At the age of about eight years, if her child is a boy, the mother turns him over to the father for more disciplined training. If the child is a girl, she is from this time much under the guardianship of her grandmother; who is considered the most dignified protector for the maiden.

     The distinctive work of the grandparents is that of acquainting the children with the traditions and beliefs of the nation. The grandparents are old and wise. They have lived and achieved. They are dedicated to the service of the young, as their teachers and advisers, and the young in turn reguard them with love and reverence. In them the Indian recognizes the natual and truest teachers of the child.

     It is reserved for them to repeat the time-hallowed tales with dignity and authority, so as to lead the child into the inheritance of the stored-up wisdom and experience of the race.

     The long winter evenings are considered the proper time for the learning of these traditions that have their roots in the past and lead back to the source of all things. And since the subjects lay half in the shadow of mystery, they have to be taken up at night, the proper realm of mysticism.

     Through the telling of these tales, the grandparents inspire love of heroes, pride of ancestry, and devotion to country and people. But these tales do more than enlarge the mind and stimulate the imagination.

     They furnish the best of memory training, as the child is required to remember and repeat them one by one.

     There was usually some old man whose gifts as a storyteller and keeper of wisdom spread his fame far beyond the limits of his immediate family. In his home, at the time of the winter camp, the children of the band were accustomed to gather with or less regularity.

     This was our nearest approach to a school of the woods, and the teacher received his pay not only in gifts of food and other comforts, but chiefly in the love and respect of the village.

 

 

 

     The public position of the Indian has always been entirely dependent upon our private virtue. We are never permitted to forget that we do not live to ourselves alone, but to our tribe and clan. Every child, from the first days of learning, is a public servant in training.

     In our traditional ways, the child is kept ever before the public eye, from birth onward. The birth would be announced by the tribal herald, accompanied by a sistribution of presents to the old and needy. The same thing would occur when the child took its first step, spoke its first word, had its ears pierced, shot his first game.

     Not a step in the child's development was overlooked as an excuse to bring it before the public by giving a feast in its honor. Thus the child's progress was known to the whole clan as to a larger family, and the child grew to adulthood with a sense of reputation to sustain.

     At such feasts the parents often gave so generously to the needy that they almost impoverished themselves, thereby setting an example to the child of self-denial for the public good. In this way, children were shown that big-heartedness, generosity, courage, and self-denial are qualifications of a public servant, and from the cradle we sought to follow this ideal.

     The young boy was encouraged to enlist early in the public service, and to develop a wholesome ambition for the honors of a leader and feastmaker, which could never be his unless he proved truthful and generous, as well as brave, and ever mindful of his personal chasity and honor.

     As to the young girls, it was the loving parents' pride to have their daughters visit the unfortunate and the helpless, carry them food, comb their hair, and mend their garments. The name "Wenonah," bestowed upon the eldest daughter, means "Bread Giver," or "Charitable One," and a girl who failed in her charitible duties was held to be unworthy of the name.