The Ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890

by James Mooney

APPENDIX

THE MORMONS AND THE INDIANS

While the Indian excitement was at its height in 1892, a curious pamphlet was published anonymously at Salt Lake City in connection with a proposed series of lectures, from which we make some extracts for the light they give on the Mormon attitude toward the Indians. The pamphlet is headed, “The Mormons have stepped down and out of Celestial Government—the American Indians have stepped up and into Celestial Government.” It begins by stating that the Messiah came to His people at the time appointed of the Father—March, 1890—notwithstanding the assertion in the Deseret Evening News, made January, 1892: “1890 has passed, and no Messiah has come.” It goes on to say:

“1891 has passed, and no pruning of the vineyard.” The vineyard of the Lord is the house of Israel.—Isa. 5:7. In the part of the vineyard the American Indians, descendants of the righteous branch of Joseph, who were led to the Western Continent or hemisphere—Zion—we find the vine, the stone-power of the Latter Days. Ps. 80.

The celestial prophet, seer, and revelator, Joseph Smith, jr., prophesied on the 2d of April, 1843, that the Messiah would reveal himself to man in mortality in 1890. Doctrine and Covenants, 130, 15, 17, which reads: “I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice speak the following: ‘Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man.’”

*****

Five years later (than 1882) the sign that was to usher in the work of the Father was given to the American Indians, while March, 1890, witnesses the organization of a church under the restored order, where twelve disciples were chosen and ordained, whose first allegiance is given irrevocably to the Lord God, whereas that of the Celestial Church is given to the government fostering it.

*****

The following seven signs were to precede the fullness of the Gentiles upon the land of America; Zion, the time, place, and parties given with each. [The first, second, and third “signs” are omitted here.]

4. When the Bible and Book of Mormon become one in the hands of the Messiah. Ezk. 37:19; III Nephi, 21:1–7. In 1887, sixty years after the plates were delivered to Joseph Smith, jr., the Book of Mormon in Spanish was delivered to the American Indians, with the promise to those who are identified with the Gentiles that if they will not harden their hearts, but will repent and know the true points of my doctrine they shall be numbered with my covenant people, the Branch of Joseph. Doctrine and Covenant, 19:59–62; 20:8–17; III Nephi, 21:1–7.

5. The coming of the Messiah. Three years later, March, 1890, the people of God, who were notified by the three Nephites, met at Walkers lake, Esmeralda county, Nevada, where a dispensation of the Celestial kingdom of God—the gospel in the covenant of consecration, a perfect oneness in all things, temporal and spiritual—was given unto them. Twelve disciples were ordained, not by angels or men, but by the Messiah, in the presence of hundreds, representing scores of tribes or nations, who saw his face, heard and understood his voice as on the day of pentecost. Acts 2, also fulfilling sec. 90:9, 10, 11 of Doctrine and Covenant. Ezk. 20:33–37.

6. The Fulness of the Gentiles. In 1492, the Lord God let His vineyard to the nations of the Gentiles, to punish His people the Branch of Joseph for 400 years (Gen. 15:13), bringing the fulness of the Gentiles the end of their rule over the American Indians. October, 1892, Rom. II: 25–26; Gen. 50:25; New Trans. Matt. 21:33–41.

7. The Pruning of the Vineyard. The husbandmen upon this land began the last pruning of the vineyard in 1891. Prominent among which stands our government in fulfilling Matt. 21:33–41, saying, let us kill the heirs and hold the inheritance, as shown in the massacre of Wounded Knee; the butchery of Sitting Bull; the imprisonment of Short Bull and others; the breaking up of reservations, and the attempts to destroy the treaty stipulations above mentioned by forcing the mark of the Beast, citizenship and statehood, upon the American Indians, which will ultimately terminate in a war of extermination. Isa. 10:24–27; Dan. 2:34; Isa. 14:21.

According to the astronomical, prophetic, and historical evidence found in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants for the redemption of Zion and the restoration of Israel, there are seven celestial keys of powers to be used which can not be handled by apostles, prophets, or angels. They can only be handled by the Messiah and his Father.

*****

2. The key of power that restores the heirs, the American Indians, to their own lands consecrating to them the wealth of the Gentiles.

3. The key of power that turns away ungodliness from Jacob (the American Indians) enabling them to build the temple on the spot pointed out by the finger of God (Independence, Jackson County, Missouri), on which the true sign of Israel is to rest, the glory of the living God of the Hebrews, the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night by the close of this generation, 1896.

*****

On and after July 10, 1892, free lectures illustrated by figures, will be given weekly, on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, from 6.30 to 8.30 p. m. (weather permitting), at the book stand in the Nineteenth Ward, opposite Margett’s Brewery, No. 312 North Second West.

First. On the coming of the Messiah to the Hebrews, at the sacrifice of Esau, near the close of the 400-year bondage of Jacob in the morning of the Abrahamic Covenant, B. C. 1491.

Second. On the coming of the Messiah to the Jews, at the Meridian sacrifice of Jacob at the close of the last 1921 years of the covenant, the year one A. D.

Third. On the coming of the Messiah to the American Indians, the remnants, at the evening sacrifice of Esau, near the expiration of the evening bondage of Jacob of 400 years, 1892, in the last 430 years of the covenant.

PORCUPINE’S ACCOUNT OF THE MESSIAH

The following statement was made to Major Carroll, in command of Camp Crook, at Tongue River agency, Montana, June 15, 1890, and transmitted through the War Department to the Indian Office:

In November last [1889] I left the reservation with two other Cheyennes. I went through [Fort] Washakie and took the Union Pacific railroad at Rawlins. We got on early in the morning about breakfast, rode all day on the railroad, and about dark reached a fort [Bridger?]. I stayed there two days, and then took a passenger train, and the next morning got to Fort Hall. I found some lodges of Snakes and Bannocks there. I saw the agent here, and he told me I could stay at the agency, but the chief of the Bannocks who was there took me to his camp near by. The Bannocks told me they were glad to see a Cheyenne and that we ought to make a treaty with the Bannocks.

The chief told me he had been to Washington and had seen the President, and that we ought all to be friends with the whites and live at peace with them and with each other. We talked these matters over for ten days. The agent then sent for me and some of the Bannocks and Shoshones, and asked me where I was going. I told him I was just traveling to meet other Indians and see other countries; that my people were at peace with the whites, and I thought I could travel anywhere I wished. He asked me why I did not have a pass. I said because my agent would not give me one. He said he was glad to see me anyhow, and that the whites and Indians were all friends. Then he asked me where I wanted a pass to. I told him I wanted to go further and some Bannocks and Shoshones wanted to go along. He gave passes—five of them—to the chiefs of the three parties. We took the railroad to a little town near by, and then took a narrow-gauge road. We went on this, riding all night at a very fast rate of speed, and came to a town on a big lake [Ogden or Salt Lake City]. We stayed there one day, taking the cars at night, rode all night, and the next morning about 9 oclock saw a settlement of Indians. We traveled south, going on a narrow-gauge road. We got off at this Indian town. The Indians here were different from any Indians I ever saw. The women and men were dressed in white people’s clothes, the women having their hair banged. These Indians had their faces painted white with black spots. We stayed with these people all day. We took the same road at night and kept on. We traveled all night, and about daylight we saw a lot of houses, and they told us there were a lot more Indians there; so we got off, and there is where we saw Indians living in huts of grass [tulé?]. We stopped here and got something to eat. There were whites living near by. We got on the cars again at night, and during the night we got off among some Indians, who were fish-eaters [Paiute]. We stayed among the Fish-eaters till morning, and then got into a wagon with the son of the chief of the Fish-eaters, and we arrived about noon at an agency on a big river. There was also a big lake near the agency.

The agent asked us where we were from and said we were a long ways from home, and that he would write to our agent and let him know we were all right. From this agency we went back to the station, and they told us there were some more Indians to the south. One of the chiefs of the Fish-eaters then furnished us with four wagons. We traveled all day, and then came to another railroad. We left our wagons here and took the railroad, the Fish-eaters telling us there were some more Indians along the railroad who wanted to see us. We took this railroad about 2 oclock and about sun down got to another agency, where there were more Fish-eaters. [From diagrams drawn and explanations given of them in addition to the foregoing, there seems to be no doubt that the lakes visited are Pyramid and Walker lakes, western Nevada, and the agencies those of the same name.]

They told us they had heard from the Shoshone agency that the people in this country were all bad people, but that they were good people there. All the Indians from the Bannock agency down to where I finally stopped danced this dance [referring to the late religious dances at the Cheyenne agency], the whites often dancing it themselves. [It will be recollected that he traveled constantly through the Mormon country.] I knew nothing about this dance before going. I happened to run across it, that is all. I will tell you about it. [Here all the Indian auditors removed their hats in token that the talk to follow was to be on a religious subject.] I want you all to listen to this, so that there will be no mistake. There is no harm in what I am to say to anyone. I heard this where I met my friends in Nevada. It is a wonder you people never heard this before. In the dance we had there [Nevada] the whites and Indians danced together. I met there a great many kinds of people, but they all seemed to know all about this religion. The people there seemed all to be good. I never saw any drinking or fighting or bad conduct among them. They treated me well on the cars, without pay. They gave me food without charge, and I found that this was a habit among them toward their neighbors. I thought it strange that the people there should have been so good, so different from those here.

What I am going to say is the truth. The two men sitting near me were with me, and will bear witness that I speak the truth. I and my people have been living in ignorance until I went and found out the truth. All the whites and Indians are brothers, I was told there. I never knew this before.

The Fish-eaters near Pyramid lake told me that Christ had appeared on earth again. They said Christ knew he was coming; that eleven of his children were also coming from a far land. It appeared that Christ had sent for me to go there, and that was why unconsciously I took my journey. It had been foreordained. Christ had summoned myself and others from all heathen tribes, from two to three or four from each of fifteen or sixteen different tribes. There were more different languages than I ever heard before and I did not understand any of them. They told me when I got there that my great father was there also, but did not know who he was. The people assembled called a council, and the chief’s son went to see the Great Father [messiah], who sent word to us to remain fourteen days in that camp and that he would come to see us. He sent me a small package of something white to eat that I did not know the name of. There were a great many people in the council, and this white food was divided among them. The food was a big white nut. Then I went to the agency at Walker lake and they told us Christ would be there in two days. At the end of two days, on the third morning, hundreds of people gathered at this place. They cleared off a place near the agency in the form of a circus ring and we all gathered there. This space was perfectly cleared of grass, etc. We waited there till late in the evening anxious to see Christ. Just before sundown I saw a great many people, mostly Indians, coming dressed in white men’s clothes. The Christ was with them. They all formed in this ring around it. They put up sheets all around the circle, as they had no tents. Just after dark some of the Indians told me that the Christ [Father] was arrived. I looked around to find him, and finally saw him sitting on one side of the ring. They all started toward him to see him. They made a big fire to throw light on him. I never looked around, but went forward, and when I saw him I bent my head. I had always thought the Great Father was a white man, but this man looked like an Indian. He sat there a long time and nobody went up to speak to him. He sat with his head bowed all the time. After awhile he rose and said he was very glad to see his children. “I have sent for you and am glad to see you. I am going to talk to you after awhile about your relatives who are dead and gone. My children, I want you to listen to all I have to say to you. I will teach you, too, how to dance a dance, and I want you to dance it. Get ready for your dance and then, when the dance is over, I will talk to you.” He was dressed in a white coat with stripes. The rest of his dress was a white man’s except that he had on a pair of moccasins. Then he commenced our dance, everybody joining in, the Christ singing while we danced. We danced till late in the night, when he told us we had danced enough.

