THE “MESSIAH CRAZE.”
§ 400. Since the present article was begun there has arisen the so-called “Messiah craze” among the Dakota and other tribes of Indians. The author does not feel competent to describe this new form of Indian religion, but he suspects that some features of it are either willful or accidental perversions of the teachings of the missionaries.
§ 401. In presenting this study of Siouan cults to the scientific world the author has a painful sense of its incompleteness, but he hopes that the facts here fragmentarily collated may prove helpful to future investigators. The inferences, provisional assumptions, and suggestive queries in this chapter are not published as final results. Even should any of them prove to be erroneous the author’s labor will not be in vain, for through the correction of his mistakes additional information will be collected, tending to the attainment of the truth, which should be the aim of all mankind.