“And when he came to himself I suppose he was all ready for war,” continued Parker.
“No, he wasn’t. The Cutter is a peaceful man; he has never been seen on the warpath; when he came back to this earth he was more for peace than he ever was. He told his people that they must send their children to school and cultivate the ways of the white man as nearly as they could. They must all love one another and stop fighting.”
“The Sioux don’t take it that way,” said Parker.
“I will come to the Sioux after awhile,” said Carl. “Of course such a tale as that speedily spread to all the tribes round about. The Piutes gave it to the ones nearest them, and in less than a year it was spread all over the plains. It even got to Washington, and the Department sent out a man to inquire into it. I might have gone with that man as well as not, but I was like the majority of our people out here. We heard of the new religion and laughed at it; but it seems that there was something in it. Wovoka did not claim to be the Messiah, but he did claim to be a dreamer. But an Indian never does anything without a dance, and he taught them this thing which has since developed into the Ghost Dance. To render his visit more binding he gave the Washington man a cloak of rabbit skins, some piñon nuts, some tail feathers of the magpie, and a quantity of red paint, which they were to mix with red paint of their own and put on whenever they engaged in the Ghost Dance.”
“Well, what is the doctrine of the Ghost Dance, anyway?” asked Lieutenant Parker.
“The doctrine is that the time will come when the whole Indian race, living and dead, will reunite upon the earth and live a life of happiness, free from death, disease and misery.”
“But their game is all gone,” said Parker.
“They can’t live the same as they did before.”
“Their game is going to come back. During one of his fits the Cutter caught a glimpse of an immense crowd of warriors coming toward the earth driving before them a lot of animals—buffalo, deer, elk and ponies. But the Great Spirit—that is the Messiah—turned them back, for he said the proper time had not yet come.”
“And the Sioux think this can only come by extinction of the whites?” inquired Parker.