The next morning, after breakfast was over, we went into the circle and spread canvas over it on the ground, the Christ standing in the midst of us. He told us he was going away that day, but would be back that next morning and talk to us.

In the night when I first saw him I thought he was an Indian, but the next day when I could see better he looked different. He was not so dark as an Indian, nor so light as a white man. He had no beard or whiskers, but very heavy eyebrows. He was a good-looking man. We were crowded up very close. We had been told that nobody was to talk, and even if we whispered the Christ would know it. I had heard that Christ had been crucified, and I looked to see, and I saw a scar on his wrist and one on his face, and he seemed to be the man. I could not see his feet. He would talk to us all day.

That evening we all assembled again to see him depart. When we were assembled, he began to sing, and he commenced to tremble all over, violently for a while, and then sat down. We danced all that night, the Christ lying down beside us apparently dead.

The next morning when we went to eat breakfast, the Christ was with us. After breakfast four heralds went around and called out that the Christ was back with us and wanted to talk with us. The circle was prepared again. The people assembled, and Christ came among us and sat down. He said he wanted to talk to us again and for us to listen. He said: “I am the man who made everything you see around you. I am not lying to you, my children. I made this earth and everything on it. I have been to heaven and seen your dead friends and have seen my own father and mother. In the beginning, after God made the earth, they sent me back to teach the people, and when I came back on earth the people were afraid of me and treated me badly. This is what they did to me [showing his scars]. I did not try to defend myself. I found my children were bad, so went back to heaven and left them. I told them that in so many hundred years I would come back to see my children. At the end of this time I was sent back to try to teach them. My father told me the earth was getting old and worn out, and the people getting bad, and that I was to renew everything as it used to be, and make it better.”

He told us also that all our dead were to be resurrected; that they were all to come back to earth, and that as the earth was too small for them and us, he would do away with heaven, and make the earth itself large enough to contain us all; that we must tell all the people we meet about these things. He spoke to us about fighting, and said that was bad, and we must keep from it; that the earth was to be all good hereafter, and we must all be friends with one another. He said that in the fall of the year the youth of all the good people would be renewed, so that nobody would be more than 40 years old, and that if they behaved themselves well after this the youth of everyone would be renewed in the spring. He said if we were all good he would send people among us who could heal all our wounds and sickness by mere touch, and that we would live forever. He told us not to quarrel, or fight, nor strike each other, nor shoot one another; that the whites and Indians were to be all one people. He said if any man disobeyed what he ordered, his tribe would be wiped from the face of the earth; that we must believe everything he said, and that we must not doubt him, or say he lied; that if we did, he would know it; that he would know our thoughts and actions, in no matter what part of the world we might be.

When I heard this from the Christ, and came back home to tell it to my people, I thought they would listen. Where I went to there were lots of white people, but I never had one of them say an unkind word to me. I thought all of your people knew all of this I have told you of, but it seems you do not.

Ever since the Christ I speak of talked to me I have thought what he said was good. I see nothing bad in it. When I got back, I knew my people were bad, and had heard nothing of all this, so I got them together and told them of it and warned them to listen to it for their own good. I talked to them for four nights and five days. I told them just what I have told you here today. I told them what I said were the words of God Almighty, who was looking down on them. I wish some of you had been up in our camp here to have heard my words to the Cheyennes. The only bad thing that there has been in it at all was this: I had just told my people that the Christ would visit the sins of any Indian upon the whole tribe, when the recent trouble [killing of Ferguson] occurred. If any one of you think I am not telling the truth, you can go and see this man I speak of for yourselves. I will go with you, and I would like one or two of my people who doubt me to go with me.

The Christ talked to us all in our respective tongues. You can see this man in your sleep any time you want after you have seen him and shaken hands with him once. Through him you can go to heaven and meet your friends. Since my return I have seen him often in my sleep. About the time the soldiers went up the Rosebud I was lying in my lodge asleep, when this man appeared and told me that the Indians had gotten into trouble, and I was frightened. The next night he appeared to me and told me that everything would come out all right.

THE GHOST DANCE AMONG THE SIOUX

The following was written originally in the Teton Dakota dialect by George Sword, an Ogalala Sioux Indian, formerly captain of the Indian police at Pine Ridge agency and now judge of the Indian court. It was translated by an Indian for Miss Emma C. Sickels and is published by her courtesy. The copy of the original Sioux manuscript is in the archives of the Bureau of Ethnology:

In the story of ghost dancing, the Ogalala heard that the Son of God was truly on earth in the west from their country. This was in the year 1889. The first people knew about the messiah to be on earth were the Shoshoni and Arapaho. So in 1889 Good Thunder with four or five others visited the place where Son of God said to be. These people went there without permission. They said the messiah was there at the place, but he was there to help the Indians and not the whites; so this made the Indians happy to find out this. Good Thunder, Cloud Horse, Yellow Knife, and Short Bull visited the place again in 1890 and saw the messiah. Their story of visit to the messiah is as follows:

“From the country where the Arapaho and Shoshoni we start in the direction of northwest in train for five nights and arrived at the foot of the Rocky mountains. Here we saw him and also several tribes of Indians. The people said that the messiah will come at a place in the woods where the place was prepare for him. When we went to the place a smoke descended from heaven to the place where he was to come. When the smoke disappeared, there was a man of about forty, which was the Son of God. The man said:”

“‘My grandchildren! I am glad you have come far away to see your relatives. This are your people who have come back from your country.’ When he said he want us to go with him, we looked and we saw a land created across the ocean on which all the nations of Indians were coming home, but, as the messiah looked at the land which was created and reached across the ocean, again disappeared, saying that it was not time for that to take place. The messiah then gave to Good Thunder some paints—Indian paint and a white paint—a green grass [sagebrush twigs?]; and said, ‘My grandchildren, when you get home, go to farming and send all your children to school. And on way home if you kill any buffalo cut the head, the tail, and the four feet and leave them, and that buffalo will come to live again. When the soldiers of the white people chief want to arrest me, I shall stretch out my arms, which will knock them to nothingness, or, if not that, the earth will open and swallow them in. My father commanded me to visit the Indians on a purpose. I have came to the white people first, but they not good. They killed me, and you can see the marks of my wounds on my feet, my hands, and on my back. My father has given you life—your old life—and you have come to see your friends, but you will not take me home with you at this time. I want you to tell when you get home your people to follow my examples. Any one Indian does not obey me and tries to be on white’s side will be covered over by a new land that is to come over this old one. You will, all the people, use the paints and grass I give you. In the spring when the green grass comes, your people who have gone before you will come back, and you shall see your friends then, for you have come to my call.’”

The people from every tipi send for us to visit them. They are people who died many years ago. Chasing Hawk, who died not long ago, was there, and we went to his tipi. He was living with his wife, who was killed in war long ago. They live in a buffalo skin tipi—a very large one—and he wanted all his friends to go there to live. A son of Good Thunder who died in war long ago was one who also took us to his tipi so his father saw him. When coming we come to a herd of buffaloes. We killed one and took everything except the four feet, head, and tail, and when we came a little ways from it there was the buffaloes come to life again and went off. This was one of the messiah’s word came to truth. The messiah said, “I will short your journey when you feel tired of the long ways, if you call upon me.” This we did when we were tired. The night came upon us, we stopped at a place, and we called upon the messiah to help us, because we were tired of long journey. We went to sleep and in the morning we found ourselves at a great distance from where we stopped.

The people came back here and they got the people loyal to the government, and those not favor of the whites held a council. The agent’s soldiers were sent after them and brought Good Thunder and two others to the agency and they were confined to the prison. They were asked by the agent and Captain Sword whether they saw the Son of God and whether they hold councils over their return from visit, but Good Thunder refused to say “yes.” They were confined in the prison for two days, and upon their promising not to hold councils about their visit they were released. They went back to the people and told them about their trouble with the agent. Then they disperse without a council.

In the following spring the people at Pine Ridge agency began to gather at the White Clay creek for councils. Just at this time Kicking Bear, from Cheyenne River agency, went on a visit to the Arapaho and said that the Arapaho there have ghost dancing. He said that people partaking in dance would get crazy and die, then the messiah is seen and all the ghosts. When they die they see strange things, they see their relatives who died long before. They saw these things when they died in ghost dance and came to life again. The person dancing becomes dizzy and finally drop dead, and the first thing they saw is an eagle comes to them and carried them to where the messiah is with his ghosts. The man said this:

The persons in the ghost dancing are all joined hands. A man stands and then a woman, so in that way forming a very large circle. They dance around in the circle in a continuous time until some of them become so tired and overtired that they became crazy and finally drop as though dead, with foams in mouth all wet by perspiration. All the men and women made holy shirts and dresses they wear in dance. The persons dropped in dance would all lie in great dust the dancing make. They paint the white muslins they made holy shirts and dresses out of with blue across the back, and alongside of this is a line of yellow paint. They also paint in the front part of the shirts and dresses. A picture of an eagle is made on the back of all the shirts and dresses. On the shoulders and on the sleeves they tied eagle feathers. They said that the bullets will not go through these shirts and dresses, so they all have these dresses for war. Their enemies weapon will not go through these dresses. The ghost dancers all have to wear eagle feather on head. With this feather any man would be made crazy if fan with this feather. In the ghost dance no person is allow to wear anything made of any metal, except the guns made of metal is carry by some of the dancers. When they come from ghosts or after recovery from craziness, they brought meat from the ghosts or from the supposed messiah. They also brought water, fire, and wind with which to kill all the whites or Indians who will help the chief of the whites. They made sweat house and made holes in the middle of the sweat house where they say the water will come out of these holes. Before they begin to dance they all raise their hands toward the northwest and cry in supplication to the messiah and then begin the dance with the song, “Ate misunkala ceya omani-ye,” etc.

SELWYN’S INTERVIEW WITH KUWAPI

On November 21, 1890, it was reported to Agent E. W. Foster, in charge of Yankton agency, South Dakota, that an Indian named Kuwapi, from Rosebud agency, was on the reservation teaching the doctrine and ceremony of the Ghost dance. He at once had the man arrested by a force in charge of William T. Selwyn, a full-blood Yankton Sioux, who had received a fair education under the patronage of a gentleman in Philadelphia, and who had for several years been employed in various capacities at different Sioux agencies. Selwyn had recently come from Pine Ridge, where he had learned and reported to Agent Gallagher something of the religious excitement among the western Sioux, and had afterward repeated this information to the agent at Yankton. While Kuwapi was in his custody Selwyn questioned him at length concerning the new doctrine, and forwarded the following report ([G. D.], Document 36861—1890) of the interview to Agent Foster:

Yankton Agency, South Dakota,
November 22, 1890.

Colonel E. W. Foster,
United States Indian Agent, Yankton Agency, South Dakota.

