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The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School

Francis La Flesche

出版	CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016-11-25
主題	Education / General
ISBN	15406338299781540633828
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=MM4hMQAACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋

Francis La Flesche (1857-1932) was the first professional Native American ethnologist; he worked with the Smithsonian Institution, specializing first in his own Omaha culture, followed by that of the Osage. Working closely as a translator and researcher with the anthropologist Alice C. Fletcher, La Flesche wrote several articles and a book on the Omaha, plus more numerous works on the Osage. He made valuable original recordings of their traditional songs and chants."The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School," La Flesche's memoir, is a volume of sketches that deserves the attention of all who care to know more of the Indians of America. It is written by the Indian author who was born in a dome - shaped earth lodge in Nebraska, a member of the Omaha tribe, and describes his boyhood at the mission school, his playmates, their earlier remembrances, and their impulses and ambitions. It is a simple, unaffected record, containing much that is of novel interest.La Flesche writes:"When we entered the Mission School, we experienced a greater hardship, for there we encountered a rule that prohibited the use of our own language, which rule was rigidly enforced with a hickory rod, so that the new-comer, however socially inclined, was obliged to go about like a little dummy until he had learned to express himself in English."The misconception of Indian life and character so common among the white people has been largely due to an ignorance of the Indian's language, of his mode of thought, his beliefs, his ideals, and his native institutions. Every aspect of the Indian and his manner of life has always been strange to the white man, and this strangeness has been magnified by the mists of prejudice and the conflict of interests between the two races. While these in time may disappear, no native American can ever cease to regret that the utterances of his fathers have been constantly belittled when put into English, that their thoughts have frequently been travestied and their native dignity obscured."