The book of the American Indian

by Hamlin Garland

Just at this time our cattle began to die of a strange disease and our children were seized by a mysterious malady which the white people call grippe, but for which we had no name. We were without medicine to counteract these fevers, and the agency doctor could not do much for us. Our children died in hundreds. This was terrible. It seemed that all were to be swept away.

Bishop Hare and General Miles both saw and reported upon these conditions, and I wrote to all my friends in agony of haste, but the government was slow to act in our need, though it was ever in haste to cut up our land and give it away. No one cared what became of us. We had no votes, we could not help any man to office. All promises were neglected, and to add to our misery it was said the new administration would still further reduce our payments and the rations which were our due. When this news came to us it seemed as if the very earth on which we stood was sinking beneath our feet. The old world of the buffalo, the free life of the past, became each day more beautiful as the world about us, the prison in which we lived, grew black with the clouds of despair.

In this moment of hopeless misery—this intolerable winter of tragic dejection—there came to my people the rumor of something very wonderful. A messenger to my chief said that far in the west, at the base of a vast white mountain, a wondrous medicine man had descended from a cloud to meet and save the red men. Just as Christ came long ago to the Jews, so now the Great Spirit had sent a messenger to the red people to bring back the old world of the buffalo and to repeople its shining vistas with those who had died. So they said, “By faith and purity we are to again prevail over that earth.”

It was a seed planted at the right time in the right soil. In the night of his despair my chief listened to the message as to a sweet story, not believing it, yet eager to hear more.

The herald of the new faith was a Brulé, who ended by saying: “The Kicking Bear, one of our chiefs, is gone to search into the beginning of this story. He it was who sent me to you. He wished me to acquaint you with what he had heard.”

“When he returns,” replied the chief, “tell him I wish to talk with him of this strange thing.”

A report of this man’s message spread among the people and many believed it. We began to hear obscurely about a new dance which some of the people at Rosebud and Pine Ridge had adopted—a ceremony to test the faith of those who believed—a medicine dance to bring back the past—and the people brooded upon the words of the Brulé, who said that the world of the buffalo was to be restored to them and all the old customs and joys brought back.

It was a magical thought. Their deep longing made it expand in their minds like a wonderful flower, and they waited impatiently the coming of the herald.

You must not forget that every little word my people knew of the Christian religion prepared them for this miraculous change. The white man’s religion was full of miracles like this. Did not Christ raise men from the dead? Was he not born of a Virgin and did he not change water into wine? The wise men of the Bible, we were told, were able to make the sun stand still, and once the walls of a great city crumbled before the magic blast of rams’ horns. Many times we had heard the preachers, the wise men of the white men, say: “By faith are mountains removed,” therefore our minds were prepared to believe in the restoration of the world of the buffalo. Was it not as easy for the Great Spirit as to make the water cover the highest mountains? My friend the Blackbird used to say “Every race despises the superstitions of others, but clings to its own.” I am Sioux, I could not help being thrilled by this story.

My brain responded to every story the old man told. I saw again the splendid reaches of the plain. I rode in the chase of the buffalo. I heard the songs of rejoicing as the women hung the red meat up to dry. I played again among the lodges. Yes, it was all very sweet to dream about, but I said to the chief: “I have been among the white people; I have studied their books. The world never turns backward. We must go on like the rivers, on into the mystery.”