Stealing Little Moon, page 4
Chiricahua Apache students at Carlisle before (above) and after (below). Students in after image are (left to right): Hugh Chee, Frederick Eskelsejah, Clement Seanilzay, Samson Noran (top row); Ernest Hogee, Margaret Y. Nadasthilah (middle row); Humphrey Escharzay, Beatrice Kiahtel, Janette Pahgostatum, Bishop Eatennah, and Basil Ekharden (bottom row).
The administrators usually did not understand the reason for a specific name and would confuse the meaning, taking away its importance or impact. Sometimes they even turned it into an insult as was the case in this story from Ava Hamilton, an Arapaho filmmaker. A young man had a last name in his Arapaho language that meant “Beautiful Piercing Eyes.” He had the type of eyes that could see your soul. When the agent or his assistants attempted to translate his name into English, they turned it into “Goggle Eyes”—as in big, protruding eyes. The family later dropped the word eyes. Today they are known as the Goggle family. I hope Eugene and his family don’t mind that I passed this story down and I hope I got it right; it’s important to let the world know the lasting impact the boarding schools have on our families, even now.
So, like the name of the boy with beautiful eyes, my grandmother’s name and its significance were disregarded by white society. Exactly how Little Moon There Are No Stars Tonight came to be named Elizabeth, I do not know. A likely scenario is that a group of US government representatives simply decided that she looked like an Elizabeth. Or perhaps her mother, Esther, chose it because the sound of Elizabeth seemed more lyrical or less offensive than other American names. Or, perhaps, like Tom Torlino, Esther and Sam simply pointed to the name Elizabeth on a blackboard in a US government building.
At the White Eagle School, my grandmother Elizabeth was joined mainly by students taken from other Ponca families, but there were also children from our Nez Perce neighbors to the west at Fort Oakland and Otoe-Missouria neighbors to the south. Elizabeth was not allowed to go home, but her family came to visit her often. Her eyes would light up as her three older sisters, her two older brothers, and her mother and father walked through the school doors. Elizabeth was small for her age, and in the early days her sisters made sure that the older Ponca girls watched out for her. They wanted to be sure their little sister’s hair was combed and her face was washed, and that she was not hurt. The older girls put her into a lower bunk where she could see out the window at night, and it was easy for her to get in and out of bed. One night in those early, lonely days, as my grandmother peered out the window, she noticed there were no stars in the night sky.
After a year at White Eagle, Elizabeth had changed a great deal. She was no longer her playful self. She had become a very serious little girl. At some point she must have decided that if she was going to be forced into this new world, it would be best for her to follow its rules. She had grown taller, but she was also quieter and more somber as she went about school chores in her little uniform. She rarely laughed and the sparkle in her eyes had dimmed.
One morning, following the five a.m. wake-up bell, change was in the air. A matron was announcing time to get up, wash, and have breakfast. Then, instead of going to the classroom, the children were to return to their dorm room and pack up their belongings—not much, just a few changes of uniforms. They were not allowed any jewelry and certainly no cultural items, ever. At breakfast they whispered among themselves, wondering where they were going. The gossip was wild and scary. At five years old, my grandmother had no idea what any of this meant; she just followed the bigger girls. No letters would be sent to their parents until the children were on their way. The agent wanted to avoid possible uprisings by the angry parents when they learned that their children were being taken away again. They were to enter a new boarding school recently authorized by Congress. For the first time, Little Moon heard the name Chilocco.
When my grandmother was marched outside the White Eagle School that early spring morning, two wagons were waiting for the students. The children had no idea where they were headed; they were simply excited to be outside instead of packed into a single dark schoolroom for most of the day. Soon they were heading north at a slow but steady pace. The first city they passed through was called Cross, later to be named Ponca City after our tribe. As they continued, they entered another small but growing city called Newkirk. Along the route they watched men hard at work building a structure with steel and wooden bars. Later they would learn it was a new railroad. It would run from the north to the south, dividing Indian Territory in half.
In late afternoon, after traveling all day in the uncomfortable wagon, the children finally approached their destination: Chilocco. The year was 1886, and the school had been open to students for two years. A single massive three-story building rose against the sky. To Elizabeth it looked like an island in a sea of prairie. At night Chilocco’s lights were the only ones that shone for miles around, so to locals and travelers it became known as the Light on the Prairie.
INTO THE UNKNOWN
Every child’s journey to a boarding school was a journey into the unknown. Elizabeth rode by wagon across the prairie. At least the land was familiar to her. For children going to schools farther away, the journey was terrifying. Lakota author Luther Standing Bear wrote about leaving his home in Dakota Territory in 1879. He and other boys from his tribe were fully unprepared for the long trip to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. At the train station the boys climbed into “a long row of little houses standing on long pieces of iron.” When the vehicle pulled away, the children clung to their seats, expecting the worst to happen. After passing the “Smokey City” of Chicago, Luther wrote, “the big boys were singing brave songs, expecting to be killed at any minute.” Some feared they would be dumped over the edge of the earth. The journey was the beginning of years of change and anxiety the boys would suffer, separated from their homes, families, and cultures.
