THE MODERN CHIPPEWA INDIAN

these are American Indians parading on the 4th of July like other citizens of the United States some are wearing the buckskin clothes and the eagle feathers of the Indians of long ago others are wearing the clothes of the Indian today the Chippewa Indians living on the Red Lake reservation in Minnesota are under the protection of the United States government they live on lands that belong to their tribe they are cared for by the federal government and their affairs are supervised by a federal agent their life today has changed from what it was before Europeans invaded and settled this country this is a mission farm where the Indians are trained in farming and encouraged to build farms of their own those Indians who like farming do the work and do it well they use modern machinery they raise fine crops they maintain fine dairy herds but the Indians as a race of people have lived for centuries in a different type of culture they are gradually accepting some of the American ways of living but they also hold on to some of their old ways their own ideas of how to live today they farm attend school go to church farming is not new to them they grew corn and potatoes long before Europeans came to this country but each Indian grew only enough for his own family his religion was in many ways like our present religions instead of going to school in buses as they do today the children were trained by their parents not in reading writing and rithmetic but in hunting and fishing life in the forests the high school they attend now is American yet their older way of living is respected like that of our own pioneers whose courage and hardiness we admire the Red Lake hospital stands for another change the diseases of civilization know longer kill the Indian nor are the arts of the Indian now killed by lack of understanding this Chippewa artist who served in the United States Navy during the last war Thanks pictures of his own people in his own way behind him are the traditions of centuries of Indian artists like the famous Mexican painters Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco his traditions go back through the 18,000 years that Indians have lived on this continent back to the Mongol hunters who came here from Asia across the Straits between Alaska and Siberia long before the dawn of civilization in Europe the ancient culture of the Indian is not being forgotten but it is being changed the old ways of living are gone Red Lake has given the Indians fish for centuries but today it is not naturally full of fish it is stocked artificially with fish from Indian hatcheries and the Indian set out nets half a mile long to catch fish that they sell in the city markets they box the fish ice them and truck them away they no longer catch fish just for their own families just as they no longer use birch bark canoes they use modern fishing boats and make a business of fishing some 200 families camp along the shore and make enough money during the fishing season to take care of most of their needs they use outboard motors and gasoline where their forefathers used a paddle the lake still belongs to the tribe - all within the tribe but the fishing has become a regular business a large business the lake is large 347 square miles the nets are taken five six or seven miles from the shore and the fishing is scientific gill nets are used they are six feet wide with weights on one side and flutes on the other so the turnips will rest on the bottom of the lake some 20 feet down and stand up in the water like a scream the nets are strung in a straight line and when the fish try to swim through they are caught and held by their own gills the Nets catch the rough fish as well as the game fish and keep a good balance and the types of fish living in the lake the nets are set out in the late afternoon the fisherman may then go home the next morning at dawn he is back at the nets going in his catch it is a larger catch than his forefathers made with their spears traps or small nets but the most important thing is that this way of fishing shows a change in the Indians way of living just as the lakes and streams are no longer naturally full of fish as they were centuries ago so the forests are no longer alive with deer or the plains dotted with herds of buffalo the old way of life of roaming about the country hunting and fishing is gone the Indian still uses his expert knowledge of wildlife but the change that is taking place is seen here he is accepting a more complex civilization in which each man does the work he can do best and exchanges the product of his labor for the work of other men his life becomes broader instead of centering his life in his family and his tribe he joins the bigger world of cities states and nations this change has both good sides and bad the old way had many merits the Indians were strong free happy they had been friendly to the first Europeans who came to this country until they found that the so-called white man intended to take their lands then they fought for what was theirs they were outnumbered and they lost but they were not destroyed the Indian family continued to work together as we see them here removing the fish from the Nets they continued to plant and fish and hunt on their reservations gradually they began to fit themselves into the new wave pickerel and white fish and here wall-eyed pike are sorted out along with perch and go to market each day without question the nets are spread out to dry before they are set out again in the afternoon then the day's catch has taken to their own fishery Indians never wanted to own things the land and sky belonged to everybody so today the fishery belongs to the tribe in winter they cut ice from the lake store it here for preserving the fish they catch in the summer and fall the fishery is run as a cooperative the fishermen receive regular prices for their fish the workers in the co-operative receive wages then at the end of the year all of them divide up the profits as a bonus the fish are sorted graded and packed for shipping refrigerator trucks get them to Chicago markets in 20 hours where there is a steady demand each year the Indians at Red Lake ship out a million and a half pounds of their fish some of the fish are dressed for the market their scales removed with a thoroughly modern electric scale remover these are the wall-eyed pike which make up the largest part of the catch some of the fish are filleted the skill with a knife is the same that made the Indian of old a dreaded enemy the filets are then boned and made into a delicacy and as these filets go to market they represent many things the way in which Indians are adapting their old ideas to a new pattern of living the success meeting their work and a new hope that is developing for the Indians this lumberyard has the same type of meaning as to fishing this is Indian lumber from Indian forests the Indians spend much of their winter felling their white pine trees they do their own logging have their own mills to cut and finish their lumber they use the lumber for their homes for the boxes for the fishery and they sell some outside the reservation they use power machines and modern methods again they are accepting new ways of living and blending them with the old they not only harvest the trees but grow seedlings to replace the trees they cut down just as they hatch young fish for the lake the Chippewas use and protect the forest lakes and fields that have been their home for centuries while they reach for a larger world so today as the 400,000 Indians in the United States change from an old to a new world they face a future that is better and happier