According to the statement of the agent then in charge at Fort Hall, in Idaho, the Mormons at the same time—the early spring of 1875—sent emissaries to the Bannock, urging them to go to Salt Lake City to be baptized into the Mormon religion. A large number accepted the invitation without the knowledge of the agent, went down to Utah, and were there baptized, and then returned to work as missionaries of the new faith among their tribes. As an additional inducement, free rations were furnished by the Mormons to all who would come and be baptized, and “they were told that by being baptized and going to church the old men would all become young, the young men would never be sick, that the Lord had a work for them to do, and that they were the chosen people of God to establish his kingdom upon the earth,” etc. It is also asserted that they were encouraged to resist the authority of the government. ([Comr.], 2.) However much of truth there may be in these reports, and we must make considerable allowance for local prejudice, it is sufficiently evident that the Mormons took an active interest in the religious ferment then existing among the neighboring tribes and helped to give shape to the doctrine which crystallized some years later in the Ghost dance.
NAKAI′-DOKLĬ′NI
Fig. 63—Nakai′-doklĭ′ni’s dance-wheel.
Various other prophets of more or less local celebrity have arisen from time to time among the tribes, and the resurrection of the dead and the return of the olden things have usually figured prominently in their prophecies. In fact, this idea has probably been the day-dream of every Indian medicine-man since the whites first landed in America. Most of these, however, have been unknown to fame outside of their own narrow circles, except where chance or deliberate purpose has given a warlike meaning to their teachings and thus made them the subjects of official notice.
Among these may be mentioned the Apache medicine-man Nakai′-doklĭ′ni, who attracted some attention for a time in southern Arizona in 1881. ([Bourke], 1.) In the early part of this year he began to advertise his supernatural powers, claiming to be able to raise the dead and commune with spirits, and predicting that the whites would soon be driven from the land. He taught his followers a new and peculiar dance, in which the performers were ranged like the spokes of a wheel, all facing inward, while he, standing in the center, sprinkled them with the sacred hoddentin[3] as they circled around him.
In June of 1881 he announced to his people, the White Mountain band of Apache on San Carlos reservation, that on condition of receiving a sufficient number of horses and blankets for his trouble he would bring back from the dead two chiefs who had been killed a few months before. The proposition naturally aroused great excitement among the Indians. Eager to have once more with them their beloved chiefs, they willingly produced the required ponies, and when remonstrated with by the agent, replied that they would wait until the specified time for the fulfillment of the prediction, when, if the dead chiefs failed to materialize, they would demand the restoration of the property. ([Comr.], 3.)
Accordingly Nakai′-doklĭ′ni began his prayers and ceremonies, and the dance was kept up regularly at his camp on Cibicu creek until August, when it was reported to Colonel E. A. Carr; commanding at Fort Apache, that the medicine-man had announced that the dead chiefs refused to return because of the presence of the whites, but that when the whites left, the dead would return, and that the whites would be out of the country when the corn was ripe.
As matters seemed to be getting serious, the agent now called on the commanding officer to “arrest or kill him, or both.” The officer prepared to make the arrest when Nakai′-doklĭ′ni should come down to the post to lead the dance which had been arranged to take place in a few days. The prophet failed to put in an appearance, however, and messengers were sent to his camp to ask him to come to the fort the next Sunday. To this message he returned an evasive reply, whereon Colonel Carr, with 85 white troops and 23 Apache scouts, started for his camp in Cibicu canyon to put him under arrest. They arrived at the village on August 30. Nakai′-doklĭ′ni submitted quietly to arrest, but as the troops were making camp for the night, their own scouts, joined by others of the Indians, opened fire on them. A sharp skirmish ensued, in which several soldiers were killed or wounded, but the Indians were repulsed with considerable loss, including the prophet himself, who was killed at the first fire. The result was another in the long series of Apache outbreaks. ([Comr.], 4; [Sec. War], 1; [A. G. O.], 2.)