Dear Sir: It has been reported here a few days ago that there was an Indian visitor up at White Swan from Rosebud agency who has been telling or teaching the doctrines of the new messiah, and has made some agitation among the people up there. According to the request of Captain Conrad, United States Army, of Fort Randall, South Dakota, and by your order of the 21st instant, I went up to White Swan and have arrested the wanted man (Kuwapi, or One they chased after). On my way to the agency with the prisoner I have made little interview with him on the subject of the new messiah. The following are the facts which he corroborated concerning the new messiah, his laws and doctrines to the Indians of this continent:

Q. Do you believe in the new messiah?—A. I somewhat believe it.

Q. What made you believe it?—A. Because I ate some of the buffalo meat that he (the new messiah) sent to the Rosebud Indians through Short Bull.

Q. Did Short Bull say that he saw the living herd of roaming buffaloes while he was with the son of the Great Spirit?—A. Short Bull told the Indians at Rosebud that the buffalo and other wild game will be restored to the Indians at the same time when the general resurrection in favor of the Indians takes place.

Q. You said a “general resurrection in favor of the Indians takes place;” when or how soon will this be?—A. The father sends word to us that he will have all these caused to be so in the spring, when the grass is knee high.

Q. You said “father;” who is this father?—A. It is the new messiah. He has ordered his children (Indians) to call him “father.”

Q. You said the father is not going to send the buffalo until the resurrection takes place. Would he be able to send a few buffaloes over this way for a sort of a sample, so as to have his children (Indians) to have a taste of the meat?—A. The father wishes to do things all at once, even in destroying the white race.

Q. You said something about the destroying of the white race. Do you mean to say that all mankind except the Indians will be killed?—A. Yes.

Q. How, and who is going to kill the white people?—A. The father is going to cause a big cyclone or whirlwind, by which he will have all the white people to perish.

Q. If it should be a cyclone or whirlwind, what are we going to do to protect ourselves?—A. The father will make some kind of provisions by which we will be saved.

Q. You said something about the coming destruction on the white people by your father. Supposing your father is sick, tired out, forget, or some other accidental cause by which he should not be able to accomplish his purpose, what would be the case about the destroying of the white people?—A. There is no doubt about these things, as the miracle performer or the father is going to do just as what he said he would do.

Q. What other object could you come to by which you are led to believe that there is such a new messiah on earth at present?—A. The ghost dancers are fainted whenever the dance goes on.

Q. Do you believe that they are really fainted?—A. Yes.

Q. What makes you believe that the dancers have really fainted?—A. Because when they wake or come back to their senses they sometimes bring back some news from the unknown world, and some little trinkets, such as buffalo tail, buffalo meat, etc.

Q. What did the fainted ones see when they get fainted?—A. They visited the happy hunting ground, the camps, multitudes of people, and a great many strange people.

Q. What did the ghost or the strange people tell the fainted one or ones?—A. When the fainted one goes to the camp, he is welcomed by the relatives of the visitor (the fainted one), and he is also invited to several feasts.

Q. Were the people at Rosebud agency anxiously waiting or expecting to see all of their dead relatives who have died several years ago?—A. Yes.

Q. We will have a great many older folks when all the dead people come back, would we not?—A. The visitors all say that there is not a single old man nor woman in the other world—all changed to young.

Q. Are we going to die when the dead ones come back?—A. No; we will be just the same as we are today.

Q. Did the visitor say that there is any white men in the other world?—A. No; no white people.

Q. If there is no white people in the other world, where did they get their provisions and clothing?—A. In the other world, the messenger tells us that they have depended altogether for their food on the flesh of buffalo and other wild game; also, they were all clad in skins of wild animals.

Q. Did the Rosebud agency Indians believe the new messiah, or the son of the Great Spirit?—A. Yes.

Q. How do they show that they have a belief in the new messiah?—A. They show themselves by praying to the father by looking up to heaven, and call him “father,” just the same as you would in a church.

Q. Have you ever been in a church?—A. No.

Q. Do you faithfully believe in the new messiah?—A. I did not in the first place, but as I became more acquainted with the doctrines of the new messiah that I really believe in him.

Q. How many people at Rosebud, in your opinion, believe this new messiah?—A. Nearly every one.

Q. Did you not the Rosebud people prepare to attack the white people this summer? While I was at Pine Ridge agency this summer the Oglalla Sioux Indians say they will resist against the government if the latter should try to put a stop to the messiah question. Did your folks at Rosebud say the same thing?—A. Yes.

Q. Are they still preparing and thinking to attack the white people should the government send our soldiers with orders to put a stop to your new business of the messiah?—A. I do not know, but I think that the Wojaji band at Rosebud agency will do some harm at any time.

Q. You do not mean to say that the Rosebud Indians will try and cause an outbreak?—A. That seems to be the case.

Q. You said something about the “son of the Great Spirit,” or “the father.” What do you mean by the son of the Great Spirit?—A. This father, as he is called, said himself that he is the son of the Great Spirit.

Q. Have you talked to or with any Indian at White Swan about the new messiah, his laws and doctrines, or have you referred this to anyone while there?—A. I have told a few of them. I did not voluntarily express my wish for them to know and follow the doctrines of the new messiah.

Q. Yes, but you have explained the matter to the Indians, did you not?—A. Yes, I have.

Q. Do the Yankton Indians at White Swan believe in your teaching of the new messiah?—A. I did not intend to teach them, but as I have been questioned on the subject, that I have said something about it.

Q. Did any of them believe in you?—A. Some have already believed it, and some of them did not believe it.

Q. Those that have believed in you must be better men than the others, are they not?—A. I do not know.

Q. Do you intend to introduce the doctrines of the new messiah from Rosebud to this agency as a missionary of the gospel?—A. No, I did not.

Q. What brings you here, then?—A. I have some relatives here that I wanted to see, and this was the reason why I came here.

Q. Where does this new messiah question originate? I mean from the first start of it.—A. This has originated in White mountains.

Q. Where is this White mountain?—A. Close to the big Rocky mountains, near the country that belong to the Mexicans.

Q. Do you think that there will be a trouble in the west by next spring?—A. Yes.

Q. What makes you think so?—A. Because that is what I have heard people talk of.

This is all that I have questioned Kuwapi on the subject of the new messiah.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

William T. Selwyn.

Chapter XI
THE GHOST DANCE WEST OF THE ROCKIES

The first Ghost dance on Walker Lake reservation took place in January, 1889, about a mile above the railroad bridge near the agency. Wovoka’s preaching had already been attracting general attention among his own people for some months. It is said that six Apache attended this first dance, but the statement is improbable, as this would imply that they had made a journey of 600 miles through a desert country to see a man as yet unknown outside of his own tribe. From this time, however, his fame went abroad, and another large dance in the same vicinity soon after was attended by a number of Ute from Utah. The Ute are neighbors of the Paiute on the east, as the Bannock are on the north, and these tribes were naturally the first to hear of the new prophet and to send delegates to attend the dance. The doctrine spread almost simultaneously to all the scattered bands of Paiute in Nevada, Oregon, and adjacent sections.

In its essential features the Ghost dance among the Paiute as conducted by the messiah himself was practically the same as among the majority of the prairie tribes, as will later be described. The Sioux, Kiowa, and perhaps some other tribes, however, danced around a tree or pole set up in the center of the ring, differing in this respect from the Paiute, as well as from the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Caddo, and others. No fire was allowed within the ring by any of the prairie tribes among whom the subject was investigated, but among the Paiute it seems that fires were built either within the circle or close to it. When I visited the messiah in January, 1892, deep snow was on the ground, which had caused the temporary suspension of dancing, so that I had no opportunity of seeing the performance there for myself. I saw, however, the place cleared for the dance ground—the same spot where the large delegation from Oklahoma had attended the dance the preceding summer—at the upper end of Mason valley. A large circular space had been cleared of sagebrush and leveled over, and around the circumference were the remains of the low round structures of willow branches which had sheltered those in attendance. At one side, within the circle, was a larger structure of branches, where the messiah gave audience to the delegates from distant tribes, and, according to their statements, showed them the glories of the spirit world through the medium of hypnotic trances. The Paiute always dance five nights, or perhaps more properly four nights and the morning of the fifth day, as enjoined, by the messiah on the visiting delegates, ending the performance with a general shaking and waving of blankets, as among the prairie tribes, after which all go down and bathe in the nearest stream. The shaking of the blankets dispels all evil influences and drives sickness and disease away from the dancers. There is no previous consecration of the ground, as among the Arapaho, and no preliminary sweat bath, as among the Sioux. The sweat bath seems to be unknown to the Paiute, who are preeminently a dirty people, and I saw no trace of sweat-house frames at any of their camps. Nakash, the Arapaho who visited the messiah in 1889 and first brought the dance to the eastern tribes, confirmed the statements of the Paiute and ranchmen that there were no trances in the Paiute Ghost dance.

Besides the dance ground in Mason valley, where the messiah himself generally presided, there were several others on Walker River reservation, although, if we are to believe the agent, no Ghost dances were ever held on either reservation.

The following extract from Porcupine’s account of his visit to the messiah in the fall of 1889 (see [page 793]) gives some idea of the Paiute Ghost dance and throws light on the cataleptic peculiarities of the messiah:

I went to the agency at Walker lake, and they told us Christ would be there in two days. At the end of two days, on the third morning, hundreds of people gathered at this place. They cleared off a place near the agency in the form of a circus ring and we all gathered there. This space was perfectly cleared of grass, etc. We waited there till late in the evening, anxious to see Christ. Just before sundown I saw a great many people, mostly Indians, coming dressed in white men’s clothes. The Christ was with them. They all formed in this ring in a circle around him. They put up sheets all around the circle, as they had no tents. Just after dark some of the Indians told me that the Christ (father) was arrived. I looked around to find him, and finally saw him sitting on one side of the ring. They all started toward him to see him. They made a big fire to throw light on him. I never looked around, but went forward, and when I saw him I bent my head.... He sat there a long time and nobody went up to speak to him. He sat with his head bowed all the time. After awhile he rose and said he was very glad to see his children. “I have sent for you and am glad to see you. I am going to talk to you after awhile about your relatives who are dead and gone. My children, I want you to listen to all I have to say to you. I will teach you, too, how to dance a dance, and I want you to dance it. Get ready for your dance, and then when the dance is over I will talk to you.” He was dressed in a white coat with stripes. The rest of his dress was a white man’s, except that he had on a pair of moccasins. Then he commenced our dance, everybody joining in, the Christ singing while we danced. We danced till late in the night; then he told us we had danced enough.

The next morning after breakfast was over, we went into the circle and spread canvas over it on the ground, the Christ standing in the midst of us. He told us he was going away that day, but would be back the next morning and talk to us.... He had no beard or whiskers, but very heavy eyebrows. He was a good-looking man. We were crowded up very close. We had been told that nobody was to talk, and that even if we whispered the Christ would know it.... He would talk to us all day.

That evening we all assembled again to see him depart. When we were assembled he began to sing, and he commenced to tremble all over violently for a while and then sat down. We danced all that night, the Christ lying down beside us apparently dead.

The next morning when we went to eat breakfast, the Christ was with us. After breakfast four heralds went around and called out that the Christ was back with us and wanted to talk with us. The circle was prepared again. The people assembled, and Christ came among us and sat down. ([G. D.], 9.)

