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“That knowledge of past wrongs
will teach us to be wiser”
CONTENTS
The Element Encyclopedia of Native Americans
C—Cacique to Custer’s Last Stand
F—False Face to French and Indian War
I—Illinois to The Iroquois False Face Society
J—James Bigheart to Jumping Bull
L—La Flesche, Susette to Luther Standing Bear
N—Names for the White Man to Nisqually
W—Wabanaki Confederacy to Wyandot
“Though the treatment accorded the Indians by those who lay claim to civilization and Christianity has in many cases been worse than criminal, a rehearsal of these wrongs does not properly find a place here. Whenever it may be necessary to refer to some of the unfortunate relations that have existed between the Indians and the white race, it will be done in that unbiased manner becoming the student of history. As a body politic recognizing no individual ownership of lands, each Indian tribe naturally resented encroachment by another race, and found it impossible to relinquish without a struggle that which belonged to their people from time immemorial. On the other hand, the white man whose very own may have been killed or captured by a party of hostiles forced to the warpath by the machinations of some unscrupulous Government employee, can see nothing that is good in the Indian. There are thus two sides to the story, and in these volumes such questions must be treated with impartiality.”—Edward S. Curtis, 1907
The story of the indigenous peoples of North and South America is a harrowing one. Time after time, in reading accounts of what happened, we see the same sequence of events, which were wryly and concisely encapsulated in a cartoon seen on a popular social networking site: an image of a “typical” Native American with the caption, “Bet you wish you’d never fed those pilgrims.”
The striving for cultural superiority—and the many ways and means in which that superiority was demonstrated—has destroyed many lives, crushed cultures and belief systems, wrecked families, and smashed peace and equanimity to smithereens. And yet, ironically, what we perceive as the Native American way of life is something to which many aspire. The spirituality of the Native American way is not separate from “normal” life as it is for those of a Western mind-set. The innate respect for all of nature, and the consequences of that respect, are goals that have a practical as well as spiritual force and are within reach of everyone, no matter their culture.
Despite the many privations inflicted upon the Native Americans, their profoundly empathetic underlying nature is as strong as it ever was, and so the stories in this book should
