Canton Asylum

Little Thunder, Yankton Dakota (1887) courtesy of http://www.firstpeople.us/

South Dakota was still a relatively new state when Canton’s ex-mayor, Oscar S. Gifford, made good on his hope to have an Indian insane asylum built there. Dakota Territory had been created in 1861, and took its name from the Dakota Sioux word meaning “allies.” This huge tract of land included what became North and South Dakota, and most of Montana and Wyoming. Two years later, the territory was reduced to the area of North and South Dakota only.

By the late 1880s, the northern part of the territory had about 190,000 people in it, and the southern part about 340,000. These numbers justified statehood. North Dakota became the 39th state and South Dakota the 40th, on November 2, 1889.

Sod Home courtesy Library of Congress Fred Hulstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections

The Three Musketeers

Though Dr. Harry Hummer often kept costs at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians down to unreasonable levels, he was not entirely indifferent to the social and recreational needs of his patients. On February 7, 1921, he sent a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, saying: “I have the honor to report that we have finally been successful in installing our moving picture outfit and gave the first entertainment yesterday, which afforded patients and employees quite a little pleasure. May I have your permission to give one entertainment weekly, the cost of same not to exceed ten dollars?”

The new entertainment did not escape the notice of area newspapers. The Morning Republican in Mitchell, S.D. reported on March 19, 1921: “At the present time high class feature films are shown once each week. On Sunday nights, until a permanent employee at the institution can learn to operate the machine, a special operator from a local theatre is employed. Formerly the mild patients of the institution were taken to this city to the theatre on certain nights every month in the large auto bus of the asylum.”

Popular movies in 1921 included: The Kid with Charlie Chaplin; The Sheik with Rudolph Valentino; and The Three Musketeers with Douglas Fairbanks.

The Kid

The Sheik

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School Picture of Attawa Indian Boys, 1870, courtesy Library of Congress

Though women, and especially young girls, may have had fewer rights and protections under traditional white sensibilities, boys were also vulnerable to involuntary commitment. Navajo James Hathorn became a patient at the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in 1904, when he was either six or eight years old. (See last post concerning another young patient.) Hathorn’s mother had suffered some problems during delivery, which affected James’s motor skills and language development. His problems were so severe that no one on his reservation could, or would, take care of him. He received ongoing medical care from Dr. Turner, mainly anti-spasmodics and physical therapy, which seemed to be helpful. At the time, there were 23 males at Canton Asylum, so presumably this little boy lived among them.

Though O. S. Gifford was not a trained psychiatrist as Dr. Harry Hummer was, he surely didn’t believe the boy was insane. Though he was probably taken to, and accepted by, the asylum with the best of intentions, Hathorn’s life had to be miserable. Authorities and family at the reservation, Gifford, and Dr. Turner probably understood Hathorn’s medical needs to be extreme, but putting a disabled child into an asylum with patients who were sometimes violent could not have been the best solution. Hathorn died at the age of 19 or 21, with little to indicate that he had improved to any great degree.

Tulalip Indian Boys at Canoe Race, 1912, courtesy Library of Congress

Huron (Wyandot or Wyandotte) Boys Learning to Chop Wood at Wyandotte Mission School in Kansas, 1880 to 1890, courtesy Library of Congress

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Native American Children in California, circa 1900, courtesy Sacramento Bee

Youth was no protection when it came to the possibility of commitment to an insane asylum. Dr. Harry Hummer admitted a six-year-old Caddo child named Amelia Moss to the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians in May or early June of 1922. His original correspondence to the reservation superintendent concerning the child is not available, but the superintendent’s reply makes it clear that Hummer was perfectly comfortable admitting her:

“I take pleasure in acknowledging receipt of your communication of May 8, 1922, advising that you are able to admit Amelia Moss, a full blood Caddo Indian child six years of age, to your institution, and that you are also ready to send your matron to this agency for the purpose of escorting this child to your institution.” (This letter, from superintendent J. A. Buntin(?), was written May 22, 1922.