We come now to the other tribes bordering on the Paiute. First in order are the Washo, a small band dwelling on the slopes of the sierras in the neighborhood of Carson, Nevada, and speaking a peculiar language of unknown affinity. They are completely under the domination of the Paiute. They had no separate dance, but joined in with the nearest camps of Paiute and sang the same songs. Occupying practically the same territory as the Paiute, they were among the first to receive the new doctrine.

Farther to the south, in California, about Bridgeport and Mono lake and extending across to the westward slope of the sierras, are several small Shoshonean bands closely akin to the Paiute and known locally as the “Diggers.” The Paiute state that bands of these Indians frequently came up and participated in the dance on the reservation. They undoubtedly had their own dances at home also.

According to the statement of the agent in charge of the Mission Indians in southern California in 1891, the doctrine reached them also, and the medicine-men of Potrero began to prophesy the destruction of the whites and the return of Indian supremacy. Few believed their predictions, however, until rumors brought the news of the overflow of Colorado river and the birth of “Salton sea” in the summer of 1891. Never doubting that the great change was near at hand, the frightened Indians fled to the mountains to await developments, but after having gone hungry for several days the millennial dawn seemed still as far away as ever, and they returned to their homes with disappointment in their hearts. Although the agent mentions specifically only the Indians of Potrero, there can be no doubt that the inhabitants of the other Mission rancherias in the vicinity were also affected, and we are thus enabled to fix the boundary of the messiah excitement in this direction at the Pacific ocean. ([Comr.], 27.)

In northern California the new doctrine was taken up late in 1890 by the Pit River Indians, a group of tribes constituting a distinct linguistic stock and scattered throughout the whole basin of Pit river, from Goose lake to the Sacramento, which may have formed the boundary of the Ghost-dance movement in this direction. ([A. G. O.], 7.) As a number of these Indians are living also on Round Valley reservation in California, it is possible that the doctrine may have reached there also. Having obtained the dance ritual directly from the Paiute, their neighbors on the east, the ceremony and belief were probably the same with both tribes.

So far as can be learned from the reports of agents, and from the statement of Wovoka himself, the dance was never taken up by the Indians of Hoopa Valley reservation in California; of Klamath, Siletz, Grande Ronde, or Umatilla reservations in Oregon; by any of the tribes in Washington; by those of Lapwai or Cœur d’Alêne reservations in Idaho; or on Jocko reservation in Montana. Wovoka stated that he had been visited by delegates from Warmspring agency, in Oregon, who also had taken part in the dance, but these may have been some of the Paiute living on that reservation. The small band of Paiute living with the Klamath probably also attended the dance at some time.[8]

A single Nez Percé visited the messiah, but the visit had no effect on his tribe at home. In a general way it may be stated that the doctrine of the Ghost dance was never taken up by any tribes of the Salishan or Shahaptian stocks, occupying practically the whole of the great Columbia basin. This is probably due to the fact that the more important of these tribes have been for a long time under the influence of Catholic or other Christian missionaries, while most of the others are adherents of the Smohalla or the Shaker doctrine.

Of the tribes southward from the Paiute, according to the best information obtainable, the Ghost dance never reached the Yuma, Pima, Papago, Maricopa, or any of the Apache bands in Arizona or New Mexico, neither did it affect any of the Pueblo tribes except the Taos, who performed the dance merely as a pastime. As before stated, it is said that six Apache attended the first large dance at Walker lake in 1889. This seems improbable, but if true it produced no effect on any part of the tribe at large. Later on the Jicarilla Apache, in northern New Mexico, may have heard of it through the southern Ute, but, so far as is known officially, neither of these tribes ever engaged in the dance. The agent of the Jicarilla states that the tribe knew nothing of the doctrine until informed of it by himself. ([G. D.], 10.) It seems never to have been taken up by the Mescalero Apache in southern New Mexico, although they are in the habit of making frequent visits to the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, and other Ghost-dancing tribes of Oklahoma. The agent of the Mohave states officially that these Indians knew nothing about it, but this must be a mistake, as there is constant communication between the Mohave and the southern Paiute, and, according to Wovoka’s statement, Mohave delegates attended the dance in 1890, while the 700 Walapai and Chemehuevi associated with the Mohave are known to have been devoted adherents of the doctrine.

The dance was taken up nearly simultaneously by the Bannock, Shoshoni, Gosiute, and Ute in the early part of 1889. All these tribes are neighbors (on the east) of the Paiute and closely cognate to them, the Bannock particularly having only a slight dialectal difference of language, so that communication between them is an easy matter. The

Bannock are chiefly on Fort Hall and Lemhi reservations in Idaho. The Shoshoni are on the Western Shoshone (Duck Valley) reservation in Nevada, on Fort Hall and Lemhi reservations in Idaho, and on Wind River reservation in Wyoming. The Ute are on Uintah and Uncompahgre reservations in Utah, and on the Southern Ute reservation in Colorado. There are also a considerable number of Bannock and Shoshoni not on reservations. The Ute of Utah sent delegates to the messiah soon after the first Ghost dance in January, 1889, but it is doubtful if the southern Ute in Colorado were engaged in the dance. Although aware of the doctrine, they ridiculed the idea of the dead returning to earth. ([G. D.], 11.)

In regard to the dance among the Shoshoni and Paiute on the Western Shoshoni reservation, in Nevada and Idaho, their agent writes, under date of November 8, 1890:

The Indians of this reservation and vicinity have just concluded their second medicine dance, the previous one having taken place in August last. They are looking for the coming of the Indian Christ, the resurrection of the dead Indians, and the consequent supremacy of the Indian race. Fully one thousand people took part in the dance. While the best of order prevailed, the excitement was very great as morning approached. When the dancers were worn out mentally and physically, the medicine-men would shout that they could see the faces of departed friends and relatives moving about the circle. No pen can paint the picture of wild excitement that ensued. All shouted in a chorus, Christ has come, and then danced and sung until they fell in a confused and exhausted mass on the ground.... I apprehend no trouble beyond the loss of time and the general demoralizing effect of these large gatherings of people. Several of the leading men have gone to Walker lake to confer with a man who calls himself Christ. Others have gone to Fort Hall to meet Indians from Montana and Dakota, to get the news from that section. In fact, the astonishing part of the business is the fact that all the Indians in the country seem to possess practically the same ideas and expect about the same result. ([G. D.], 12.)

On December 6 he writes that another Ghost dance had then been in progress for six days, and that the Indians had announced their intention to dance one week in each month until the grass grew, at which time the medicine-men had told them the messiah would come, bringing with him all their dead friends. ([G. D.], 13.) This dance, however, was attended by a much smaller number of Indians, and skeptics had already arisen among them to scoff at the new believers. The leaven was working, and only a little shrewd diplomacy was needed to turn the religious scale, as is shown by an extract from a third letter, dated January 10, 1891, from which it would seem that Agent Plumb is a man of practical common sense, as likewise that Esau was not the only one who would sell his birthright for a mess of pottage:

Christmas day was the day set for commencing another dance. On learning this, I told the Indians that it was my intention to give them all a big feast and have a general holiday on Christmas, but that I would not give them anything if they intended to dance. I told them they could play all of their usual games, in fact, have a good time, but that dancing was forbidden. I showed them how continued dancing at various Sioux agencies had ended in soldiers being sent to stop them. I stated the case as clearly as I could; the Indians debated it two days, and then reported that while they hoped their dead friends would come back, and believed that dancing would help to bring them, yet they were friends of the government, and friends of the whites, and my friends, and would not hold any more resurrection dances without my consent. Up to this date they have kept their word. I have no hope of breaking up their dances altogether, but I have strong hopes of controlling them. ([G. D.], 14.)

The Bannock and Shoshoni of Fort Hall reservation in Idaho have served as the chief medium of the doctrine between the tribes west of the mountains and those of the plains. Situated almost on the summit of the great divide, they are within easy reach of the Paiute to the west, among whom the dance originated, and whose language the Bannock speak, while at no great distance to the east, on Wind River reservation in Wyoming, the remaining Shoshoni are confederated with the Arapaho, who have been from the first the great apostles of the doctrine among the prairie tribes. There is constant visiting back and forth between the tribes of these two reservations, while the four railroads coming in at Fort Hall, together with the fact of its close proximity to the main line of the Union Pacific, tend still more to make it a focus and halting point for Indian travel. Almost every delegation from the tribes east of the mountains stopped at this agency to obtain the latest news from the messiah and to procure interpreters from among the Bannock to accompany them to Nevada. In a letter of November 26, 1890, to the Indian Commissioner, the agent in charge states that during the preceding spring and summer his Indians had been visited by representatives from about a dozen different reservations. In regard to the dance and the doctrine at Fort Hall, he also says that the extermination and resurrection business was not a new thing with his tribes by any means, but had been quite a craze with them every few years for the last twenty years or more, only varying a little according to the whim of particular medicine-men. ([G. D.], 15.) This may have referred to the doctrine already mentioned as having been taught by Tävibo.

Early in 1889 a Bannock from Fort Hall visited the Shoshoni and Arapaho of Wind River reservation in Wyoming and brought them the first knowledge of the new religion. He had just returned from a visit to the Paiute country, where he said he had met messengers who had told him that the dead people were coming back, and who had commanded him to go and tell all the tribes. “And so,” said the Shoshoni, “he came here and told us all about it.” Accordingly, in the summer of that year a delegation of five Shoshoni, headed by Täbinshi, with Nakash (“Sage”), an Arapaho, visited the messiah of Mason valley, traveling most of the way by railroad and occupying several days in the journey. They attended a Ghost dance, which, according to their accounts, was a very large one, and after dancing all night were told by the messiah that they would meet all their dead in two years from that time at the turning of the leaves, i. e., in the autumn of 1891. They were urged to dance frequently, “because the dance moves the dead.” One of the Shoshoni delegates understood the Bannock and Paiute language and interpreted for the rest. The information was probably conveyed by the Shoshoni to the Arapaho through the medium of the sign language.

In accord with the report of the delegates, on their return home the Shoshoni and Arapaho at once began to dance. A year later, in the fall of 1890, a dense smoke from forest fires in the mountains drifted down and obscured the air in the lower country to such an extent that horses were lost in the haze. This was regarded by the Indians as an indication of the approach of the great change, and the dance was continued with increased fervor, but at last the atmosphere began to clear and the phenomenon ended as it had begun—in smoke. The dance was kept up, however, without abatement for another year, until the predicted time had come and gone, when the Shoshoni—who seem to share the skeptical nature of their southern kinsmen, the Comanche—concluded that they had been deceived, and abandoned the dance. The Arapaho, who have greater faith in the unseen things of the spirit world, kept it up, and were still dancing when I visited them in the summer of 1892. A part of the Arapaho, headed by their chief, Black Coal, and encouraged by the Catholic missionaries, had steadily opposed the dance from the first. After considerable discussion of the matter it was decided, on Black Coal’s proposition, to send another delegation to the messiah, under the guidance of Yellow Eagle, a graduate of a government Indian school, to learn as to the truth or falsity of the new doctrine. They returned early in 1891 and reported against the movement. Their report confirmed the doubters in their skepticism, but produced little effect on the rest of the tribe.

