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By George Bird Grinnell
We were sitting about the fire in the
lodge on Two Medicine. Double Runner, Small
Leggings, Mad Wolf, and the Little Blackfoot
were smoking and talking, and I was writing in
my notebook. As I put aside the book, and
reached out my hand for the pipe, Double Runner
bent over and picked up a scrap of printed
paper, which had fallen to the ground. He looked
at it for a moment without speaking, and then,
holding it up and calling me by name, said:
"Pi-nut-u-ye is-tsim-okan, this is
education. Here is the difference between you
and me, between the Indians and the white
people. You know what this means. I do not. If I
did know, I should be as smart as you. If all my
people knew, the white people would not always
get the best of us."
"Nisah (elder brother), your words are
true. Therefore you ought to see that your
children go to school, so that they may get the
white man's knowledge. When they are men, they
will have to trade with the white people; and if
they know nothing, they can never get rich. The
times have changed. It will never again be as it
was when you and I were young."
"You say well, Pi-nut-u-ye is-tsim-okan, I
have seen the days; and I know it is so. The old
things are passing away, and the children of my
children will be like white people. None of them
will know how it used to be in their father's
days unless they read the things which we have
told you, and which you are all the time writing
down in your books."
"They are all written down, Nisah, the
story of the three tribes, Sik-si-kau, Kainah,
and Pik[)u]ni."
For additional information about this
author and his insight into the Indian and our
government, please read
Indians and their Stories... or about the
Author.
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