Tag Archives: Navajo

Canton’s Patients

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Canton Asylum with Swing Sets

Canton Asylum with Swing Sets

Few patient records from the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians are intact or complete. This is not unusual–many asylums destroyed their records over the years, since early administrators did not see any potentially historical value in them. The Canton Asylum’s records are especially problematic, though, since its superintendent, Dr. Harry Hummer, was faulted several times for a failure to even keep good records. What never existed cannot very well be found, in many cases. There are a few records that remain, and when patients were transferred to St. Elizabeths after the Canton Asylum closed, staff observed them for a period of time and then summarized the patient’s history and current behavior (see last post). Here is an example of their summation of a patient:

Nesba (Tribe – Navajo)

She was admitted to the Canton Asylum . . . at the request of the Superintendent of Southern Navajo Agency, Fort Defiance, Arizona. The medical certificate at the time stated, “The patient has been in present condition for past two years. Present symptoms, feeblemindedness, dementia.” The patient is a congenital defective suffering with cerebral palsies. . . . During her stay in the Canton Asylum she was infantile in her reaction, subject to tantrums during which she cried and yelled, sang, etc. These periods seemed to coincide with her menstrual periods. At one time during her stay there she was quite destructive to clothing . . . she mimicked people and seemed to delight in teasing other patients.

On her admission here the patient was passively cooperative but unable to stand alone due to her physical handicap. She is mute except for guttural noises which she makes in her throat. No definitive mental content can be elicited. She smiles at any attention received, is quite highly pleased at any effort of others to associate with her.

Other remarks continued to assess the patient’s physical condition and mental status, but staff said it was “impossible to determine whether she is oriented or if her memory is better.” She had been admitted to Canton Asylum in 1924 when she was about 20 years old, so would have been around 30 when she came to St. Elizabeths. Her physical condition probably brought her to and kept her in an asylum.

My next post will give one more patient history.

Group of Female Patients, Eastern Hospital for the Insane, courtesy National Institutes of Health

Group of Female Patients, Eastern Hospital for the Insane, courtesy National Institutes of Health

 

Acute Insanity as Cause of Death

Acute Insanity as Cause of Death

Horror Story

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Native American Storytelling

Native Americans did not celebrate Halloween rituals as Europeans did, but they passed on stories about spirits and ghosts. The following story is adapted from the Zuni tale, “Rolling Skull” on angelfire.com, Native American Legends, Myths, and Lore:

One day, a young man who was a great hunter found himself far away from home when it became dark and rainy. He saw smoke coming from a house and thought that he could find shelter there. An old woman let him in and offered him food. Later, she offered him her beautiful daughter for the night. The man agreed and went to sleep with the daughter. When he woke up, the house was only an old ruin and his blanket was just a rag. The woman he had slept with was a skeleton, and her bones rattled as he jumped up in fear and ran away. As he ran, he heard the old woman’s skull rolling behind him.

The man sought help from the Hawiku, who were dancing the yaya dance. But, as he joined the dance, the old woman’s skull rolled into the group of dancers and cried out, “Where is my daughter’s husband?” The hunter ran to the Navajo dancing a war dance, but the same thing happened. He ran to the Laguna dancing the harvest dance, and the same thing happened. The old woman’s skull rolled behind him everywhere he sought help or protection. The bluebird and the sunflower couldn’t help him, but finally the hunter reached Porcupine.

Porcupine gave the man pinon gum and told him to cover the door thickly with it. When the old woman’s skull cried out for her daughter’s husband, Porcupine told her to come and get him. The skull rolled in and stuck fast to the pinon gum. Porcupine set fire to the pinon gum and skull and burned it up. The man then stayed with Porcupine and married Porcupine Girl.

Though the story is simple, the hunter’s panic is palpable in the longer version, and the eeriness of the old woman’s skull more pronounced.

Zuni Pueblo-Pack Train, courtesy Smithsonian Institution and the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center

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Native Americans And WWI

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Otis W. Leader, Depicted by a French Artist as the Ideal American Soldier

Many people are familiar with the military contributions of Native American Code Talkers during WWII, but don’t know about Native American contributions to the Great War. Over 17,000 males registered for the draft, but many other men volunteered to enter the military. Data on these volunteers are not as  firm, but perhaps half of all Native Americans who enlisted were volunteers. Proportionally, as many or more Native Americans served in the military as other adult American men. Tribal participation rates varied: Oklahoma tribes entered the military at the highest rates, while Navajo and Pueblo men served at the lowest.*

Students from Indian boarding schools like Carlisle volunteered in great numbers, which may have been due both to their familiarity with the military from their school experience as well as a desire to get away from the boarding school environment. Almost without a voice of dissent, whites in authority  over these students–all the way up to commissioner of Indian Affairs, Cato Sells–approved of this massive exodus into the military. They attributed it to the success of the Indian Office’s assimilation policy and patriotism on the part of students. Both these factors may have entered into student decisions to enlist, but a thirst for adventure and an equally powerful hatred of their substandard schools were probably just as contributory. Unfortunately, some of these enthusiastic students were underage, with teachers (as the only adults even able to stand in as pseudo-parents) usually turning a blind eye or actually encouraging enlistment.

*Statistics about Native American participation in the military during WWI are taken from Russel Lawrence Barsh’s “American Indians in the Great War; Ethnohistory 38:3 (Summer, 1991).

Gus Sharlow, Ojibwa WWI Veteran, courtesy Wisconsin Historical Images

Parade Field at Carlisle Barracks in Carlisle, PA, courtesy U. S. Army

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Boys Not Exempt

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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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