Seven years ago, editors from Highlights, a magazine for children, asked if I would be willing to write a short piece on Hopi running. I was thrilled to do so. The piece, titled “A Hopi Tradition Continues,” was part of a larger story on Hopi runner Louis Tewanima called “Miles from Home” by Kim Valice.
When I was young, my parents (and school) subscribed to Highlights, and I, along with my siblings, spent hours reading its stories, fascinated by the many colorful drawings and other images gracing its pages. Taking place before children could “surf” the internet, we waited for the arrival of each new edition with great anticipation. The magazine became our gateway to the world.
As I reflect on my childhood, this contribution will always remain special to me. It is not a “heavy-hitting” scholarly piece, published in one of the academy’s esteemed journals. It is not something that would significantly enhance a faculty’s tenure and promotion case. However, it is more meaningful than that. It was written for children, most of whom had never heard about the Hopi people, where we come from, or our long tradition of distance running.
This summer David Skinner, editor of Humanities Magazine (published by the National Endowment for the Humanities) invited me to write an article reflecting on Larry C. Skogen’s excellent book To Educate American Indians: Select Writings from the National Educational Association’s Department of Indian Education, 1900-1904 (University of Nebraska Press, 2024). The article was part of a special edition of Humanities Magazine on Indigenous-related topics and edited by Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo), Chair of the NEH. I was honored to write this piece and have included the text and the link to the essay below.
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Indian Boarding Schools and the “Problem” They Were Meant to Solve by Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert
“Originally published as “Education for the Indian Problem” in the Summer 2024 issue of Humanities magazine, a publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities.”
Over the past 20 years, I have taught Native American history at community colleges, Christian schools, and large universities. I have encouraged my students to think critically, ask hard questions, and consult primary resources. “Don’t just read about what people said,” I tell them, “Do the hard work, go to the original source, and read them for yourself.”
In his edited collection of essays from the National Educational Association’s Department of Indian Education (1900–1904), Larry C. Skogen, a scholar long affiliated with Humanities North Dakota, has made that hard work a little easier. Skogen’s book, To Educate American Indians, includes speeches by white educators employed by the U.S. government’s Indian Service to teach Native American children. Some of the speeches resonated with me not only as a scholar but as a Hopi person, causing me to reflect on my family history and experiences as a teacher who has written extensively on the Indian boarding school experience.
When I lecture on Indian education, I often first introduce my students to the so-called Indian Problem, providing a lens for students to understand how non-Native people viewed Indians—not as an asset or benefit, but as a “problem” that needed to be addressed and eliminated. Not eliminated by slaughter or outright genocide (the U.S. government had failed in those attempts) but eliminated in the sense of eradicating culture and identity.
By the turn of the twentieth century, the U.S. government had stopped warring with Indian nations on the Great Plains and elsewhere, but the battle for the minds and affections of Indian youth continued at Indian schools. School officials, such as H. B. Frissell, principal at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural School in Virginia, believed schools played a major role in solving the Indian problem by making Indian youth discontent. “It is sometimes said of the schools off the reservation,” observed Frissell, “that when their students return they are not willing to live as their parents did. . . . A wholesome discontent is a most helpful sign.”
For the Hopi, the most widely known example of this comes from the life of Polingaysi Qoyawayma. Polingaysi spent four years, from 1906 to 1910, at Sherman Institute, an off-reservation Indian boarding school in Riverside, California. When she returned home, she judged her parents for living according to Hopi ways and customs (No Turning Back is her autobiography). Young people, especially teenagers, are already disposed to be critical of their parents. School officials such as Frissell used this to their advantage to turn Indian youth against their families.
Alienating Indian youth from their communities and cultures was accomplished by various means. At Indian schools, officials instructed students in math, science, history, and other disciplines. Teachers wanted their Indian pupils to see the supposed superiority of Western education while simultaneously becoming critical and doubtful of Indian teachings and worldviews. Male students learned trades and female students learned to be good housekeepers according to Western values. Some students also participated in sports and musical ensembles, while others used their skills in the English language to work in the print shop or as editors for the school newspaper.
In my office, a prized possession sits on a bookcase: a complete ten-volume set of The Red Man, the official student-written newspaper of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Hardbound and organized by year, the books recall happenings throughout the school year, motivational speeches, Native American stories, and alumni news.
