Indians were the independent people then. They knew how to live under conditions prevalent at that time. We did not. We had to beg from them shelter, food and clothing. Our trappers and explorers could not have lived without the aid of the Indians. They were dependent upon them. We were the beggars then. We have destroyed the means of support they had. This is not the country now that it was to them at that time. It is wonderful that in one generation they could learn how to adapt themselves to these new conditions. They can not live now in the old way, because we have destroyed the resources they had. They have only just begun to adapt themselves to this new environment and to support themselves under these conditions. The woman's work then, as now, was much the same. Her job has not been changed. She was always, then and now, the home maker, but the man has been thrown out of a job because we have changed the conditions of life for him. He was a provider and defender under old conditions, as a hunter; but now he cannot provide because he does not know how under changed conditions. So it came to be said that the Indian "let the women do the work." The man's work is changed, so he must learn a new job. Imagine China coming over to America and overwhelming us and putting us on reservations and putting agents over us to mold us into the Chinese form of civilization. Imagine how reluctant we should be to take on that form of government and be molded that way, to wear our hair in a queue, to eat Chinese food, and wear Chinese clothes. How quickly we would go back to our old ways instead of the way the Chinese would want us to do. We would go back to our own way because it would be easier for us to act in our own way. I would not want to be made into a poor imitation of a Chinese; no more does the American Indian want to be made into a poor imitation of a

European. By that illustration you can see how hard it has been for them to learn a new job.

Mr. Keefe said that the American Indian is entitled to have preserved his true place in history. The Indians have affection for their home land. They revere the graves of their ancestors. They commemorate localities indentified with incidents of their tribal history. We are strangers in this land; we have not been here so very long. We are not attached to it by a long line of ancestry as they are. The Pawnee were a Nebraska people. Their country was all the middle part of Nebraska. They love it as their fatherland. Even the children born since they left Nebraska have heard so much about the old home land that they think of it with affection and are always glad to talk about it with any one from Nebraska. Now they are carried away into another land where climate and water and conditions of life are different; and as it was not their own choice, they went away in 1875 about 2,200 strong; they are less than seven hundred now. Weakened by the change in climate, by being pressed into the arbitrary mold of our manner of life, and by homesickness for the fatherland, they have dwindled down to a small number. The Omaha are about as numerous as they ever were. They are still in their fatherland. The Pawnee are not so fortunate. Indians of many tribes have been taken from every part of the country-from timbered lands, prairie lands and the mountains-and dumped into Oklahoma. We do not know the human interest that attaches to their former occupation and their early life in this land. We do not know how they lived. We do not know the songs they sang or the shrines they had. We do not know the holy places and the places of their graves. These would have been of great interest to us. I know it certainly would have been so to me.

A student of the university came in and asked some questions concerning Indian geography and botany of

Nebraska, and when I answered her questions and extended remarks on the aboriginal geography and botany and showed their correlations with the Indian life of the state, she said: "Nebraska now means more to me and is dearer than ever before." So when all our people know there is something of human interest that attaches to Nebraska it will be dearer to us although it was not our ancestors' home.

As to the difference between Indians and white people, it has been said, "The Indian is just humanity bound in red." There is another saying which might apply here: "The colonel's lady and Julia O'Grady are sisters under the skin." Indians are different from us only superficially. We are brothers under the skin.

I remember what an educated Omaha Indian woman said to me in speaking of the difficulty of being built over into a new form of life: "The Omaha have not had time to rightly learn the white man's civilization, because it has taken all their time and attention to keep from being cheated out of everything they have." Although her husband is a white man, and she was speaking to me, another white man, she said: "Sometimes I wish I might never see a white face again.” She was not thinking of her husband, nor of me as a white man. She thought of her husband as a husband and not as a white man, just as she thought of me as a friend, not as a white man. She was thinking of white men in the mass. If you lived on the reservation, as Mr. Keefe does, you would know how true that is.

I wonder whether Mr. Keefe had the story of MANSHTINGA correct or not. I heard it a little differently from his rendering. This is the story of the origin of a society in the Mandan tribe. A party were out scouting for the enemy, being in the enemy's country. One evening, at just about the beginning of the evening meal, as they

were sitting around the fire, all at once they heard a voice singing a song of defiance. The leader put ashes over the fire to extinguish the light. Then they deployed around a wide circle and when they came together they were around a tree which showed marks of a fire on its bark about five feet high. At the foot of the tree there were ashes and burnt human bones. The leader said: "Here died a man"; and out of this incident there sprung a society which I think is something like the society of the Knights of Pythias. It was founded on the sentiments of loyalty and devotion to duty and to each other. The society increased in numbers and spread to other tribes. A member of the society had the misfortune of which Mr. Keefe spoke. He made a feast to his companions in the society. He said to his wife, "Boil meat." That meant to make a feast for his companions. He invited them in. The woman went to the spring for water. One of his companions slipped away from the tent and, out of her sight, saw her talking with another man, her lover, by the spring. Afterwards she came back with the water. Her husband knew that he could not hold his wife's affections. The companion came back and told what he had seen, that she had been talking with this other man, her lover. The feast went on, and they were all seated about. The husband arose at the feast-he had sent some of his companions out to get and bring in this other man that had been talking to his wife and he had come in. The husband then arose and sang this song: "I spoke to the woman but she would not hear, so I give her to you." These words are all there is to the song and it is still sung among the Omaha today. Then he took her blankets over and laid them at the feet of the other man, his wife's lover, as Mr. Keefe narrated to you. It was considered as a great deed of resignation and an act of bravery. It was several generations ago that this original incident occurred. So MANSHTINGA, who was a member

of the Mandan society in the Omaha tribe, thought it would be a brave act to do the same thing, and at a feast which he made to his companions of the Mandan society he got up and sang this song. There was no cause for it, so she went to her father's lodge, and he had a much harder time wooing her back than he had to win her at first.

We have cut the Indians off from the development of a civilization of their own in the beginning of their progress. If they had not been disturbed they would, of course-as we did, as the Chinese did, and as every other nation has done have developed a civilization of their own along the line of resources and conditions of the country. We have developed our civilization under European conditions. We never can know what their civilization would have been. We do not know what shape it would have taken. They would have progressed; they were on the way. We are on the way, only a little farther along. They would have progressed to some form of civilization suited to their condition here. Of course, in time, there will be only one civilization over the whole world.