Books: The Forked-Tongue Syndrome

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Indelible Statistics. The Government estimated that during the Phins Wars it had cost more than $1,000.000 to kill one Indian. The price the Plains Indians paid cannot be calculated in time and money, although Dee Brown offers some indelible statistics. For example, the Government offered the S'onx $400,000 a year for the mineral rights to their sacred Black Hills: one mine alone yielded more than $500 million in gold. Of the estimated 3,700,000 buffalo killed from 1872 through 1874, only 150,000 were killed by Indians. The rest were slaughtered by white hunters for skins and for meat to feed rail workers, or by "sportsmen" who left the carcasses to rot. The destruction of the buffalo broke the cultural, ecological and spiritual links in the chain of Indian existence. This was not without its uses. "Let them kill, skin and se'l until the buffalo is exterminated." said General Philip Sheridan, a Civil War hero. "It is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance."

The civilization Sheridan was concerned about continues to advance. A recent report by the N.A.A.C.P. and Harvard's Center for Law and Education charged that federal funds appropriated for Indian education have been siphoned off for white schools. The discovery of immense oil deposits on Alaska's North Slope threatens to uproot thousands of Eskimos, Aleuts and Indians. In Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the buffalo have grown so numerous that the state allows hunting. A license to shoot buffalo costs $500. There are no discounts to Indians.