According to Buntin’s letter, the Indians taking care of Moss (probably not her own parents) were anxious to send her to Hummer’s institution, “where she may be properly cared for.” Moss’s diagnosis was epilepsy, psychosis, and feeble-mindedness, though there is no reference to a psychiatrist’s confirming diagnosis of the mental issue. Most likely, Moss’s guardians didn’t want to care for her and thought she would be better off in an institution. Their attitude is certainly not Hummer’s fault, but accepting such a patient was definitely his own decision. It is difficult to believe that he actually thought a child so young could be insane, and even more difficult to believe that he thought he could actually help her.

Pueblo Tesuque Indian Children, circa 1880, courtesy Library of Congress

Indian Children, Flathead Reservation, 1907, courtesy Library of Congress

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Athens Female Ward, 1893, courtesy Athens County Historical Society and Museum

Going to an asylum was psychologically difficult at the best of times, but women could be expected to suffer a bit more . . . after all, many asylum patients had been homemakers unused to much interaction outside their own houses. Ironically, the paternalistic society in which women lived, with all its “protections” gave them few skills to cope with sudden changes to their routines and environments. Of course, women have responded heroically to all sorts of negative situations, but it seems reasonable to assume that between the two genders, women would have been less exposed to communal living and interactions with strangers during the 19th century. In general, women had been taught to seek protection and rely on others, and to find their satisfaction in home, family, and close friends. Their feelings of abandonment and friendlessness upon entering an asylum would be dependent upon how strongly they had adhered to this “womanly” ethic.

A letter from Mary Page to her sister (in 1871) speaks to the anguish many forgotten women felt:

“It has been a long and trying time since I saw or heard from you or any of the rest of your family or any of my relations. . . . Almost four years have this band of enemies been at work on me with foul play . . . . You all can pity my condition and picture to yourselves my sad fate all too unjustly committed. I have never given anyone in this whole world the first cause for themselves to fight poor me . . . ”

The letter is written from Williamsburg Hospital in Virginia, probably referencing Eastern Lunatic Asylum. Though the letter is somewhat rambling and makes a series of bitter comments and accusations against “unjust enemies” (which may have been the result of hallucinations/paranoia and the reason for her commitment), the woman’s pain is evident. Undoubtedly men were sent to asylums and forgotten, too, but given their social conditioning, women would have felt it more keenly.

Eastern Lunatic Asylum

Female Department, Michigan Asylum for the Insane, 1892, courtesy Kalamazoo Public Library

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Western Lunatic Asylum, Male Ward 1892, Female Ward, 1893, courtesy Virginia.gov

Women were assumed to be more delicate–mentally as well as physically–than men, and thus would become insane more often. Alienists (early psychiatrists) accepted this as the truth, but there does not seem to be a comprehensive 19th-century study that actually verifies this assumption. If some asylums held more women than men, it may have been because women had fewer legal rights and were easier to commit. And, as homemakers and primary caregivers, women often looked after male household members who were insane and thus kept them out of asylums. Men could not always do the same even if they had been inclined to, since most heads of household had work obligations. It is likely that many women ended up in asylums because no one could take care of them, or it was simply easier on their male relatives.

At the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians, men outnumbered women as patients over the life of the asylum. From available records, about 212 men and 155 women spent time at Canton Asylum; this figure includes two babies who were confined with their mothers for a period. Though the patient list is doubtlessly incomplete, it does show both the gender imbalance at the asylum as well as how few patients the asylum actually treated over more than 30 years. Though Dr. Hummer pleaded continually for expansion, there does not appear to have been a patient population which would have made expansion justifiable.

Female Ward in Athens, Ohio, Lunatic Asylum circa 1893

Staff, Athens Lunatic Asylum

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Hopi Indians Removing Pits from Peaches Before Drying, courtesy Library of Congress

Some Native American women held special positions in tribes (see last two posts), but almost any female possessed food-gathering and culinary skills of great value. When settlers first began pushing West, they found survival on the unforgiving Plains and desert areas very difficult. Scurvy (a vitamin C deficiency) was a special problem until whites could settle long enough to grow vegetables. Yet, Native American women knew to eat raw (wild) greens, berries, and vegetables to prevent scurvy and other nutritional diseases. They also knew how to make calorie-dense pemmican and jerky which kept well and could be used during lean times. Native Americans also ate parts of buffalo and other game that most whites disdained, but liver, brains, heart, and intestines are nutritious parts of the animal.