“Every Indian school should have the newspaper,” William T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, remarked in his 1902 speech in Skogen’s collection. Telling his audience that Indian pupils should read “first that which interests him,” the commissioner further observed that the pupil will “go from that to the far-off events of the world, according as he grows in intellectual capacity.”
School officials did not encourage Indian youth to listen to their parents back home on Indian reservations. They did not encourage them to seek wisdom from their tribal elders or other knowledge-keepers about the world beyond their homelands. Instead, they wanted them to learn from newspapers and considered the printed word far superior to the oral tradition often spoken in one’s Native language.
Photo caption
Studio portrait of Sioux students wearing their Carlisle boarding school uniforms in 1880, identified as, back row: David (Kills Without Wounding), Nathan (Ear), Pollock Spotted Tail; and front row: Marshall (Marshall Bad Milk) and Hugh (Running Horse).
—Photo by John N. Choate, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Swedish National Museums of World Culture
The U.S. government’s attempt to suppress Native languages took various forms. One especially interesting piece in Skogen’s volume is Emily S. Cook’s 1904 address titled “What’s in a Name?” Skogen notes that oftentimes Indian people had no say in the matter and that government officials changed Indian names, which they struggled to pronounce, to make it easier to keep records related to Indian affairs.
The government’s name-changing policy sought to weaken Indian identities and eradicate the use of Indigenous languages. But not every individual in the Indian Service, especially those who lived and worked with Indian communities, saw the wisdom in eliminating Indian names.
Cook was one of these people. “Why should Imogen be preferred to the Kiowa name Imguna, or Jack to Zapko?” Cook asked, “Why not have a few less Marys and Johns in the world and enrich our nomenclature by picking out gems from aboriginal matrices?” Cook knew the value of Indian culture in American society, and she considered it cruel and “short of criminal” to assign names to Indian children and adults that did not reflect their tribal identity and caused great confusion within the family.
Reflecting on Cook’s advocacy for Indian names, I cannot help but think about my own family and how things could have been different for us had more school officials listened to Cook.
In the late 1940s, my grandfather, Lloyd Gilbert, attended the Phoenix Indian School in Arizona with his two siblings. The three arrived at the school with the surname Quache (pronounced Kwah-tsee), which means “friend” in the Hopi language. Officials at the Phoenix school, however, did not tolerate Indian names and told them they needed to consult with one another and replace theirs with an English name.
The mandate likely caused my grandfather and his siblings great stress and a sense of loss. It also required them to think deeply about appeasing the government while not disconnecting themselves from their family. They ultimately chose “Gilbert,” their father’s first name. A disheartening and difficult position to be in, they nonetheless demonstrated agency and worked together to address a problem imposed upon them.
While Indian students studied at government schools, prominent and influential employees in the Indian Service waxed eloquently on the state of Indian affairs, the challenges of training Indian youth, and their responsibility to “uplift” Indian pupils with Western education and values. Some did so with an air of arrogance or even ignorance. Others, such as Cook, did so with compassion and balanced foresight. Within this collection, Skogen exposes them all and provides an insightful resource to read their words within a larger historical and cultural context.
As the late David Wallace Adams wrote in the foreword, the “historical gap” between all that has been written and taught about the history of Indian education and the documentation on how “leading educators of the day viewed the proper ends and means of Indian schooling . . . is now closed.” However, the opportunity for students and others to interpret these essays and critically analyze their recommendations for solving the Indian Problem is now open.
Earlier this month I had an opportunity to interview counselor, jeweler, and author Michael Adams (Hopi/Tewa) from the village of Tewa on the Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona. The interview covers a range of topics, including the role of family in one’s education and career paths, the process of overcoming challenges, schooling beyond the Hopi mesas, and the importance of positive thinking. The interview was conducted on June 10, 2020 via Zoom. To learn more about Michael Adams and his counseling resources and art, please visit:
My library. A mix of books on the Hopi, Indian education, American sport studies, Southwest Indian studies, American Indian studies, American West, and Native American history (broadly).
Over the years I have amassed a large collection of books on the Hopi. My bookcases give evidence of this obsession.
Even as I write, I am looking at these books, and they are looking back at me. Some are on Hopi religious ceremonies, language, and history. Two of them I wrote.
Still others are biographical accounts, written during a bygone time in American history. Regardless of topic or genre, they are a reminder of those who came before and after me.
A canon that I have contributed to and have grown to appreciate. A foundation that I have built on, but that has also shaped and built me.
