From: Maia <maia>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 19:41:22 -0400

It concerns me when I see vague responses to concerns raised about the <The Little House on the Prairie> series. It occurred to me that for many of us it may have been a long time since our last read of the series. So I scanned my set (from my own childhood) for descriptions of 'Indians'... I hope the following helps to clarify some of the objections raised to this series. I do not think we can simply read these books in tandem with books like ; I think that if we use them at all, it must be at an age where children are able to think critically for themselves. They are perhaps appropriate for a study of history, bigotry, and race relations, but not, I think, as a undeveloped assignment in literature.

Maia

Quotes from series (my set is Harper Trophy, 1971):

  pg 187 - "Now she heard the Indian war whoops when the Indians were dancing their war dances all through the horrible nights by the Verdigris river. The war whoops died away and she heard crowds of people muttering, then shrieking and fleeing away from fierce yells chasing them. But she knew she heard only the voices of the blizzard winds."

  pg 141 - "'For pity's sake, Laura,' said Mary, 'keep your sunbonnet on! You'll be as brown as an Indian, and what will the town girls think of us?'"

  pg 280 - "'Give me a kiss, Caroline, if you can reach me through these wild Indians.'"

  pg 13 - "'Don't cry, Laura', Pa said. 'He has gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds.'"

  pg 43 - "From the huge blackness of the night came again a wild, shrill howl. It was not an Indian. It was not a wolf. Laura did not know what it was."

  pg 52 - "Laura stood watching Lena and Jean race in circles, yelling like Indians."

  pg 55 - "Really, Docia, I don't know when Laura's looked so like a wild Indian."

  pg 62 - "And the song he sang oftenest was: 'Oh, come to this country, And don't you feel alarm, For Uncle Sam is rich enough To give us all a farm!'"

  pg 82 - "I always heard you can't trust a half-breed," Ma said. Ma did not like Indians; she did not like even half-Indians.
'We'd all have been scalped down on the Verdigris River, if it hadn't been for a full-blood,' said Pa. 'We wouldn't have been in any danger of scalping if it hadn't been for those howling savages,' said Ma, 'with fresh skunk skins around their middles.' And she made a sound that came from remembering how those skins smelled."

There's also an interesting episode in 'By the Shores of Silver Lake', where Pa responds with anger to hearing about a claim-jumper arrested. "Arrested him!" Pa said furiously. "Hanging's too good for him!" What exactly did Pa think that they were doing? But that's easily answered by:

  pg 284: "'America was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Columbus, a native of Genoa in Italy... Waiting the hour when at God's command--...'"

Also from pg 72 - ... "and the murdering scalping red-skinned savages that those gold-laced aristocrats turned loose on our settlements and paid for murdering and burning and scalping women and children..."

Then there's the scene in (pg 33) where Laura is asked "'You go - me - be my squaw?'"

But by far the highest percentage of awful scenes are in <Little House on the Prairie> itself:

pg 137 "The naked wild men stood by the fireplace."... "Laura ran toward Ma, but just as she reached the hearth she smelled a horribly bad smell and looked up at the Indians."

pg 211 "She hoped to goodness they would have no trouble with Indians. Mr. Scott had heard rumors of trouble. She said 'Land knows, they'd never do anything with this country themselves. All they do is roam around over it like wild animals. Treaties or no treaties, the lands belongs to folks that'll farm it. That's only common sense and justice.' She did not know why the government made treaties with Indians. The only good Indian was a dead Indian..."

pg 233 "Those Indians were dirty and scowling and mean..."

pg 237 "'Yes,' said Pa. 'When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on. The government is going to move these Indians farther west, anytime now. That's why we're here, Laura. White people are going to settle all this country, and we get the best land because we get here first and take our pick. Now do you understand?'"

pg 295 "That night the noise in the Indian camps was worse than the night before. Again the war-cries were more terrible than the most dreadful nightmare."

pg 208 "'Pa', she said, 'get me that little Indian baby!' ... 'Oh, I want it! I want it!'"

pg 325 "'It's a great country, Caroline,' Pa said. 'But there will be wild Indians and wolves here for many a long day.'"
Received on Thu 14 Oct 1999 06:41:22 PM CDT