In 1881 there originated among the tribes of Puget sound in Washington a new religion, which, although apparently not founded on any doctrinal prophecy, yet deserves special attention for the prominent part which hypnotism holds in its ceremonial. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that the Paiute messiah himself, and through him all the apostles of the Ghost dance, have obtained their knowledge of hypnotic secrets from the “Shakers” of Puget sound.
Fig. 67—John Slocum and Louis Yowaluch.
The founder of the religion is Squ-sacht-un, known, to the whites as John Slocum. He is now (1896) about 58 years of age. His chief high priest is Louis Yowaluch, or Ai-yäl as he is called by the Yakima. Both are of the Squaxin tribe. In 1881 (Eells makes it 1882) he “died” or fell into a trance one morning about daylight and remained in that condition until the middle of the afternoon, when he awoke and announced that he had been to heaven, but had been met at the entrance by angels, who forbade him to enter on account of his wickedness, and gave him his choice either to go to hell or return to earth and teach his people what they must do to get to heaven. Accordingly, he came back to earth and began his divinely appointed mission, introducing into the new doctrine and ritual a great deal of what he had learned from the white missionaries. From the nervous twitchings which so peculiarly distinguished them, his followers soon became known as “Shakers.” Although strongly opposed by the agent, who arrested and imprisoned the leaders and visited various minor penalties on their followers, the Shaker religion grew and flourished until it now has a regular organization with several houses of worship, and has received the official indorsement of the Presbyterian church.
The following account of the system, in response to a letter of inquiry, was obtained from the missionary, Reverend Myron Eells, brother of the agent:
A curious phase of religion sprang up in the fall of 1882 among some of the Indians on the southern part of Puget sound. It has prevailed mainly among the Squaxon, Nisqually, Skokomish, and Chehalis Indians, and has been called by its opponents the “Shake religion,” and its followers have been called “Shakers” on account of a large amount of nervous shaking which is a part of the form of its observance. It is evidently based upon about the same principles of the mind as the jerks and shouting at camp meetings among the whites of the southern and western states fifty years ago, when they were more ignorant and less acquainted with real religion than they are now. When superstition, ignorance, dreams, imagination, and religion are all mingled together, either among whites, Indians, or people of any other race, they produce a strange compound. It has proven so in this case.
In the fall of 1882 an Indian named John Slocum, who was living on Skookum bay, in Mason county, apparently died. Some years previous he had lived on the Skokomish reservation, where he had attended a Protestant church, and had learned something of the white man’s religion, God, Jesus Christ, and the morals inculcated. He had also learned something in his early life of the Catholic religion and its forms and ceremonies. Many Indians were present when he was sick and apparently died. They said his neck was broken, and that he remained dead for about six hours, when he returned to life, jumped up, and ran off a short distance, and soon began to converse with the people. Whether or not it was a case of suspended animation is a question. A white man, a near neighbor of his, who saw him before his apparent death, while he thus lay, and after his resuscitation, said he believed the Indian was “playing possum.” But the Indians believed that he really died and rose again.
The Indian stated that he died and attempted to go to heaven, but could not enter it because he was so wicked. He was there told, however, the way of life, and that he must return to this earth and teach his people the way, and induce them to become Christians. He gained a small band of followers, a church was built for him, and he steadily preached to the people.
Affairs went on this way until the next August. Then, after consultation with other Indians who favored him, especially on the Skokomish reservation, it was decided to hold a big meeting. The Indians of the surrounding region were called to go. They were told that they would be lost if they did not; that four women would be turned into angels; that persons would die and be raised to life again, and that other wonderful things would be done.
Many went, about half of those on the Skokomish reservation being among the number, and they did hold a big meeting. Women did go around trying to fly like angels; four persons are said to have died, and, with the power which was said to have been given them from above, others were said to have brought them back to life again. This was a mixture of trying to perform miracles, as in Bible times, to prove the divinity of their religion, and some of the ceremonies of their old black tomahnous. This was a secret society of their savage days, in which persons went into a hypnotic condition, in which they became very rigid, and out of which they came in the course of time. The followers of this new religion dreamed dreams, saw visions, went through some disgusting ceremonies a la mode the black tomahnous, and were taken with a kind of shaking. With their arms at full length, their hands and arms would shake so fast that a common person not under the excitement could hardly shake half as fast. Gazing into the heavens, their heads would also shake very fast, sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for hours, or half the night. They would also brush each other with their hands, as they said, to brush off their sins, for they said they were much worse than white people, the latter being bad only in their hearts, while the Indians were so bad that the badness came to the surface of their bodies and the ends of their finger nails, so that it could be picked off. They sometimes brushed each other lightly, and sometimes so roughly that the person brushed was made black for a week, or even sick.
