First Nations

Scalping: An Anglo-Saxon Practice
(Sir! Magazine, 1961)

Congratulations: you found the goriest article on the site – it goes into some detail concerning the practice of scalping. The journalist insisted that the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant (né Thayendanegea, 1743 – 1807) imparted this historic fact to his family, who, throughout the centuries, have told it to anyone who would listen – the info he relayed to them was that scalping was an English import, not native to the Americas. The article goes on to explain that this was one of those cases in which the pupil far surpassed the teacher and proceeds to list all the many ways the native population had inflicted scalping upon all her various enemies throughout North America.

American Indians Step Up – Again
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

…And last week the Office of Indian Affairs, reporting results of a sampling of 26 out of 80 Indian jurisdictions, revealed that out of 7,407 Selective Service registrants, 547 had already volunteered against 37 actually drafted – a ratio of 15 volunteers for each draftee.

‘Don’t Listen to Europe”
(The New Republic, 1922)

During his seven month-stay in New Mexico, D.H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930), pen-pushing British rhapsodist and highly lauded versifier in the 20th century’s republic of letters, was baffled to find that the Natives of America were held in total contempt and largely confined to isolated swaths of land. Arriving in Taos in September of 1922, it didn’t take him long to recognize the admirable qualities inherit within their culture and the injustices that had been done to them. His restrained response was expressed in these three brief paragraphs that appeared in The New Republic toward the middle of December of that year.

Native Contributions to Latin American Arts
(Direction Magazine, 1941)

This column by Andrés Iduarte (1907 – 1984) addressed the popularity of Los Indios in the arts of Latin America throughout the 1930s. What came to be known as the pro-Indian movement in the U.S. of the 1960s was a political development in the counter-culture of that era, but thirty years earlier it was a trend in the arts of Latin America. Andrés Iduarte covered the contributions of painters, poets, novelists and sculptors who were all of Native descent south of the Rio Grande (FYI: Brazil is not mentioned in this article).

Tales of the Assinibone Tribe
(Direction Magazine, 1942)

Land of the Nakoda: The Story of the Assinibone Indians was the brain child of the Montana WPA (Works Progress Administration), Writers Project. The book is a collection of tales as told by the tribe elders and transcribed by one other member for publication in book form and it is still in print today.

The Influence of the Natives on Rag Time Music
(The Literary Digest, 1913)

A foremost scholar in the field of Native American Music insisted that the American Indian had a guiding roll in the development of Rag Time:

Most people instinctively assign it to the Negro; but the Indian also, according to Natalie Curtis Burlin (1875-1921), is to be credited with a hand in it. The syncopation, which is a predominant feature of all Rag Time,as she observes in ‘The Craftsman’, is an absolutely essential element in the songs of our North American Indians of many tribes.

Also discussed are the efforts of Geoffrey O’Hara to make the earliest recordings of Native American Music on behalf of the U.S. Library of Congress.

Unsuspected Qualities of Indian Music
(Literary Digest, 1908)

A short article on the topic Native American music and the studies of Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838 – 1923), who had overseen a number of Native American archival recording sessions around the time this article appeared in print. Fletcher once wrote:

We find more or less of it in Beethoven and Schubert, still more in Schumann and Chopin, most of all in Wagner and Liszt.

The Battle Against Alcohol Dependence
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

Here are five letters to the editor written in response to an article that appeared in one of the Spring, 1944, issues of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE that pertained to two Native American tribal edicts that forbade the use of alcohol.


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The Richest Tribe
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Living, as we do, in the age of Indian gaming casinos it seems rather quaint to talk about which tribe was considered the richest of them all back in the Thirties. Nonetheless, this 1936 article tells the tale of the Osage Indians (Missouri) and the great wealth that was thrust upon them when oil was discovered on their tribal lands:

In 1935, some 3,500 Osage Indians proved their right to the title of wealthiest Indian tribe in America by drawing an income of $5,000,000 from their oil and gas leases…The members of Chief Fred Lookout’s tribe were not stingy with their new wealth. They bought clothes, big cars lavishly ornate homes…

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