussy all me can so much me like me think me shall be like american man if ever one people owed a debt to another then the euro americans owe a big debt to the indians the europeans have taken the indians country driven him off into the rocks robbed and killed him and made him a hiss and a byword but worse than tham that they have demoralized zed him in many ways in robbing him of what was worth more than his country they have robbed him of his honor when the indian lies to me and fails to keep his solemn promise when I 1 consider his disrupted home and his runaway wife his young daughter with a child and no husband his drunkenness drun keness his inveterate habit of gambling and stealing I 1 ask myself who is to blame used to be a capital offense among many of the tribes they had standards ot of honor that could be relied upon there was a sanctity of their homes and a dignity of their business that compensated for their failures along some other lines considering what many of them were morally and in industrially before white men came among them they had a better right than the white invaders to be called civilized if the white mana is really proud of his honor and of his being called civilized then he should by all means repair the harm he has done to these vie vic tims of his greed albert R lyman |