In order o be er unders nd Bonn n’s encoun ers w h re g on, it may be useful to briefly descr be he Amer c n re g ous ndsc pe h she en ered n o upon bo rd ng he “ ron horse” and traveling east. In his book Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience (1995), David Adams explains that in the late 1860s the Indian Bureau was “r dd ed w h corrup on from op o bo om” nd h Pres den U ysses S. r n proposed he Pe ce Po cy h , n p r , urned Ind n ff rs over o “church bo rds of v r ous re g ous denomina ons” (7). Need ess o s y h s ch nge d d no end corrup on; however, d d
encourage an already growing national mission aimed at civilizing the Indian through missionary zeal. From he reformers’ perspec ve, c v zed soc e y, one h h d re ched the highest point of evolution, was a Christian society, and thus the national imperative was to educate Indians in the moral and ethical codes of Christianity. Adams cites Merrill Gates, the 1891 president of the Lake Mohonk Conference which was a public forum for Indian reform run largely by well-
educ ed, ev nge c Pro es n s, who s es, “ he me for f gh ng he Ind n s p ssed” nd wh s needed now s n “ rmy of Chr s n schoo e chers” (27). Thus the curriculum for most mission Indian boarding schools revolved around immersing Indian children in Christian
teachings and practices. A standard mission school curriculum, whether Protestant or Catholic, according to Francis Paul Prucha, author of The Churches and the Indian Schools, 1888-1912
(1979), would have required students to observe the Sabbath by attending a service every Sunday and to attend weekly prayer meetings. A prototype of a successful Christian curriculum, Carlisle epitomized the type of Christian control that was common in mission schools in that it offered Sunday services, weekly meetings, and it encouraged students to participate in associations like he Young Men’s Chr s n Assoc on (162).
In addition to her exposure to Protestant Christianity through mission Indian boarding schools, Bonnin witnessed how the federal government and missionaries attempted to oppress traditional tribal religions as well as how Native peoples employed religion as a source of cultural empowerment. Throughou mos of Bonn n’s fe, s Davidson and Norris note, the government repeatedly attempted to ban the Sioux Sun Dance, a dance that lasted as long as a week and drew some nine to fifteen thousand people, in order to eliminate what it saw as a potential danger to the United States (xx). During her stay in Utah, Bonnin collaborated with Mormon music teacher William F. Hanson to compose an opera that would recreate the Plains Indian ritual for a mainstream American audience. Another tribal religion that caused a great deal of national anxiety was the messianic Ghost Dance, a dance based on a combination of Lakota and Christian beliefs that was supposed to make the whites disappear, to bring the massacred Indians back to life, and to return the buffalo to the plains. As more and more Sioux joined the religion and began congregating in massive numbers to conduct their ceremonial
dance, in 1890 the U.S. army sent a unit to kill the Sioux leader Sitting Bull, who was associated with the dance, but the mission ended instead with the massacre of at least three hundred Indian men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek. A hough Bonn n doesn’ wr e bou he massacre, she was home on a school break when it occurred and would have heard about its violence. In addition, the early twentieth century witnessed the rise of the Native American Church, another belief system that combined pan-tribal and Christian elements. According to Chippewa Gregory Gagnon who works as an administrator-instructor at Oglala Lakota College on Pine Ridge Reservation, he church w s “reaction to the trauma of confinement to
reservations and policies that sought to eradicate traditional religion in all of Indian Coun ry” (84). The religion emphasized peaceful acceptance of the world and preparation for heaven with the help of various spirit Beings including Jesus, and it adopted the practices of southern plains tribes who used mild hallucinogenics like peyote. Bonnin clearly aligned herself against the church’s pr c ces n her n -peyote campaign.47
Having witnessed how religion could be used to oppress people as well as to encourage them, it is little wonder that issues about religion and faith pervade Bonn n’s wor . Viewing her work chronologically, we can see an emerging tension between Bonn n’s des re for re gious
knowledge and certainty and her recognition of hypocrisy. One of her earliest pieces of writing, “S de by S de,” an essay that she wrote as a student at Earlham College and that won second place at the 1896 Indiana State Oratorical contest, demonstrates how immersed Bonnin had become by the age of twenty in the traditional Protestant rhetoric of mission boarding school educ on s we s how w re she w s of re g on’s ro e n soc nd po c venues. In h s
47
In 1916 ess y en ed “The Men ce of Peyo e,” Bonn n comp res peyo e o o her forms of “ quor nd drugs” (American Indian Legends 240). For Bonnin, peyote-us ge ed o mp rmen : “Men, women nd ch dren on Ind n reservations attend weekly meetings every Saturday night to eat peyote. It takes all day Sunday to recover somewhat from the drunk. Too often in their midnight debaucheries there is a tota b ndonmen of v r ue” (240).
essay, Bonnin effectively employed biblical rhetoric to evoke sympathy from her audience, to draw awareness to the impoverishment of Native peoples, and to demand a place for Native peoples in modern America:
Oh Love of od nd H s ‘S rong Son,’ hou who f es up he oppressed nd succorest the needy, is thine ear grown heavy so h c nno he r h s [ he Ind n’s] cry. Is hy rm so shortened, it cannot save? Dost thou not yet enfold him in thy love? Look with compassion down, and with thine almighty power move this nation to the rescue of my r ce…Amer c I ove hee. “Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God”
W nn ng second p ce, Bonn n’s mp ss oned p e mus h ve reson ed w h her ud ence, nd yet her bitter tone is only thinly veiled as she suggests that Christ is not only weak but deaf to the cries of Native peoples (Zitkala-Sa 225). Beneath Bonnin’s h gh y con r ved d c on es a tension between her seeming acceptance of Christian faith and her simultaneous resentment of its role in oppressing Native peoples. The ambivalence in her speech reflects an inner struggle with faith and religious teachings that surfaces in her early works as she attempts to negotiate cultural differences.