P
behalf of the Indians, and secure for them added
recognition of their personal and property rights.”
Bonnin encourages Indians to participate in
politics, particularly by exercising their newly won
right to vote, and to look to education as a tool
for freeing themselves from the paternalistic poli-
cies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Although the
National Council’s ideas will be greeted with little
enthusiasm by tribes, Bonnin, under its auspices,
will exercise a substantial influence over the drafting
of the groundbreaking Indian Reorganization Act
(see entry for JUNE 18, 1934).
Sam Blowsnake’s Crashing Thunder is
published.
With the encouragement and help of non-Indian
anthropologist Paul Radin, Winnebago Indian Sam
Blowsnake (also known as Crashing Thunder and
Big Winnebago) tells his life history in Crashing
Thunder. The book focuses on Blowsnake’s search
for religious truth, which he finally finds in peyo-
tism (see entry for OCTOBER 10, 1918). A classic of
ethnographic autobiography, the book will serve as
a model for many future collaborations between In-
dians and anthropologists, including Mountain Wolf
Woman (1961), the autobiography of Blowsnake’s
sister, edited by anthropologist Nancy Lurie.
1927The Indian Act is amended to stymie Native
political activity.
To suppress dissent among Native peoples, the Ca-
nadian government amends the Indian Act (see entry
for APRIL 12, 1876) to outlaw the unauthorized so-
licitation of funds for Native political organizations.
The measure effectively destroys Natives’ efforts to
band together to force the government to address
their concerns, particularly their claims that land
throughout Canada was seized from them illegally.
The Indian Shaker Church divides over a
doctrine dispute.
The Indian Shaker Church (see entry for 1883) is
mired in controversy when two groups of adherents
emerge in the church—those who want to use the
Bible in their services and those who do not. The
dispute comes to a head when a former bishop of
the anti-Bible faction refuses to step down after a
pro-Bible believer is elected to the position.
The conflict is resolved by the superior court of
Snohomish County, Washington, which formally
divides the church. The anti-Bible faction con-
tinues to be called the Indian Shaker Church; the
pro-Bible faction is thereafter known as the Indian
Full Gospel Church.Mourning Dove’s Cogewea: The Half-Blood
is published.
Writing under the pen name Mourning Dove,
Colville-Okanagan writer Christine Quintasket“Cogewea seated on the
veranda was endeavoring to in-
terest herself in a book.... The
scene opened [with] a half-
blood ‘brave’ is in love with a
white girl.... He deems himself
beneath her.... But to cap the
absurdity of the story, he weds
the white ‘princess’ and slaves
for her the rest of his life.
Cogewea leaned back in
her chair with a sigh. ‘Bosh,’
she mused half aloud. ‘Show
me the Red “buck” who would
slave for the most exclusive
white “princess” that lives.
Such hash may go with the
white, but the Indian, both
full bloods and the despised
breeds, know differently.’”
—from Mourning Dove’s
Cogewea: The Half-Blood