A century and a half later, Denise K. Lajimodiere visited her father’s boarding school, Chemawa, in Salem, Oregon. She held her breath as a staff member quietly paged through a ledger. “And there he was,” wrote Denise, “Leo Joseph Lajimodiere, 1925, Turtle Mountain Agency, Chippewa, nine years old.” She spent a heartbreaking day reading records about his years of abuse at the school. Then she walked outside, along the train tracks, for a breath of air. A car pulled up beside her, and a man stepped out. They spoke about Chemawa Indian School. The man said his father had been the conductor for the train that brought the children to the school. “It was so sad; crying, screaming, scared to death, them kids,” he told her. He shook his head, got back in his car, and slowly drove away.
Chilocco is actually a Cherokee word that means “big deer.” There were truly big plans for the school. It was designed to be one of the largest and most productive government Indian schools authorized by Congress. I call them super schools. In such schools, students would be brought from hundreds of tribes across the United States and housed and educated for an extended time. Chilocco itself was built on 10,000 acres of prime Cherokee land in an area of Indian Territory called the Panhandle, in present-day Oklahoma. The master plan was to make the school a small self-sufficient city with classrooms, dorms, industrial buildings, and an agricultural center.
At the time Elizabeth was sent to Chilocco, it was simply one huge building containing classrooms, administration offices, and the dormitories, but it would grow. She and her young companions were the first to populate this “super school.” They had been abducted from their families on a scale the world had never seen. It was happening across the United States and Canada, with tens of thousands of Indigenous and First Nations children stolen. Already Elizabeth’s outward appearance had been changed in such a way that she would never again look like an American Indian child. Instead, she and her companions were but copies of the greater white society.
As they neared the school, the children watched men building a massive structure. The children had no clue what this new construction was, but the commotion and the modern-looking design fascinated them. It would become a small railroad station. Students and supplies shipped across the nation would arrive at the big depot in Arkansas City, eight miles to the north. Then they’d be loaded into another train and sent on a spur, or small rail line, that specifically stopped at Chilocco. Now, the entrance to the school loomed before them. Above rose an entrance gate of black wrought iron. Elizabeth must have been in awe of the metal scrollwork interlaced with flowers. The name Chilocco was neatly centered in the arch high above the road. Elizabeth gazed ahead, the barren drive seeming to travel forever through the tall-grass prairie to the horizon. In the distance she could see just the top of the lone, very tall building. As the wagon rattled along the drive, she began to notice something different. This road was finer than the dirt and loose-gravel roads she had known. It was packed limestone dust, making it as hard and smooth as concrete. The horses’ hooves even made a different sound as they clicked on the smooth, solid surface. All the children’s eyes were open wide: This was something else! What was this place they had been transported to? Certainly, it was unlike anywhere they had been before.
Entrance to the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School.
Soon the children saw wagons filled with young trees to be planted. Unloading the trees were teams of kids who stopped briefly to stare back as the new arrivals passed. The student workers were planting the trees along both sides of the mile-long entrance drive. These trees would grow so tall that they’d bend to touch at the tops, creating a tunnel through which visitors would travel to the big building. Every student would remember the tree tunnel as Chilocco’s signature arch. At just five years old, Elizabeth would be in this first class to help plant the famous tree-lined drive. Amid the sadness of separation from her family, watching the tree grow up with her would become a fond memory.
As the wagon continued, Elizabeth was wide-eyed at all the activity around her. On each side of the road several groups of young Indian boys in overalls were building a fence. Each group had a foreman who either worked with the boys or stood by, supervising. All the work was so organized. A little farther on she saw other students building farm ponds. Some students guided big mules that pulled plows. Behind them followed mule-powered bulldozers whose large steel blades in steel frames leveled the plowed earth.
Elizabeth was so excited that she stood up in the wagon and pointed. “Hindá!” she cried out in Ponca, forgetting to say “Look!” in English. One of the older Ponca girls quickly reached out and put her hand over Elizabeth’s mouth as she pulled Elizabeth into her lap. A matron riding in front turned and scanned the children, scowling. Who had called out in this offensive language? As the older girl cradled her, Elizabeth looked straight ahead with the others, staying silent. She had escaped punishment for now.
Elizabeth saw even more student work groups planting an apple orchard. Beyond that, a large lake, newly dug, was already filled with water. Chilocco was huge, thought my grandmother. Whoever had planned it had thought of everything. There was a wide oval loop that would eventually connect the future campus with the main three-story building. For now, this building would hold both classrooms and dormitories. All around the loop, other buildings were in construction. Every one of the children was in awe of the new school they had been brought to.
While impressive at first sight, Chilocco’s layout fit a white man’s ideals, not an Indian’s. Like Chilocco, other schools such as Carlisle and Phoenix also had square buildings. Square-shaped dorms, dining rooms, and classrooms were filled with neat lines of beds, tables, and desks. The natural land with its rocks and plants was leveled by bulldozers to create neat gardens lined with rows of shrubs and flowers. Things that mattered in the American Indian world were circular in shape: the sky, the sun, the moon, the tepee, the sacred hoop, or medicine wheel, used for health and healing. Majestic buildings and grounds with sharp corners became a prison. Said one Elder, “We are vanishing in this box.”