Whites did not want to eat things like grass, clover, cactus, wild artichokes, or cattails. They tended to cook all their food and frequently bypassed raw edibles that could have eased their hunger or provided better nutrition in the raw state; additionally, they were often suspicious of new foods. Though whites could have learned a lot by observing the peoples who had obviously lived successfully on the land for thousands of years, they held so many cultural prejudices that it was difficult for them to emulate the wisdom of Native American eating patterns.

Native American Woman Adding Berries to Make Pemmican

Indian (Pueblos) Food Preparation, 1899 or 1900, courtesy Library of Congress

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Blood Medicine Woman, Calgary, circa 1900

Native American women gathered herbs and created various healing preparations from them in probably every tribe. Some women had a special ability to heal, and became medicine women. Their knowledge went beyond the ordinary, and they devoted a considerable amount of time to perfecting their skills in recognizing and using herbs for curing illness and treating injuries. Women who were successful healers would be rewarded for their efforts with presents, food, and the like, and could become wealthy and respected within their tribes. Europeans were often astonished at how effective Native American medicines were in healing the ills of the day.

Some women went beyond healing with herbs and developed a deeper alliance with the spirit world. These women were differentiated as shamans; they studied under a practicing shaman and eventually took over her position. Shamans used the information passed on to them from their mentors, but also developed their own rituals, songs, or formulas for healing and for practicing other spiritual skills like interpreting dreams, finding buffalo herds, or calling out the wind. Their powers were mystical and magical, and though they could heal, they had a different role than medicine women.

Medicine Woman Seeking Solitude, 1915, courtesy Library of Congress

Menominee Medicine Woman

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Scalp Dance

Women were an integral part of tribal life; they raised and preserved food, cared for children, and accompanied men in battle when necessary. They participated in ceremonies and celebrations as well. Women were sole participants in certain dances, like the buckskin or cloth dance and squaw dance, but they joined men in many other dances.

When men returned successfully from war, the tribe celebrated with dancing. Both men and women participated in the Scalp Dance. Each tribe’s dance was somewhat different, but generally, scalps were brought into the village on long poles which were later decorated. The dancing was exuberant, but since it was a ceremony in a dance format, it followed a certain order and choreography. Medicine men sang and beat drums while women danced in concentric circles around the scalps. Sometimes dancers would mock the scalps or mimic hunting down the person to whom the scalp had belonged. When dancers were tired, a woman who had lost a male relative in battle would narrate the particulars of the battle and how her loved one had died. After that, she might ask “and now whose scalp do I have?” or if she had taken the scalp down to  spread it across her shoulders she would say, “and now whose scalp is across my shoulders?” The sense of victory was an important component of the dance. The dance could continue at intervals for several days or weeks; eventually the scalp was buried or put on the death scaffold of a man who had helped take the scalp.

Paul Kane Picture of Chualpay Women Dancers at a Scalp Dance

Sioux Scalp Dance

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Lozan, Native American Warrior Woman

Native American women not only shared political power with men, they sometimes shared in their tribe’s fighting. Though they were certainly not common, female warriors joined in warfare when necessary. Running Eagle became a Blackfoot warrior after her husband was killed, and led many successful raids on Flathead horse herds. Many warrior women entered battle because they had accompanied husbands or other male relatives into a conflict, but Chilhenne-Chiricahua Apache woman, Lozen, decided to become a warrior at a young age. She trained with her brother and developed the gift of finding the enemy. She went by herself to a deserted place and stood with her arms stretched, palms up, to the sky. She turned slowly until a tingling in her palms alerted her to the direction of the enemy’s presence. Lozen was a skilled warrior and scout in addition to acting as a guide to the enemy’s whereabouts.

Unlike Lozan, most women didn’t pursue warfare as a way of life, though they could do so without censure if they wished. But, childless married women often accompanied their husbands into battle zones; this proximity to fighting could bring them into an active role in a conflict, particularly if a husband were killed. Women were often leaders in deciding when a tribe would go to war, and in deciding when to end it. They often decided the fate of prisoners, as well. Women could sentence a prisoner to torture or death, or spare his life. After a battle, women also took a share in the spoils.

Young (perhaps Kiowa) Woman in Buckskin Dress, Bow and Arrow, circa 1895

Six Young Women on Horseback, circa 1895

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