Page:Natalie Curtis - The Indians' Book.djvu/32



THIS book reflects the soul of one of the noblest types of primitive man—the North American Indian, It is the direct utterance of the Indians themselves. The red man dictated and the white friend has recorded. Songs, stories, and drawings, all have been purposely contributed by Indians as their separate offerings to a volume that should be their own.

By rail, by wagon, and by horse, over prairie and desert, the white friend journeyed from tribe to tribe, seeking the Indians with open friendship, and everywhere meeting their warm response. In nearly every instance a chief was visited first and the purpose of the book explained to him. Would he and his people join in the making of a book to be the Indians' own—a book which should keep for all time the songs and stories of their race? The olden days were gone; the buffalo had vanished from the plains; even so would there soon be lost forever the songs and stories of the Indian. But there was a way to save them to the life and memory of their children, and that was to write them, even as the white man writes. The white friend had come to be the pencil in the hand of the Indian.

Thus was the book undertaken primarily for the Indians, in the hope that this their own volume, when placed in the hands of their children, might help to revive for the younger generation that sense of the dignity and worth of their race which is the Indians' birthright, and without which no people can progress.

With enthusiasm that was touching in its gladness, the Indians responded to the appeal. Already had one or two old men tried to make some record of the songs, others had sought deeply to