The first building at Chilocco, including the fences that were being built the day Elizabeth arrived.
Before the wagon pulled up to the big building, the children checked on their little medicine bags. An older Ponca girl had carefully hidden Elizabeth’s bag inside her packed clothing. Using sign language, she told Elizabeth to be quiet about it. The small bags contained herbs from family members. Each herb would bring protection and comfort. The medicine bag is an example of Pan-Indian culture. Many Indian Nations shared this practice. It had not started with the Ponca, but once adopted, they cherished it as much as did any other tribe. The Ponca bags carried cedar and other herbs. One herb has a scent that Ponca boys especially love as a men’s cologne. We call that the grandmother flower. When illness strikes, cedar flower creates an atmosphere where healing can begin. Other personal herbs they carried included some kinds of sage used to cleanse and bless a space. Their little medicine bags were both useful to them and symbols of hope. So the children checked on them and stored them away. Cherished little jewels of their culture hidden in their clothing bundles were all they had to remember of their heritage.
The wagons halted before the building’s enormous doors. One by one, the children streamed down and were herded into military lines. Then they marched inside. The entrance hall was huge to the little girls and boys. Matrons and student matrons met them there. The first task was to divide the students into perfect lines of boys on one side and girls on the other. This was no surprise to the students, who had learned military ways at White Eagle. But the next move was shocking.
The lines were ordered to march around the large room and to stop at two large trash bins. As the students passed the bins they were instructed to throw in their personal, hand-packed bundles, including their little hidden medicine bundles. These would later be burned. Some children were almost crying at this point. The matrons knew exactly what they were doing. To them it was just a job well done, their first step in “killing the Indian” in the students. My grandmother recalled the look of satisfaction on their faces.
It might have been worse. In other schools, like Chemawa, children were immediately marched to a bathing area to be scrubbed clean. One boarding school survivor, Elsie, of the Yakima tribe, cried as she told her story. “I was four years old when I was stolen and taken to Chemawa. The matron grabbed me and my sister, stripped off our clothes, laid us in a trough, and scrubbed our genitals with lye soap, yelling at us that we were ‘filthy savages, dirty.’ I had to walk on my tip toes screaming in pain.”
Next, Elizabeth and the students were marched without hesitation to long tables to receive their new Chilocco uniforms. These were laid out by sizes, from the smallest uniforms at one end to the largest at the other. With all the brand-new uniforms and shoes before them, the little girls forgot for a moment their cherished medicine bundles. The boys were just as excited by their new clothes, including new dress boots and work boots. They had never had such a wardrobe. With their new clothes the students were then marched to separate dormitory rooms and assigned their beds. The big girls could no longer give my grandmother a view of the stars at night. She, like everyone else, was assigned one bed in a long row of bunks. Here Elizabeth and the other White Eagle students began to meet many other girls from tribes from all over Oklahoma and the nation.
The excitement of the arrival, the new buildings, the new clothes, and the new students soon began to wear off. All the girls would rise at five a.m., get dressed, make their beds, and carry out chores before classes. These could include brewing coffee for the matrons and helping fix breakfast. Then they’d mop corridors and clean bathrooms. The boys might be assigned to milk the cows at five a.m., then they’d work in the garden or on construction sites. As the days turned to weeks, Elizabeth learned the ins and outs of Chilocco. With their little medicine bundles long gone, the girls tried to find other ways to keep memories alive of their families and homes, but their culture seemed so far away. When they were at White Eagle they were close enough to home to have visits from their parents and other relatives. But now they were miles away. It would take families a day or more to reach the school, then to return home. Parents worked hard to make a living for the rest of the family and they simply could not afford the time or expense to travel to see their children in school. Contact became rare, only through letters or packages.
Separation from beloved parents and grandparents left scars on young children. Julia (not her real name) is a former student of St. Joseph’s Catholic Boarding School in Chamberlain, South Dakota, and was happy living with her grandparents. They did not have much, but they had love. One day, a bus came and took her and other little girls away from their families. They drove many miles to the school. There, nuns dragged them off the bus and lined them up. One nun demanded to know who were their parents and grandparents. “Kookum [grandmother] and Mooshum [grandfather],” Julia shyly responded in her native language, Michif, a mixture of Cree, Chippewa, and French. The nun slapped Julia’s head with her hand and knocked her to the floor. “You can’t talk that language anymore …” She demanded the children say the words grandmother or mother and grandfather or father in English. All the little girls were frightened. “We didn’t know what they were talking about … but eventually we learned,” Julia said many years later. “A lot of girls cried all the time. I wanted to go home, because I loved my grandparents. We all just thought our [families] deserted us.”
Even though their native languages were forbidden, many children still held them close, speaking only to one another, and in secret. Elizabeth and the other Ponca girls were very careful to hide their language from the matrons. They hid their stories, too.
