I loved best the evening meal, for that was the time old legends were told. I was always glad when the sun hung low in the west, for them my mother sent me to invite the neighboring old men to eat supper with us.
There were specific times and places in which one could speak to the tribal elders in Zitkala-Ka's tribe. In this opening of the story, she sets the scene very carefully. Supper would be shared, and in their own time, the elders would begin to share their stories of ancestors and of traditions that the younger members of the tribe present would then try to adhere to and continue. Zitkala-Sa began to write these recollections down in stories so that she could preserve the oral traditions that are so important to her people, and to make sure that they did not die with the elders.
Don't believe a word they say! Their words are sweet, but, my child, their deeds are bitter.
The missionaries to talk about the eastern schools paint a beautiful and enticing picture of a place where everything is an adventure and where there are apples growing on the trees that a little girl would easily be able to pick by reaching up a hand. These are happy pictures, but in reality they are lies, because the experience that waits for the children in the eastern schools is anything but happy and pleasant.
Zitkala-Sa's mother knows this only to well; she knows that they are speaking lies in order to captivate the children and make them want to go east.The uses the apple to illustrate her point - their words, like the apples, are "sweet" but the paradox is that the real life experience of their words is very "bitter" indeed. In other words the reality will be the opposite of what they are being told about.
I torture little girls who disobey school regulations.
The teachers at the school in the east seemed to subscribe to the "spare the rod, spoil the child" theory of discipline. They do not care if the children are happy as long as they are compliant. They begin teaching the girls about the Bible, and about Catholicism, and one day when they introduce the Devil into the lesson, Zitkala-Sa is frightened by the picture. This is the objective of the teachers. They are attempting to frighten the children into compliance, into never questioning anything, and to obeying the strict rules to the letter.