When I visited Wind River reservation in Wyoming in June, 1892, the agent in charge informed me that there was no Ghost dancing on his reservation; that he had explained how foolish it was and had strictly forbidden it, and that in consequence the Indians had abandoned it. However, he expressed interest in my investigation, and as the Arapaho, with whom I had most to do, were then camped in a body a few miles up in the mountains cutting wood, he very kindly furnished a conveyance and camping outfit, with two of the agency employees—a clerk and an interpreter—to take me out. It appeared afterward that the escort had received instructions of their own before starting. Having reached the camp and set up our tent, the Arapaho soon came around to get acquainted, over a pipe and a cup of coffee; but, in answer to questions put by one of my companions, a white man, who assumed the burden of the conversation, it seemed that the Indians had lost all interest in the dance. In fact, some of them were so ignorant on the subject that they wanted to know what it meant.

After trying in vain to convince me that it was useless to waste time further with the Indians, the clerk started back again after supper, satisfied that that part of the country was safe so far as the Ghost dance was concerned. By this time it was dark, and the Indians invited the interpreter and myself to come over to a tipi about half a mile away, where we could meet all the old men. We started, and had gone but a short distance when we heard from a neighboring hill the familiar measured cadence of the ghost songs. On turning with a questioning look to my interpreter—who was himself a half-blood—he quietly said: “Yes; they are dancing the Ghost dance. That’s something I have never reported, and I never will. It is their religion and they have a right to it.” Not wishing to be an accomplice in crime, I did not go over to the dance; but it is needless to state that the old men in the tipi that night, and for several successive nights thereafter, knew all about the songs and ceremonies of the new religion. As already stated, the Shoshoni had really lost faith and abandoned the dance.

Among the Shoshoni the dance was performed around a small cedar tree, planted in the ground for that purpose. Unlike the Sioux, they hung nothing on this tree. The men did not clasp each other’s hands, but held on to their blankets instead; but a woman standing between two men took hold of their hands. There was no preliminary medicine ceremony. The dance took place usually in the morning, and at its close the performers shook their blankets in the air, as among the Paiute and other tribes, before dispersing. However novel may have been the doctrine, the Shoshoni claim that the Ghost dance itself as performed by them was a revival of an old dance which they had had fully fifty years before.

The selection of the cedar in this connection is in agreement with the general Indian idea, which has always ascribed a mystic sacredness to that tree, from its never-dying green, which renders it so conspicuous a feature of the desert landscape; from the aromatic fragrance of its twigs, which are burned as incense in sacred ceremonies; from the durability and fine texture of its wood, which makes it peculiarly appropriate for tipi poles and lance shafts; and from the dark-red color of its heart, which seems as though dyed in blood. In Cherokee myth the cedar was originally a pole, to the top of which they fastened the fresh scalps of their enemies, and the wood was thus stained by the blood that trickled slowly down along it to the ground. The Kiowa also selected a cedar for the center of their Ghost-dance circle.

We go back now to the southern tribes west of the mountains. Some time in the winter of 1889–90 Paiute runners brought to the powerful tribe of the Navaho, living in northern New Mexico and Arizona, the news of the near advent of the messiah and the resurrection of the dead. They preached and prophesied for a considerable time, but the Navaho were skeptical, laughed at the prophets, and paid but little attention to the prophesies. ([Matthews], 1.) According to the official report for 1892, these Indians, numbering somewhat over 16,000 souls, have, in round numbers, 9,000 cattle, 119,000 horses, and 1,600,000 sheep and goats; and, as suggested by Dr Matthews, the authority on that tribe, it may be that, being rich in herds and wealth of silver, they felt no special need of a redeemer. While with the Navaho in the winter of 1892–93 I made inquiry in various parts of their wide-extended territory, but could not learn that the Ghost dance had ever been performed among them, and it evident that in their case the doctrinal seed had fallen on barren ground.

Fig. 70—Navaho Indians.

Before visiting the tribe, I had written for information to Mr A. M. Stephen, of Keams Cañon, Arizona, since deceased, who had studied the Navaho and Hopi for years and spoke the Navaho language fluently. I quote from him on the subject. It may be noted that Keams Cañon is about 125 miles northwest of Fort Wingate, the point from which Dr Matthews writes, and nearer by that much to the Paiute, Cohonino, and Walapai, all of whom have accepted the new religion. Mr Stephen states that some time in February or March, 1890, he first heard rumors among the Navaho that “the old men long dead” had returned to some foreign tribes in the north or east, the vague far away. The intelligence was brought to the Navaho either by the Ute or Paiute, or both. The rumor grew and the idea became commonly current among the Navaho that the mythic heroes were to return and that under their direction they were to expel American and Mexican and restrict the Zuñi and Hopi close to their villages, and, in fact, to reestablish their old domain from San Francisco mountains to Santa Fé. ([Stephen], 1.) On November 22, 1891, he further writes:

While out this last time I camped over night with some Navajo friends, and over a pipe brought up the messiah topic. This family belongs to the Bitter-Water gens, and this is the gist of what I got from them: A Pah-ute came to a family of their gens living near Navajo mountain and told them that Na′-Keh-tkla-ĭ was to return from the under world and bring back all the Tinneh (Navajo) he had killed. Na′-keh-tkla-ĭ (i. e., “foreigner with white foot sole”) in the long ago had a puma and a bear. These were his pets. He would call puma from the east and bear from the west, and just before dawn they met in the center. Thus they met four times. On the fourth meeting puma reached back with his forepaw and plucked his mane, tossing the hair aloft, and for every hair a Tinneh died. This fatal sorcery continued for a long time, and great numbers were killed. Now, the Pah-ute said, this sorcerer was to return, and would call his pets, and they would come east and west, and following their trail would be all the people whose death they had caused. These Navajo said they had heard of other Pah-ute prophecies a year or more ago, all to the effect that long dead people were to return alive from the under world. These resurrected ones were also to bring back the departed game, and the Tinneh would again dominate the region. But, said my informant, datsaigi yelti, “it is worthless talk.” ([Stephen], 2.)

In connection with hypnotism as seen in the Ghost dance, Dr Matthews states that in one curious Navaho ceremony he has several times seen the patient hypnotized or pretend to be hypnotized by a character dressed in evergreens. The occurrence of the hypnotic trance is regarded as a sign that the ceremony has been effective. If the trance does not occur, some other ceremony must be tried. ([Matthews], 2.)

West of the Navaho in northeastern Arizona live the Hopi, or Moki, a Pueblo tribe occupying several villages on the tops of nearly inaccessible mesas. In July, 1891, four of these Indians, while on a visit to the Cohonino, living farther to the west, first heard of the new doctrine and witnessed a Ghost dance, as will be described hereafter. They brought back the news to their people, but it made no impression on them and the matter was soon forgotten. ([Stephen], 3.) In this connection Mr Stephen states, in response to a letter of inquiry, that although he does not recollect any Hopi myth concerning rejuvenation of the world and reunion with the resurrected dead on this earth, yet the doctrine of a reunion with the revivified dead in the under world is a commonly accepted belief of the Hopi. They have also a curious myth of a fair-hair god and a fair-skin people who came up from the under world with the Hopi, and who then left them with a promise to return. This suggests the idea of a messiah, but Mr Stephen has not yet been able to get the myth in its entirety. He does not think it derived from any corrupt source, however, through Spanish or other missionaries, as the allusions are all of archaic tendency. ([Stephen], 4.)

Fig. 71—Vista in the Hopi pueblo of Walpi.

The Cohonino or Havasupai are a small tribe occupying the canyon of Cataract creek, an affluent of the Colorado, in northern Arizona, about 120 miles west of the Hopi, with whom they have a considerable trade in buckskins and mesquite bread. They probably obtained the doctrine and the dance directly from the Paiute to the northward. Our only knowledge of the Cohonino dance is derived through Hopi informants, and as the two tribes speak languages radically different the ideas conveyed were neither complete nor definite, but it is evident that the general doctrine was the same, although the dance differed in some respects from that of the other tribes.

We quote again from Stephen’s letter of November 22, 1891:

During a quiet interval, in one of the kivas I found the Hopi who brought the tidings of the resurrection to his people. His name is Pütci and his story is very meager and confused. He went on a customary trading visit to the Cojonino in their home at Cataract creek, and I could not determine just when. The chief of the Cojonino is named Navajo, and when Pütci got there, Navajo had but lately returned from a visit to the westward. He had been with the Walapai, the Mohave, and perhaps still farther west, and had been gone nearly three months. He told his people a vague mystic story that he had heard during his travels, to the effect that the long-time dead people of the Antelope, Deer, and Rabbit [Antelope, Deer, etc., are probably Cohonino gentes—J. M.] were to come back and live in their former haunts; that they had reached to a place where were the people of the Puma, the Wolf, and the Bear; that this meeting delayed the coming, but eventually all these people would appear, and in the sequence here related. Pütci was accompanied by three other Hopi, and they said they did not very well understand this strange story. While they were stopping in Cataract cañon a one-night dance was held by the Cojonino, at which these Hopi were present. During the night a long pole, having the tail of an eagle fastened to the end, was brought out and securely planted in the ground, and the dancers were told by their shamans that anyone who could climb this pole and put his mouth on the tail would see his dead mother (maternal ancestor). One man succeeded in climbing it and laid his mouth on the feathers, and then fell to the bottom in a state of collapse. They deemed him dead, but before dawn he recovered and then said that he had seen his dead mother and several other dead ancestors, who told him they were all on their way back. The Hopi on their return home related these marvels, but apparently it made little impression, and it was only with difficulty I could gather the above meager details.

Through the kindness of Mr Thomas V. Keam, trader for the Hopi and Navaho, we get a revision of Pütci’s story. Pütci states that in July, 1891, he with three other Hopi went on a visit to the Cohonino to trade for buckskins. When they arrived in the vicinity of the Cohonino camp, they were met by one of the tribe, who informed the visitors that all the Indians were engaged in a very important ceremony, and that before they could enter the camp they must wash their bodies and paint them with white clay. Accordingly, when this had been done, they were escorted to the camp and introduced to the principal chief and headmen, all of whom they found engaged in washing their heads, decorating themselves, and preparing for the ceremony, which took place on a clear space near the camp late in the afternoon. Here a very tall straight pole had been securely fastened upright in the ground. At the top were tied two eagle-tail feathers. A circle was formed around this pole by the Indians, and, after dancing around it until almost dark, one of the men climbed the pole to the top, and remained there until exhausted, when he would slide to the ground, clinging insensible to the pole. After remaining in this state for some time, the medicine-men resuscitated him. On recovery he stood up and told them he had been into another world, where he saw all the old men who had died long ago, and among them his own people. They told him they would all come back in time and bring the deer, the antelope, and all other good things they had when they dwelt on this earth. This ceremony lasted four days, including the cleansing and decorating of the dancers and the climbing of the pole, with an account of what had been seen by the Indian during the time he was in an apparently lifeless state. Each day the ceremony was attended by the whole tribe. ([Keam], 1.) Resuscitation by the medicine-men, as here mentioned, is something unknown among the prairie tribes, where the unconscious subject is allowed to lie undisturbed on the ground until the senses return in the natural way.

