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THE INDIAN GIRL

ZITKALA-SA

ZITKALA-SA (zit-kä'la-shä) is a young Indian woman whose account of her childhood and school days was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1900. When she was eight years old she left her home on a Dakota reservation to go to school in the East. Her heart is in the work of bettering the condition of her people.

I was a wild little girl of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buckskin, and light-footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These were my mother's pride, - my wild freedom and 10 overflowing spirits. She taught me no fear save that of intruding myself upon others.

In the early morning our simple breakfast was spread upon the grass west of our tepee. At the farthest point of the shade my mother sat beside her fire, toasting a 15 savory piece of dried meat. Near her I sat upon my feet, eating my dried meat with unleavened bread, and drinking strong black coffee.

Soon after breakfast mother sometimes began her beadwork. On a bright, clear day she pulled out the wooden 20 pegs that pinned the skirt of our wigwam to the ground, and rolled up the canvas on its frame of slender poles. Then the cool morning breezes swept freely through our

dwelling, now and then wafting the perfume of sweet grasses from newly burnt prairie.

Untying the long, tasseled strings that bound a small brown buckskin bag, my mother spread upon a mat beside 5 her bunches of colored beads, just as an artist arranges the paints upon his palette. On a lapboard she smoothed out a double sheet of soft white buckskin; and drawing from a beaded case that hung on the left of her wide belt a long, narrow blade, she trimmed the buckskin into 10 shape. Often she worked upon moccasins for her small daughter. Then I became intensely interested in her designing. With a proud, beaming face I watched her work. In imagination I saw myself walking in a new pair of snugly fitting moccasins. I felt the I felt the eyes of my 15 playmates upon the pretty red beads decorating my feet. Close beside my mother I sat on a rug, with a scrap of buckskin in one hand and an awl in the other. This was the beginning of my practical observation lessons in the art of beadwork. It took many trials before I learned 20 how to knot my sinew thread on the point of my finger, as I saw her do. Then the next difficulty was in keeping my thread stiffly twisted, so that I could easily string my beads upon it. My mother required of me original designs for my lessons in beading. At first I frequently insnared 25 many a sunny hour into working a long design. Soon I

learned from self-inflicted punishment to refrain from drawing complex patterns, for I had to finish whatever I began.

After some experience I usually drew easy and simple crosses and squares. My original designs were not always symmetrical nor sufficiently characteristic, two faults with which my mother had little patience. The quietness of

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her oversight made me feel responsible and dependent 5 upon my own judgment. She treated me as a dignified little individual as long as I was on my good behavior; and how humiliated I was when some boldness of mine drew forth a rebuke from her!

Always after these confining lessons I was wild with surplus spirits, and found joyous relief in running loose in the open again. Many a summer afternoon a party of four or five of my playmates roamed over the hills 5 with me. I remember well how we used to exchange our necklaces, beaded belts, and sometimes even our moccasins. We pretended to offer them as gifts to one another. We delighted in impersonating our own mothers. We talked of things we had heard them say in their conversations. 10 We imitated their various manners, even to the inflection of their voices. In the lap of the prairie we seated ourselves upon our feet; and leaning our painted cheeks in the palms of our hands, we rested our elbows on our knees, and bent forward as old women were accustomed 15 to do.

While one was telling of some heroic deed recently done by a near relative, the rest of us listened attentively, and exclaimed in undertones, "Han! han!" (Yes! yes!) whenever the speaker paused for breath, or sometimes 20 for our sympathy. As the discourse became more thrilling, according to our ideas, we raised our voices in these interjections.

No matter how exciting a tale we might be rehearsing, the mere shifting of a cloud shadow in the landscape near 25 by was sufficient to change our impulses; and soon we were all chasing the great shadows that played among the hills. We shouted and whooped in the chase; laughing

and calling to one another, we were like little sportive nymphs on that Dakota sea of rolling green.

One summer afternoon my mother left me alone in our wigwam, while she went across the way to my aunt's dwelling.

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I did not much like to stay alone in our tepee, for I feared a tall, broad-shouldered crazy man, some forty years old, who walked among the hills. Wiyaka-Napbina (Wearer of a Feather Necklace) was harmless, and whenever he came into a wigwam he was driven there by 10 extreme hunger. In one tawny arm he used to carry a heavy bunch of wild sunflowers that he gathered in his aimless ramblings. His black hair was matted by the winds and scorched into a dry red by the constant summer sun. As he took great strides, placing one brown 15 bare foot directly in front of the other, he swung his long lean arm to and fro.

I felt so sorry for the man in his misfortune that I prayed to the Great Spirit to restore him, but though I pitied him at a distance, I was still afraid of him when 20 he appeared near our wigwam.

Thus, when my mother left me by myself that afternoon, I sat in a fearful mood within our tepee. I recalled all I had ever heard about Wiyaka-Napbina; and I tried to assure myself that though he might pass near by, he 25 would not come to our wigwam because there was no little girl around our grounds.

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