TeacherScribe

This piece comes from “The School Days of an Indian Girl” by Zitkala-Sa, who suffered through the horrors of the Indian boarding schools. Those schools are notorious for dehumanizing the natives and forcing the dominant white culture’s religion and beliefs upon the children.

For years I have been fascinated about how different cultures view evil, or the devil. I originally wanted to write my thesis on this, but it horrified my mother – a strong Catholic – so I didn’t. But it has not ceased to fascinate me.

This entry details how Zitkala discovered “the devil.” I can’t help but wonder why we would want to expose a child to such a thing. I love the line below about how this girl was taught about evil spirits – just as she was taught to fear those no less than real people who were evil.

As I read this, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these poor children found those who tried to convert them to Christianity found those people the real evil spirits (such as ministers or priests who are pedophiles or abusive).
Zitkala-Sa. The School Days of an Indian Girl

THE DEVIL.

Among the legends the old warriors used to tell me were many stories of evil spirits. But I was taught to fear them no more than those who stalked about in material guise. I never knew there was an insolent chieftain among the bad spirits, who dared to array his forces against the Great Spirit, until I heard this white man's legend from a paleface woman.
Out of a large book she showed me a picture of the white man's devil. I looked in horror upon the strong claws that grew out of his fur-covered fingers. His feet were like his hands. Trailing at his heels was a scaly tail tipped with a serpent's open jaws. His face was a patchwork: he had bearded cheeks, like some I had seen palefaces wear; his nose was an eagle's bill, and his sharp-pointed ears were pricked up like those of a sly fox. Above them a pair of cow's horns curved upward. I trembled with awe, and my heart throbbed in my throat, as I looked at the king of evil spirits. Then I heard the paleface woman say that this terrible creature roamed loose in the world, and that little girls who disobeyed school regulations were to be tortured by him.
That night I dreamt about this evil divinity. Once again I seemed to be in my mother's cottage. An Indian woman had come to visit my mother. On opposite sides of the kitchen stove, which stood in the centre of the small house, my mother and her guest were seated in straight-backed chairs. I played with a train of empty spools hitched together on a string. It was night, and the wick burned feebly. Suddenly I heard some one turn our door-knob from without.
My mother and the woman hushed their talk, and both looked toward the door. It opened gradually. I waited behind the stove. The hinges squeaked as the door was slowly, very slowly pushed inward.
Then in rushed the devil! He was tall! He looked exactly like the picture I had seen of him in the white man's papers. he did not speak to my mother, because he did not know the Indian language, but his glittering yellow eyes were fastened upon me. He took long strides around the stove, passing behind the woman's chair. I threw down my spools, and ran to my mother. He did not fear her, but followed closely after me. Then I ran round and round the stove, crying aloud for help. But my mother and the woman seemed not to know my danger. They sat still, looking quietly upon the devil's chase after me. At last I grew dizzy. My head revolved as on a hidden pivot. My knees became numb, and doubled under my weight like a pair of knife blades without a spring. Beside my mother's chair I fell in a heap. Just as the devil stooped over me with outstretched claws my mother awoke from her quiet indifference, and lifted me on her lap. Whereupon the devil vanished, and I was awake.
On the following morning I took my revenge upon the devil. Stealing into the room where a wall of shelves was filled with books, I drew forth The Stories of the Bible. With a broken slate pencil I carried in my apron pocket, I began by scratching out his wicked eyes. A few moments later, when I was ready to leave the room, there was a ragged hole in the page where the picture of the devil had once been.

What an image!

This tale reminds me about the time Kristie’s father left the Catholic church as a child in Grand Forks. In elementary school he asked one of his teachers, who I believe was a nun, about where everyone came from in Genesis, for he wanted a better explanation than the one offered in the text. She beat him and took him to the priest who also beat him who took him to the next higher up and beat him again.

The one thing Ed loved about the school was the choir. But because of his inquisitive mind, he was kicked out of it.
After that he skipped class and went to the movies. While he endured Catholic school, he faith was shaken.

I can’t say I blame him.

Unfortunately, that was the standard for what happened in Indian boarding schools. I never realized how much it happened in other schools.

Or how about the infamous “vampire” priest from Alaska (who apparently promised to suck certain bodily fluids out of one construction worker over whom the priest had some power, but the worker happened to record the conversation and turned it over to a paper) who served as my high school principal for several years? What other damage had he done in his years in Red Lake Falls or Warroad?

I like the idea of how Jodie Foster, an atheist, is raising her children. She is exposing them to all different kinds of faith – rather than indoctrinating them into her beliefs like most of us do – and the children will have the right to choose – and think – for themselves.

In a way Mom and Dad did this with me. Now, my mom was a devout Catholic, we often went to church, but not - pardon the pun - religiously (couldn't resist) and in later years we tended to be the Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas mass attending Catholics. But Mom fought for the church fiercely. I remember coming home from BSU after having studied the Spanish Inquisition and all the atrocities the church practiced on 'pagans' (non-Catholics) or the scandals in the papacy. Mom never backed down, always maintaining that humans were prone to sin and evil, but God and His love were not.

I couldn't argue with that.

Dad, a life long southern Baptist, allowed us to be raised Catholic in order to marry Mom. He often attended Catholic mass with us, though he never took communion. However, he too was not a regular in church, preferring his truck or fields to the church.

There was even a time when we attended a Lutheran church in Mentor for awhile. I never realized it was a Lutheran mass until years later. My first clue, though, when something was different (not that the minister having his wife there or playing the guitar or lack of kneeling, standing, kneeling, standing or the lack of stained glass and so on should have clued me in) occurred when instead of getting up and taking communion from the priest, the bread was passed around as was the wine, which came in these handy dandy glass coffee syrup dose size containers (which was fine with me. I was never big on drinking from the same cup as most of the congregation). Mom never fussed about this.

I think they believed that a church was better than no church.

I couldn't argue with that either.