Beyond the Cohonino, and extending for about 200 miles along Colorado river on the Arizona side, are the associated tribes of Mohave, Walapai, and Chemehuevi, numbering in all about 2,800 souls, of whom only about one-third are on a reservation. The Chemehuevi, being a branch of the Paiute and in constant communication with them, undoubtedly had the dance and the doctrine. The Mohave also have much to do with the Paiute, the two tribes interchanging visits and mutually borrowing songs and games. They sent delegates to the messiah and in all probability took up the Ghost dance, in spite of the agent’s statement to the contrary. As only 660 of more than 2,000 Mohave are reported as being on the reservation, the agent may have a good reason for not keeping fully informed in regard to them.

Concerning the Walapai we have positive information. In September, 1890, the commanding officer at Fort Whipple was informed that a Paiute from southern Utah was among the Walapai, inciting them to dance for the purpose of causing hurricanes and storms to destroy the whites and such Indians as would not participate in the dances. It was stated also that these dances had then been going on for several months and were participated in by a large portion of the tribe, and that each dance lasted four or five nights in succession. On investigation it appeared that this Paiute was one of a party who had come down and inaugurated the Ghost dance among the Walapai the preceding year. (G. D., 17.)

We find an account of the Walapai Ghost dance in a local paper a year later. The article states that all the songs were in the language of the Paiute, from whom the doctrine had originally come. The Walapai version of the doctrine has been already noted. The dance itself, and the step, as here described, are essentially the same as among other tribes. Each dance lasted five nights, and on the last night was kept up until daylight. Just before daylight on the morning of the last night the medicine men ascended a small butte, where they met and talked with the expected god, and on coming down again delivered his message to the people. The dance was held at irregular intervals, according to the instructions received on the butte by the medicine-men.

The dance place was a circular piece of ground a hundred feet in diameter, inclosed by a fence of poles and bushes, and surrounded by high mountain walls of granite, which reflected the light from half a dozen fires blazing within the circle. The dancers, to the number of 200, clad in white robes with fancy trimmings, their faces and hair painted white in various decorative designs, moved slowly around in a circle, keeping time with a wild chant, while 200 more stood or crouched around the fires, awaiting their turn to participate. The dancers faced toward the center, each holding the hands of the ones next to him and joining in the chant in unison. The dust issued in clouds from beneath their feet, and with the dust and exertion together the performers were soon exhausted and dropped out, when others took their places. After each circuit they rested a few minutes and then started round again. At each circuit a different chant was sung, and thus the dance continued until midnight, when, with a loud clapping of hands, it ended, and the people separated and went to their homes. Throughout the performance two or three chiefs or medicine-men were constantly going about on the outside of the circle to preserve order and reprimand any merriment, one of them explaining to the visitors that, as this was a religious ceremony, due solemnity must be observed. ([J. F. L.], 2.)

Chapter XII
THE GHOST DANCE EAST OF THE ROCKIES—AMONG THE SIOUX

In 1889 the Ogalala heard that the son of God had come upon earth in the west. They said the Messiah was there, but he had come to help the Indians and not the whites, and it made the Indians happy to hear this.—George Sword.

They signed away a valuable portion of their reservation, and it is now occupied by white people, for which they have received nothing. They understood that ample provision would be made for their support; instead, their supplies have been reduced and much of the time they have been living on half and two-thirds rations. Their crops, as well as the crops of white people, for two years have been almost a total failure. The disaffection is widespread, especially among the Sioux, while the Cheyennes have been on the verge of starvation and were forced to commit depredations to sustain life. These facts are beyond question, and the evidence is positive and sustained by thousands of witnesses.—General Miles.

Among the tribes east of the mountains and north of Oklahoma, it appears from official documents in the Indian Office and from other obtainable information that the Ghost dance and the doctrine, if known at all, were never accepted by the Blackfeet of Montana; the Ojibwa of Turtle mountain and Devils lake in North Dakota, or by the rest of the tribe farther to the east in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan; the Omaha, Winnebago, and Ponka in Nebraska; the small band of Sauk and Fox in Iowa; the still smaller band of Sauk and Fox, the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Iowa, and Ojibwa in northeastern Kansas; or by the Sioux of Devils lake in North Dakota, Lake Traverse (Sisseton agency) and Flandreau in South Dakota, and Santee agency in Nebraska. All or most of these Sioux belong to the Santee or eastern division of the tribe, and have long been under civilizing influences. According to official statements the dance was not taken up by any of the Sioux of Crow Creek or Yankton agencies in South Dakota, but they were certainly more or less affected by it, as they knew all about it and are in constant communication with the wilder bands of Sioux which were concerned in the outbreak. I was informed by the Omaha and Winnebago in 1891 that they had been told of the new messiah by visiting Sioux from Pine Ridge agency in April, 1890, and later on by other Sioux from Yankton agency, but had put no faith in the story, and had never organized a Ghost dance. According to the agent in charge, the Crow of Montana were not affected. This, if true, is remarkable, in view of the fact that the Crow are a large tribe and comparatively primitive, and have living near them the wildest of the Ghost-dancing tribes, the northern Cheyenne especially occupying practically the same reservation. It is possible that their experience in the Sword-bearer affair in 1887, already mentioned, had a tendency to weaken their faith in later prophets. Dr George Bird Grinnell, a competent authority, states, in reply to a personal letter, that nothing was known about the dance by the Blackfeet of Montana or by the Blackfeet, Sarsi, or Plains Cree on the Canadian side of the boundary line.

Within the same general region, east of the Rocky mountains and north of Oklahoma, the doctrine and the dance were accepted by the Asiniboin (Fort Belknap and Fort Peck agencies), Grosventres (Arapaho subtribe, Fort Belknap agency), northern Cheyenne of Montana; the Arikara, Grosventres (Minitari), and Mandan of Fort Berthold agency, North Dakota; the Shoshoni and northern Arapaho on Wind River reservation in Wyoming, as already mentioned; and by the great body of the Sioux, at Fort Peck agency (Yanktonais), Montana, and at Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Lower Brulé, Pine Ridge, and Rosebud agencies in North Dakota and South Dakota. The whole number of Sioux concerned was about 20,000, of whom 16,000 belonged to the Teton division, among the wildest and most warlike of all the western tribes. A few Cheyenne are also associated with the Sioux at Pine Ridge.

The northern Arapaho and the Shoshoni of Wyoming were the medium by which the doctrine of the new messiah was originally communicated to all these tribes. In the spring of 1889, Nakash, “Sage,” the Arapaho chief already mentioned, crossed the mountains to investigate the reports of the new religion, and brought back a full confirmation of all that had been told them from the west. A visiting Grosventre, then among the Arapaho, heard the story and brought back the wonderful news to the Grosventres and Asiniboin of Fort Belknap, but although his account was received by some with unquestioning faith, the excitement had in it nothing of a dangerous character. ([G. D.], 18.)

In a short time the news spread to the Cheyenne in Montana and the Sioux of the Dakotas, and in the fall of 1889 delegates from these two tribes arrived at Fort Washakie to learn more about the messiah in the west. The principal Cheyenne delegate was Porcupine, while Short Bull and Kicking Bear were the leaders of the Sioux party. After hearing the statements of the Arapaho and Shoshoni, it was decided that some of the Cheyenne should return and report to their tribe, while Porcupine and one or two others, with the Sioux delegates, several Shoshoni, and the Arapaho, Sitting Bull, and Friday, should go to Nevada, interview the messiah himself, and learn the whole truth of the matter. Accordingly, about November, 1889, Porcupine and his companions left Fort Washakie in Wyoming for Fort Hall reservation in Idaho, where they met the Shoshoni and Bannock and were well received and entertained by them. The tribes at this place were firm believers in the new doctrine, and Porcupine states that from there on to the end of the journey all the Indians they met were dancing the Ghost dance. After stopping a few days at Fort Hall, they went on again, accompanied by several Bannock and Shoshoni, and going rapidly by railroad soon found themselves in the country of the Paiute, and after stopping at one or two camps arrived at the agency at Pyramid lake. Here the Paiute furnished them conveyances and guides to the other agency farther south at Walker river. Porcupine is our principal authority for the events of the trip, and although he claims that he undertook this journey of a thousand miles without any definite purpose or destination in view, it is evident enough from his own narrative that he left Wyoming with the fixed intention of verifying the rumors of a messiah. He has much to say of the kindness of the whites they met west of the mountains, who, it will be remembered, were largely Mormons, who have always manifested a special interest in the Indians. He also states that many of the whites took part with the Indians in the dance.

They were now in the messiah’s country. “The Fisheaters, near Pyramid lake, told me that Christ had appeared on earth again. They said Christ knew he was coming; that eleven of his children were also coming from a far land. It appeared that Christ had sent for me to go there, and that was why, unconsciously, I took my journey. It had been foreordained. Christ had summoned myself and others from all heathen tribes. There were more different languages than I had ever heard before, and I did not understand any of them.” The delegation of which Porcupine was a member was probably the one mentioned by the agent in charge at Pyramid lake as having arrived in the spring of 1890, and consisting of thirty-four Indians of different tribes. ([G. D.], 19.)

In a few days preparations were made for a great dance near Walker lake, with all the delegates from the various tribes and hundreds of Indians in attendance. They danced two nights or longer, the messiah himself—Wovoka—coming down from his home in Mason valley to lead the ceremony. After the dance Wovoka went into a trance, and on awaking announced to those assembled that he had been to the other world and had seen the spirits of their dead friends and of his own father and mother, and had been sent back to teach the people. According to Porcupine he claimed to be the returned Christ and bore on his body the scars of the crucifixion. He told them that the dead were to be resurrected, and that as the earth was old and worn out it would be renewed as it used to be and made better; that when this happened the youth of everyone would be renewed with each return of spring, and that they would live forever; that there would be universal peace, and that any tribe that refused his message would be destroyed from the face of the earth.

It was early in the spring of 1890 when Porcupine and his Cheyenne companions returned to their tribe at Tongue River agency in Montana with the news of the appearance of the messiah. A council was called and Porcupine made a full report of the journey and delivered the divine message, talking five days in succession. The report aroused the wildest excitement among the Cheyenne, and after several long debates on the subject the Ghost dance was inaugurated at the various camps in accordance with the instructions from beyond the mountains. In June the matter came to the attention of the military officer on the reservation, who summoned Porcupine before him and obtained from him a full account of the journey and the doctrine. (See [page 793].) Porcupine insisted strongly on the sacred character of the messiah and his message, and challenged any doubters to return with him to Nevada and investigate for themselves. He claimed also that the messiah could speak all languages. As a matter of fact, Wovoka speaks only his native Paiute and a little English, but due allowance must be made for the mental exaltation of the narrator.

Grinnell states that the failure of certain things to happen according to the predictions of the messiah, in September, 1890, caused a temporary loss of faith on the part of the Cheyenne, but that shortly afterward some visiting Shoshoni and Arapaho from Wyoming reported that in their journey as they came over they had met a party of Indians who had been dead thirty or forty years, but had been resurrected by the messiah, and were now going about as if they had never died. It is useless to speculate on the mental condition of men who could seriously report or believe such things; but, however that may be, the result was that the Cheyenne returned to the dance with redoubled fervor. ([J. F. L.], 5.)

