INDIAN SMOKE SIGNALS
THE CHILDREN
Every child is entitled to a home, food, upbringing, and an education. If he has no near kin, then he is a proper and honorable charge on the Tribe. There was no such thing as an illegitimate child, that is a child without social standing or legal rights because its parents were unmarried. All were legitimate and when an unmarried woman had a baby there never was lack of a kind person ready to offer the little one a home and an adoptive father.
The tender regard of the Indian parent for the children is well known. More than one of their prophets has said, “If your child be wayward, unruly, rebellious, or insolent, do not beat him. Only a brute and a coward would beat a helpless child. Rather discipline him by exclusion from the games with his fellows, and even to fasting till he is brought to see his error. Remember the sorrow of being an outcast will speedily discipline him into obedience, whereas the wickedness of beating his body will surely result in lifelong hate and indignation against those who have so tortured him.”
The North American Indians are not only affectionately attached, indeed to their own offspring, but are extremely fond of children in general. They instruct them carefully in their own principals and train them up with attention in the maxims and habits of their nation. Their system consists chiefly in the influence of example, and impressing upon them the traditional histories of their ancestors.
When the children act wrong, their parents remonstrate and reprimand but never chastise them. Love of their children is a dominant characteristic of the Red race. I never saw an Indian child spanked; I never saw an Indian child spoiled. The children were the property of the mother until puberty.
– Ernest Thompson Seton (The Gospel Of The Redman)
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