In camp and tepee; an Indian mission story

Preface

IN writing this book I have not attempted to give a consecutive history of the Indian Missions of the Keformed Church, but from the knowledge of their origin and growth gathered through years of experience while acting as Field Secretary of the Women's Board I have endeavored to make clear the hopefulness of Indian mission work.

I am indebted for much of my material to my sister, Mrs. Walter C. Eoe, who gave me access to such of Dr. Eoe's papers as might be helpful ; to Rev. Eichard H. Harper and his daughter, from whom I received the facts on which the Mescalero chapters are based ; to Mrs. L. L. Legters for the early history of the Fort Sill Mission ; to Eev. Henry Eoe Cloud for advice and careful criticism of the chapters on Winnebago. Much is due also to the Indians whose letters coming from time to time during the years of my service have given me an insight and understanding otherwise impossible. To these I wish to express my gratitude.

In the task of composition, my daughter, Elizabeth M. Page, and I have worked together as architect and builder. Up to a certain point I had the responsibility of the general plan while she did the actual writing under my constant supervision. At

Preface the end she was unable to continue her part, and the completion of the book came upon me. "When laboring alone, I realized my utter inability to have accomplished the whole task by myself, and it is due to the help given by my daughter that this book has been written.

While my material, collected in the form of notes, reports and letters, has been drawn from the missions of one denomination, the conditions and problems are such as can be found in any field.

There are those who will say, " The Indian was well enough before the missionary tampered with him. He had his religion that suited him, the product of his race thought, full of beauty and poetry. What can you give him that will equal it ? Let him alone, he is better so." Ah, but what is now the old religion of the Indian ? In his grandfather's time, perhaps, there were still those whose high minds held thoughts of reverence, or back in the days before the white man came, men felt and worshipped sincerely and purely. To-day the " Witch Doctor " rules with grip of terror. Debauchery is more sought after than peace. The old days are gone, as the staunchest conservative of them all will tell you, and the purity of the old religion with them.

Why should this be ? The old faith, at its best, was the faith of childhood, and it was a faith for each child alone. So long as the Indian lived in a world of childhood, so long as that world was so narrow he need think only of his one soul and his

Preface god, so long and only so long could his faith endure. The Indian stands now in a world thronging full of men. With such conditions the teaching of his old gods is inadequate to cope. What if we in our pride leave hiin to the wreck of his childhood world and go sweeping on our way ? Nations like men may be brought to the judgment bar and tried. When America shall stand on trial before history, before civilization, before God, she must answer for these red men in the light of what she might have done, and what she did. Shall she hear it said, You found a childlike race whose childish faith you in your onward march did of necessity destroy. You held in your hand the chance to bring to the world all that race had to give of poetry, of beauty and of truth, but you kept him a child where you might have made him a man. You destroyed his gods and gave him nothing in their place.

If this shall be the course that America will take, then let the Indian condemn her, for in that day he can say, " You had the road and you walked in it but you left me to follow a blind trail."

Elizabeth M. Page.

The Release ....

. 229