The constant effort of the Government to educate the Indian is
resulting in the gradual discarding of the medicine lodge ceremonies.
The Ojibwe, who have stayed on the frontier of civilization, are among
the last to change, and have clung tenaciously to their medicine
society. As with other Wisconsin Indians, the Ojibwe love their
children dearly and are rarely harsh to them. The children are taught
to dance at an early age and while subsequent education may make them
forget the names and uses of medicinal plants, they never forget the
dance tunes and steps. It is a common conception among white men that
it is useless to educate an Indian. Too many have agreed with Mark
Twain that “the only good Indian is a dead one.” Stories are related
concerning Indian college graduates that revert to the tepee and to
the dog feast. Some of these may be true, but according to Indian
psychology, there is nothing disgraceful about this. It is the fallacy
of the white man in trying to impose his culture on other peoples and
in always assuming that it is superior to any other way of living.
We are prone to point to the exceptional fall from grace, and forget
about the many who have made a success of their life according to
our standards. There are many full-blooded Indian men and women in
Milwaukee, who are useful citizens. Many Milwaukee men and women are
proud of the Indian strain in their blood. Education has been of great
assistance to the Ojibwe, who have many times proven that they have
the same capabilities as their white brothers. The Indian has the same
anatomical characteristics as the Caucasian race and is capable of
going far along the road of education.
Since the field work among the Ojibwe was completed in 1923 and 1924,
some scattering members of the tribe have adopted the peyote lodge. The
Ojibwe are fond of visiting and, in the summer time, some are always
away on visits to other tribes in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, the
Dakotas, Kansas or Oklahoma. The old idea of fighting other tribes was
forgotten long ago and they feel that all red men are their brothers.
Those Ojibwe who have visited the Winnebago Indians in Wisconsin have
been especially influenced to adopt the peyote cult. This rarely
happens where the Ojibwe live in close contact with their tribesmen on
reservations. But several live as isolated families on the shores of
our northern lakes, and when they adopt the peyote religion they throw
overboard all of their medicine lodge paraphernalia and beliefs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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