The Sioux first heard of the messiah in 1889. According to the statement of Captain George Sword, of that tribe, the information came to the Ogalala (Sioux of Pine Ridge) in that year, through the Shoshoni and Arapaho. Later in the same year a delegation consisting of Good Thunder and several others started out to the west to find the messiah and to investigate the truth of the rumor. On their return they announced that the messiah had indeed come to help the Indians, but not the whites. Their report aroused a fervor of joyful excitement among the Indians and a second delegation was sent out in 1890, consisting of Good Thunder, Cloud Horse, Yellow Knife, and Short Bull. They confirmed the report of the first delegation, and on this assurance the Ghost dance was inaugurated among the Sioux at Pine Ridge in the spring of 1890.

The matter is stated differently and more correctly by William Selwyn, an educated Sioux, at that time employed as postmaster at Pine Ridge. He says there was some talk on the subject by Indians from western tribes who visited the agency in the fall of 1888 (?), but that it did not excite much attention until 1889, when numerous letters concerning the new messiah were received by the Indians at Pine Ridge from tribes in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Dakota, and Oklahoma. As Selwyn was postmaster, the Indians who could not read usually brought their letters to him to read for them, so that he was thus in position to get accurate knowledge of the extent and nature of the excitement. It may be remarked here that, under present conditions, when the various tribes are isolated upon widely separated reservations, the Ghost dance could never have become so widespread, and would probably have died out within a year of its inception, had it not been for the efficient aid it received from the returned pupils of various eastern government schools, who conducted the sacred correspondence for their friends at the different agencies, acted as interpreters for the delegates to the messiah, and in various ways assumed the leadership and conduct of the dance.

In the fall of 1889, at a council held at Pine Ridge by Red Cloud, Young Man Afraid, Little Wound, American Horse, and other Sioux chiefs, a delegation was appointed to visit the western agencies to learn more about the new messiah. The delegates chosen were Good Thunder, Flat Iron, Yellow Breast, and Broken Arm, from Pine Ridge; Short Bull and another from Rosebud, and Kicking Bear from Cheyenne River agency. They started on their journey to the west, and soon began to write from Wyoming, Utah, and beyond the mountains, confirming all that had been said of the advent of a redeemer. They were gone all winter, and their return in the spring of 1890 aroused an intense excitement among the Sioux, who had been anxiously awaiting their report. All the delegates agreed that there was a man near the base of the Sierras who said that he was the son of God, who had once been killed by the whites, and who bore on his body the scars of the crucifixion. He had now returned to punish the whites for their wickedness, especially for their injustice toward the Indians. With the coming of the next spring (1891) he would wipe the whites from the face of the earth, and would then resurrect all the dead Indians, bring back the buffalo and other game, and restore the supremacy of the aboriginal race. He had before come to the whites, but they had rejected him. He was now the God of the Indians, and they must pray to him and call him “father,” and prepare for his awful coming. Selwyn’s account of this delegation, which was accompanied by representatives of several other tribes, including Porcupine the Cheyenne, and Sitting Bull the Arapaho, agrees with the statements of the Arapaho as given in [chapter xiv]. Three of the Sioux delegates found their way to Umatilla reservation in Oregon and remained there several days discussing the new doctrine. ([Comr.], 30—Dorchester, 529.)

The delegates made their report at Pine Ridge in April, 1890. A council was at once called to discuss the matter, but Selwyn informed the agent, Colonel Gallagher, who had Good Thunder and two others arrested and imprisoned. They were held in confinement two days, but refused to talk when questioned. The intended council was not held, but soon afterward Kicking Bear returned from a visit to the northern Arapaho in Wyoming with the news that those Indians were already dancing, and could see and talk with their dead relatives in the trance. The excitement which the agent had thought to smother by the arrest of the leaders broke out again with added strength. Red Cloud himself, the great chief of the Ogalala, declared his adhesion to the new doctrine and said his people must do as the messiah had commanded. Another council was called on White Clay creek, a few miles from Pine Ridge agency, and the Ghost dance was formally inaugurated among the Sioux, the recent delegates acting as priests and leaders of the ceremony.

As the result of all he could learn, Selwyn, in November, 1890, warned the agent in charge of Yankton agency that the Indians intended a general outbreak in the spring. Six months earlier, and before Porcupine’s statement had been made to the officer at Camp Crook, a letter dated May 29, 1890, had been addressed to the Interior Department from a citizen of Pierre, South Dakota, stating that the Sioux, or a portion of them, were secretly planning for an outbreak in the near future. This was the first intimation of trouble ahead. ([G. D.], 20.)

Wonderful things were said of the messiah by the returned delegates. It was claimed that he could make animals talk and distant objects appear close at hand, and that he came down from heaven in a cloud. He conjured up before their eyes a vision of the spirit world, so that when they looked they beheld an ocean, and beyond it a land upon which they saw “all the nations of Indians coming home,” but as they looked the vision faded away, the messiah saying that the time had not yet come. Curiously enough, although he came to restore the old life, he advised his hearers to go to work and to send their children to school. Should the soldiers attempt to harm him, he said he need only stretch out his arms and his enemies would become powerless, or the ground would open and swallow them. On their way home if they should kill a buffalo—the messiah had evidently not read Allen’s monograph—they must cut off its head and tail and feet and leave them on the ground and the buffalo would come to life again. They must tell their people to follow his instructions. Unbelievers and renegade Indians would be buried under the new earth which was to come upon the old. They must use the sacred red and white paint and the sacred grass (possibly sagebrush) which he gave them, and in the spring, when the green grass came, their people who were gone before would return, and they would see their friends again.

Now comes the most remarkable part, quoting from the statement given to Captain Sword:

The people from every tipi send for us to visit them; they are people who died many years ago. Chasing Hawk, who died not long ago, was there and we went to his tipi. He was living with his wife, who was killed in war long ago. They live in a buffalo skin tipi—a very large one—and he wanted all his friends to go there to live. A son of Good Thunder, who died in war long ago, was one who also took us to his tipi, so his father saw him. When coming we come to a herd of buffaloes. We killed one and took everything except the four feet, head, and tail, and when we came a little ways from it there was the buffaloes come to life again and went off. This was one of the messiah’s word came to truth. The messiah said, “I will short your journey when you feel tired of the long ways, if you call upon me.” This we did when we were tired. The night came upon us, we stopped at a place and we called upon the messiah to help us because we were tired of long journey. We went to sleep and in the morning we found ourselves at a great distance from where we stopped.

It is useless to assert that these men, who had been selected by the chiefs of their tribe to investigate and report upon the truth or falsity of the messiah rumors, were all liars, and that all the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other delegates who reported equally wonderful things were liars likewise. They were simply laboring under some strange psychologic influence as yet unexplained. The story of the revivified buffalo became so widely current as to form the subject of a Kiowa ghost song.

Having mentioned some characteristics of the Ghost dance west of the Rockies, we shall notice here some of the peculiar features of the dance as it existed among the Sioux. The ceremony will be described in detail later on.

Before going into the dance the men, or at least the leaders, fasted for twenty-four hours, and then at sunrise entered the sweat-house for the religious rite of purification preliminary to painting themselves for the dance. The sweat-house is a small circular framework of willow branches driven into the ground and bent over and brought together at the top in such a way that when covered with blankets or buffalo robes the structure forms a diminutive round-top tipi just high enough to enable several persons to sit or to stand in a stooping posture inside. The doorway faces the east, as is the rule in Indian structures, and at the distance of a few feet in front of the doorway is a small mound of earth, on which is placed a buffalo skull, with the head turned as if looking into the lodge. The earth of which the mound is formed is taken from a hole dug in the center of the lodge. Near the sweat-house, on the outside, there is frequently a tall sacrifice pole, from the top of which are hung strips of bright-colored cloth, packages of tobacco, or other offerings to the deity invoked by the devotee on any particular occasion.

The sweat bath is in frequent use, both as a religious rite of purification and as a hygienic treatment. Like everything else in Indian life, even the sanitary application is attended with much detail of religious ceremony. Fresh bundles of the fragrant wild sage are strewn upon the ground inside of the sweat-house, and a fire is kindled outside a short distance away. In this fire stones are heated by the medicine-men, and when all is ready the patient or devotee, stripped to the breechcloth, enters the sweat-house. The stones are then handed in to him by the priests by means of two forked sticks, cut especially for the purpose, and with two other forked sticks he puts the stones into the hole already mentioned as having been dug in the center of the lodge. Water is then passed in to him, which he pours over the hot stones until the whole interior is filled with steam; the blankets are pulled tight to close every opening, and he sits in this aboriginal Turkish bath until his naked body is dripping with perspiration. During this time the doctors outside are doing their part in the way of praying to the gods and keeping up the supply of hot stones and water until in their estimation he has been sufficiently purified, physically or morally, when he emerges and resumes his clothing, sometimes first checking the perspiration and inducing a reaction by a plunge into the neighboring stream. The sweat bath in one form or another was common to almost every tribe in the United States, but as an accompaniment to the Ghost dance it seems to have been used only by the Sioux. It may have been used in this connection among the Shoshoni or northern Cheyenne, but was not among any of the tribes of the southern plains. The Ghost-dance sweat-house of the Sioux was frequently made sufficiently large to accommodate a considerable number of persons standing inside at the same time.

PL. XCIV

SIOUX SWEAT-HOUSE AND SACRIFICE POLE

After the sweating ceremony the dancer was painted by the medicine-men who acted as leaders, of whom Sitting Bull was accounted the greatest among the Sioux. The design and color varied with the individual, being frequently determined by a previous trance vision of the subject, but circles, crescents, and crosses, representing respectively the sun, the moon, and the morning star, were always favorite figures upon forehead, face, and cheeks. As this was not a naked dance, the rest of the body was not usually painted. After the painting the dancer was robed in the sacred ghost shirt already described. This also was painted with, symbolic figures, among which were usually represented sun, moon, or stars, the eagle, magpie, crow, or sage-hen, all sacred to the Ghost dance among the Sioux. In connection with the painting the face and body were rubbed with the sweet-smelling vernal grass (Hierochloe), used for this purpose by many of the prairie tribes, and sometimes also burned as incense in their sacred ceremonies or carried as a perfume in small pouches attached to the clothing.

The painting occupied most of the morning, so that it was about noon before the participants formed the circle for the dance. Among the Sioux, unlike the southern and western tribes generally, a small tree was planted in the center of the circle, with an American flag or colored streamers floating from the top. Around the base of this tree sat the priests. At a great dance at No Water’s camp on White river near Pine Ridge, shortly before the arrival of the troops, a young woman standing within the circle gave the signal for the performance by shooting into the air toward the cardinal points four sacred arrows, made after the old primitive fashion with bone heads, and dipped in the blood of a steer before being brought to the dance. These were then gathered up and tied to the branches of the tree, together with the bow, a gaming wheel and sticks, and a peculiar staff or wand with horns. (See plates [xc], [xci].) Another young woman, or the same one, remained standing near the tree throughout the dance, holding a sacred redstone pipe stretched out toward the west, the direction from which the messiah was to appear.

