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Caption: Dedication - Memorial Stadium Drive Book #2
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-Lt( 0 u.\j\l c oTs LMp $ o< AN INDIAN TrVlBE BEGAN IT A LONG TIME AGO 1 © ISTEN to the historian, and learn what manner of man lived where -y today is Burrill avenue, Green street, and the Boneyard . . . . The Illini Indian, he was called, and he was a hunter, and a fighter, and more generous in war and in peace than his neighbors, the Shawnees, the Iroquois, the Sioux, the Chippewas, and the Kickapoos. He was an individualist, and his children, whom he loved, were given freedom to grow as they willed, only they had to be brave and self-denying, and each had to find his god—his Manitou—to protect and inspire him; for this was the law of the tribe. Never were people better made than the Illini, said a traveler who observed them. "They are neither large nor s m a l l . . . . They have tapering legs which carry their bodies well, with a very haughty step, and as graceful as the best dancer. The visage is fairer than white milk so far as savages of this country can have such. The teeth are the best arranged and the whitest in the world. They are vivacious Although they had religious ceremonies, they were "too well off to be really pious," and to none of their deities did the Illini attribute moral good or evil. No temples have these ancient Indians left us, and no books. we have a heritage from them, direct through the pioneers who fought them and learned to know them. It is the Great Heart, the fighting spirit, the spirit of individualism, of teaching our children to be free but brave and to have a God—for these are the laws of our tribe. See us today living vitally in our heritage. Watch us play football; see us on the cinder t r a c k , on the baseball diamond . . . . We are different, somehow, we of the middle west—not particularly better, but different. We are uniquely ourselves. 'He was an individualist" But * 'We have a heritage from the Illini Indian—the Great Heart, the fighting spirit 664855
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