Also, for those who might be interested, the University Press of Kansas is currently having a 30% off sale (and free shipping) on all books, including Hopi Runners. The sale will last from now until December 15, 2018. Use promotion code HOLI30 when you make your order. The discount and free shipping brings the cost down to about $20 for the book.
I am grateful for the support of so many people over the years who have encouraged me as I completed this project. I thank my family and friends, past and current students, colleagues at the University of Illinois, and numerous scholars here in the United States and abroad. I also thank the wonderful staff at the press, and of course, readers of this blog!
Last week, Craig Chamberlin of the University of Illinois News Bureau published a story about the book. You can access the story here. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of Hopi Runners, you can do so through Amazon or the publisher’s website.
Below is an excerpt from the book’s Introduction titled “To the Fence and Back.” The excerpt comes from a section of the Introduction where I describe Hopi runners who competed at federal off-reservation Indian boarding schools:
While Hopis participated in several sports, including basketball, football, and even boxing, their greatest success came as members of track and cross-country teams. Sports at off-reservation schools provided Native athletes opportunities that did not exist for them on their reservations. When Hopis joined cross-country teams at Sherman Institute, or the Indian school at Carlisle, they experienced for the first time different regions of the country, life in modern cities, and a new way of running footraces. And Hopis used these opportunities to learn and interact with people from other parts of the United States and the world. While competing in marathons, Hopis ran with runners from Ireland, Germany, Sweden, and Japan, and although from vastly different cultures, they spoke a common – and perhaps universal – language of competitive running.
Having come from a society that valued long-distance running for ceremonial and practical purposes, Hopi youth transferred this cultural mindset with with them when they entered these faraway schools. Hopi runners who competed at Indian schools had come from a tribe of racers. While none of these athletes needed to be taught the essence of long-distance running, coaches nevertheless trained them in modern running techniques and rules to compete effectively in American track and cross-country events. The dirt trails on the reservation did not resemble the paved roads or clay tracks used in many American running competitions. And so, in their first year on a school’s cross-country team, Hopis learned about running in different locations, climates, and elevations. And they had to develop mental and physical strategies for running in cities, on mountain roads, or in front of thousands of cheering spectators in a stadium.
When Hopis ran on trails back home, they did so in a relatively quiet and peaceful environment, far from the sounds of locomotives arriving and departing towns such as Winslow. Running on or near the mesas, Hopis became attuned with their bodies and surroundings, becoming one with their environment. They listened to their own breathing, the sound of their feet tapping the trail as they danced on Mother Earth. They felt the rhythmic pounding of their heart telling them to adjust or steady their pace. And they listened to birds singing and the sound of the wind cutting through the canyons. And often they ran alone, experiencing physical ailments that all distance runners endure. “He was alone and running on,” Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday writes of a Jemez Pueblo runner named Abel. “All of his being was concentrated in the sheer motion of running on, and he was past caring about pain.” In the high desert of Arizona, Hopi runners also beheld beautiful landscapes , greeted majestic sunrises and sunsets, and had unobstructed views for miles in all directions. Running with no distractions from the outside world, Hopis ran with “good hearts,” prayed silently for the well-being of their people, and sang songs to the katsina spirits to entice the rain clouds to follow them home to their villages.
However, the tranquil environment that encompassed the trails back home did not reflect the fast pace and at times chaotic life in large modern American cities…
Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert, Hopi Runners: Crossing the Terrain between Indian and American (University Press of Kansas, 2018), 8, 9, 10.
A short response essay I wrote entitled “A Second Wave of Hopi Migration” was recently published in the History of Education Quarterly (Volume 54, No. 3, August 2014), the flagship journal of the History of Education Society.
In my essay I note that historians have primarily interpreted the American Indian boarding school experience through a frame of Indian education policies and discussions of assimilation and acculturation. But I argue that there is perhaps a more nuanced way of understanding the education history of Indigenous people.
By using my grandfather Lloyd (Quache) Gilbert as an example, who attended the Phoenix Indian School in the 1940s and early 1950s, I instead highlight the value and importance of utilizing Native ways of understanding to interpret Hopi and other American Indian education histories.
I also discuss and critique the U.S. government’s name changing policy, and explain how school officials required my grandfather (and his siblings) to change his surname from “Quache” (“friend” in the Hopi language) to the English surname “Gilbert.”
The complete essay can be downloaded by clicking the image below.
BEYOND THE MESAS, LLC 