At the beginning the performers, men and women, sat on the ground in a large circle around the tree. A plaintive chant was then sung, after which a vessel of some sacred food was passed around the circle until everyone had partaken, when, at a signal by the priests, the dancers rose to their feet, joined hands, and began to chant the opening song and move slowly around the circle from right to left. The rest of the performance, with its frenzies, trances, and recitals of visions, was the same as with the southern tribes, as will be described in detail hereafter. Like these tribes also, the Sioux usually selected Sunday, the great medicine day of the white man, for the ceremony.

We come now to the Sioux outbreak of 1890, but before going into the history of this short but costly war it is appropriate to state briefly the causes of the outbreak. In the documentary appendix to this chapter these causes are fully set forth by competent authorities—civilian, military, missionary, and Indian. They may be summarized as (1) unrest of the conservative element under the decay of the old life, (2) repeated neglect of promises made by the government, and (3) hunger.

The Sioux are the largest and strongest tribe within the United States. In spite of wars, removals, and diminished food supply since the advent of the white man, they still number nearly 26,000. In addition to these there are about 600 more residing in Canada. They formerly held the headwaters of the Mississippi, extending eastward almost to Lake Superior, but were driven into the prairie about two centuries ago by their enemies, the Ojibwa, after the latter had obtained firearms from the French. On coming out on the buffalo plains they became possessed of the horse, by means of which reinforcement to their own overpowering numbers the Sioux were soon enabled to assume the offensive, and in a short time had made themselves the undisputed masters of an immense territory extending, in a general way, from Minnesota to the Rocky mountains and from the Yellowstone to the Platte. A few small tribes were able to maintain their position within these limits, but only by keeping close to their strongly built permanent villages on the Missouri. Millions of buffalo to furnish unlimited food supply, thousands of horses, and hundreds of miles of free range made the Sioux, up to the year 1868, the richest and most prosperous, the proudest, and withal, perhaps, the wildest of all the tribes of the plains.

In that year, in pursuance of a policy inaugurated for bringing all the plains tribes under the direct control of the government, a treaty was negotiated with the Sioux living west of the Missouri by which they renounced their claims to a great part of their territory and had “set apart for their absolute and undisturbed use and occupation”—so the treaty states—a reservation which embraced all of the present state of South Dakota west of Missouri river. At the same time agents were appointed and agencies established for them; annuities and rations, cows, physicians, farmers, teachers, and other good things were promised them, and they agreed to allow railroad routes to be surveyed and built and military posts to be established in their territory and neighborhood. At one stroke they were reduced from a free nation to dependent wards of the government. It was stipulated also that they should be allowed to hunt within their old range, outside the limits of the reservation, so long as the buffalo abounded—a proviso which, to the Indians, must have meant forever.

The reservation thus established was an immense one, and would have been ample for all the Sioux while being gradually educated toward civilization, could the buffalo have remained and the white man kept away. But the times were changing. The building of the railroads brought into the plains swarms of hunters and emigrants, who began to exterminate the buffalo at such a rate that in a few years the Sioux, with all the other hunting tribes of the plains, realized that their food supply was rapidly going. Then gold was discovered in the Black hills, within the reservation, and at once thousands of miners and other thousands of lawless desperadoes rushed into the country in defiance of the protests of the Indians and the pledges of the government, and the Sioux saw their last remaining hunting ground taken from them. The result was the Custer war and massacre, and a new agreement in 1876 by which the Sioux were shorn of one-third of their guaranteed reservation, including the Black hills, and this led to deep and widespread dissatisfaction throughout the tribe. The conservatives brooded over the past and planned opposition to further changes which they felt themselves unable to meet. The progressives felt that the white man’s promises meant nothing.

On this point Commissioner Morgan says, in his statement of the causes of the outbreak:

Prior to the agreement of 1876 buffalo and deer were the main support of the Sioux. Food, tents, bedding were the direct outcome of hunting, and with furs and pelts as articles of barter or exchange it was easy for the Sioux to procure whatever constituted for them the necessaries, the comforts, or even the luxuries of life. Within eight years from the agreement of 1876 the buffalo had gone and the Sioux had left to them alkali land and government rations. It is hard to overestimate the magnitude of the calamity, as they viewed it, which happened to these people by the sudden disappearance of the buffalo and the large diminution in the numbers of deer and other wild animals. Suddenly, almost without warning, they were expected at once and without previous training to settle down to the pursuits of agriculture in a land largely unfitted for such use. The freedom of the chase was to be exchanged for the idleness of the camp. The boundless range was to be abandoned for the circumscribed reservation, and abundance of plenty to be supplanted by limited and decreasing government subsistence and supplies. Under these circumstances it is not in human nature not to be discontented and restless, even turbulent and violent. ([Comr.], 28.)

It took our own Aryan ancestors untold centuries to develop from savagery into civilization. Was it reasonable to expect that the Sioux could do the same in fourteen years?

The white population in the Black hills had rapidly increased, and it had become desirable to open communication between eastern and western Dakota. To accomplish this, it was proposed to cut out the heart of the Sioux reservation, and in 1882, only six years after the Black hills had been seized, the Sioux were called on to surrender more territory. A commission was sent out to treat with them, but the price offered—only about 8 cents per acre—was so absurdly small, and the methods used so palpably unjust, that friends of the Indians interposed and succeeded in defeating the measure in Congress. Another agreement was prepared, but experience had made the Indians suspicious, and it was not until a third commission went out, under the chairmanship of General Crook, known to the Indians as a brave soldier and an honorable man, that the Sioux consented to treat. ([Welsh], 1.) The result, after much effort on the part of the commission and determined opposition by the conservatives, was another agreement, in 1889, by which the Sioux surrendered one-half (about 11,000,000 acres) of their remaining territory, and the great reservation was cut up into five smaller ones, the northern and southern reservations being separated by a strip 60 miles wide.

Then came a swift accumulation of miseries. Dakota is an arid country with thin soil and short seasons. Although well adapted to grazing it is not suited to agriculture, as is sufficiently proven by the fact that the white settlers in that and the adjoining state of Nebraska have several times been obliged to call for state or federal assistance on account of failure of crops. To wild Indians hardly in from the warpath the problem was much more serious. As General Miles points out in his official report, thousands of white settlers after years of successive failures had given up the struggle and left the country, but the Indians, confined to reservations, were unable to emigrate, and were also as a rule unable to find employment, as the whites might, by which they could earn a subsistence. The buffalo was gone. They must depend on their cattle, their crops, and the government rations issued in return for the lands they had surrendered. If these failed, they must starve. The highest official authorities concur in the statement that all of these did fail, and that the Indians were driven to outbreak by starvation. (See appendix to this chapter.)

In 1888 their cattle had been diminished by disease. In 1889 their crops were a failure, owing largely to the fact that the Indians had been called into the agency in the middle of the farming season and kept there to treat with the commission, going back afterward to find their fields trampled and torn up by stock during their absence. Then followed epidemics of measles, grippe, and whooping cough, in rapid succession and with terribly fatal results. Anyone who understands the Indian character needs not the testimony of witnesses to know the mental effect thus produced. Sullenness and gloom, amounting almost to despair, settled down on the Sioux, especially among the wilder portion. “The people said their children were all dying from the face of the earth, and they might as well be killed at once.” Then came another entire failure of crops in 1890, and an unexpected reduction of rations, and the Indians were brought face to face with starvation. They had been expressly and repeatedly told by the commission that their rations would not be affected by their signing the treaty, but immediately on the consummation of the agreement Congress cut down their beef rations by 2,000,000 pounds at Rosebud, 1,000,000 at Pine Ridge, and in less proportion at other agencies. Earnest protest against this reduction was made by the commission which had negotiated the treaty, by Commissioner Morgan, and by General Miles, but still Congress failed to remedy the matter until the Sioux had actually been driven to rebellion. As Commissioner Morgan states, “It was not until January, 1891, after the troubles, that an appropriation of $100,000 was made by Congress for additional beef for the Sioux.” The protest of the commission, a full year before the outbreak, as quoted by Commissioner Morgan (see [page 829]), is strong and positive on this point.

Commissioner Morgan, while claiming that the Sioux had before been receiving more rations than they were justly entitled to according to their census number, and denying that the reduction was such as to cause even extreme suffering, yet states that the reduction was especially unwise at this juncture, as it was in direct violation of the promises made to the Indians, and would be used as an argument by those opposed to the treaty to show that the government cared nothing for the Indians after it had obtained their lands. It is quite possible that the former number of rations was greater than the actual number of persons, as it is always a difficult matter to count roving Indians, and the difficulties were greater when the old census was made. The census is taken at long intervals and the tendency is nearly always toward a decrease. Furthermore, it has usually been the policy with agents to hold their Indians quiet by keeping them as well fed as possible. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the issue is based on the weight of the cattle as delivered at the agency in the fall, and that months of exposure to a Dakota winter will reduce this weight by several hundred pounds to the animal. The official investigation by Captain Hurst at Cheyenne River agency shows conclusively that the essential food items of meat, flour, and coffee were far below the amount stipulated by the treaty. (See [page 837].)

In regard to the effect of this food deficiency Bishop Hare says: “The people were often hungry and, the physicians in many cases said, died, when taken sick, not so much from disease as for want of food.” General Miles says: “The fact that they had not received sufficient food is admitted by the agents and the officers of the government who have had opportunities of knowing,” and in another place he states that in spite of crop failures and other difficulties, after the sale of the reservation “instead of an increase, or even a reasonable supply for their support, they have been compelled to live on half and two-thirds rations and received nothing for the surrender of their lands.” The testimony from every agency is all to the same effect.

There were other causes of dissatisfaction, some local and others general and chronic, which need not be detailed here. Some of these are treated in the documents appended to this chapter. Prominent among them were the failure of Congress to make payment of the money due the Sioux for the lands recently ceded, or to have the new lines surveyed promptly so that the Indians might know what was still theirs and select their allotments accordingly; failure to reimburse the friendly Indians for horses confiscated fourteen years before; the tardy arrival of annuities, consisting largely of winter clothing, which according to the treaty were due by the 1st of August, but which seldom arrived until the middle of winter; the sweeping and frequent changes of agency employees from the agent down, preventing anything like a systematic working out of any consistent policy, and almost always operating against the good of the service, especially at Pine Ridge, where so brave and efficient a man as McGillycuddy was followed by such a one as Royer—and, finally, the Ghost dance.

The Ghost dance itself, in the form which it assumed among the Sioux, was only a symptom and expression of the real causes of dissatisfaction, and with such a man as McGillycuddy or McLaughlin in charge at Pine Ridge there would have been no outbreak, in spite of broken promises and starvation, and the Indians could have been controlled until Congress had afforded relief. That it was not the cause of the outbreak is sufficiently proved by the fact that there was no serious trouble, excepting on the occasion of the attempt to arrest Sitting Bull, on any other of the Sioux reservations, and none at all among any of the other Ghost-dancing tribes from the Missouri to the Sierras, although the doctrine and the dance were held by nearly every tribe within that area and are still held by the more important. Among the Paiute, where the doctrine originated and the messiah has his home, there was never the slightest trouble. It is significant that Commissioner Morgan in his official statement of the causes of the outbreak places the “messiah craze” eleventh in a list of twelve, the twelfth being the alarm created by the appearance of troops. The Sioux outbreak of 1890 was due entirely to local grievances, recent or long standing. The remedy and preventive for similar trouble in the future is sufficiently indicated in the appended statements of competent authorities.