In connection with this they held church services, prayed to God, believed in Christ as a savior, said much about his death, and used the cross, their services being a combination of Protestant and Catholic services, though at first they almost totally rejected the Bible, for they said they had direct revelations from Christ, and were more fortunate than the whites, who had an old, antiquated book.
After having kept up this meeting for about a week, they disbanded and went to their homes, but did not stop their shaking or services. They sometimes held meetings from 6 oclock in the evening until about midnight, lighting candles and putting them on their heads for a long time. They became very peculiar about making the sign of the cross many times a day, when they began to eat as they asked a blessing, and when they finished their meal and returned thanks; when they shook hands with anyone—and they shook hands very often—when they went to church and prayer meeting on Thursday evening, and at many other times, far more often than the Catholics do.
On the Skokomish reservation their indiscretions caused the death of a mother and her child, and an additional loss of time and property to the amount of $600 or $800 in a few weeks. It also became a serious question whether the constant shaking of their heads would not make some of them crazy, and from symptoms and indications it was the opinion of the agency physician, J. T. Martin, that it would do so. Accordingly, on the reservation the authority of the agent was brought to bear, and to a great extent the shaking was stopped, though they were encouraged to keep on in the practice of some good habits which they had begun, of ceasing gambling, intemperance, their old style incantations over the sick, and the like. Some at first said they could not stop shaking, but that at their prayer meetings and church services on the Sabbath their hands and heads would continue to shake in spite of themselves; but after a short time, when the excitement had died away, they found that they could stop.
But about Skookum bay, Mud bay, and Squaxon the shaking continued, and it spread to the Nisqually and Chehalis Indians. It seemed to be as catching, to use the expression of the Indians, as the measles. Many who at first ridiculed it and fought against it, and invoked the aid of the agent to stop it, were drawn into it after a little, and then they became its strong upholders. This was especially true of the medicine-men, or Indian doctors, and those who had the strongest faith in them. The Shakers declared that all the old Indian religion, and especially the cure of the sick by the medicine-men, was from the devil, and they would have nothing to do with it, those who at first originated and propagated it having been among the more intelligent and progressive of the uneducated Indians. Very few of those who had learned to read and had been in Sabbath school for a considerable length of time were drawn into it. It was the class between the most educated and the most superstitious who at first upheld it. They seemed to know too much to continue in the old-style religious ceremonies, but not to know enough and to be too superstitious to fully believe the Bible. Consequently, the medicine-men were at first bitterly opposed to it. About this time, however, an order came from the Indian department to stop all medicine-men from practicing their incantations over the sick. As a respectable number of the Indians had declared against the old style of curing the sick, it seemed to be a good time to enforce this order, as there was sufficient popular opinion in connection with the authority of the agent to enforce it. This was done, and then the medicine-men almost entirely joined the Shakers, as their style was more nearly in accordance with the old style than with the religion of the Bible.
As it spread, one Indian went so far as to declare himself to be Christ again come to earth, and rode through the streets of Olympia at the head of several scores of his followers with his hands outstretched as Christ was when he was crucified. But he was so ridiculed by other Indians and by the whites that he gave up this idea and simply declared himself to be a prophet who had received revelations from heaven.
For several years there has been very little of the shaking or this mode of worship among the Indians on the reservation, excepting secretly when persons were sick. Still, their native superstition and their intercourse with those off the reservation, who sometimes hold a special gathering and meeting when their followers grow cold and careless, has kept the belief in it as a religion firm in their hearts, so that lately, since they have become citizens, and are hence more free from the authority of the agent, the practice of it has become more common, especially when persons are sick.
In fact, while it is a religion for use at all times, yet it is practiced especially over the sick, and in this way takes the place of the medicine-men and their methods. Unlike the system of the medicine-men, it has no single performer. Though often they select for leader one who can pray the best, yet in his absence another may take the lead. Like the old system, it has much noise. Especially do they use bells, which are rung over the person where the sickness is supposed to be. The others present use their influence to help in curing the sick one, and so imitate the attendants on an Indian doctor, getting down upon their knees on the floor and holding up their hands, with a candle in each hand, sometimes for an hour. They believe that by so holding up their hands the man who is ringing the bell will get the sickness out more easily than he otherwise would. They use candles both when they attempt to cure the sick and in their general service, eschewing lamps for fear of being easily tempted, as they believe coal-oil lights to be from Satan.
In another point also this resembles very closely their old religion. For a long time before a person is taken sick they foretell that his spirit is gone to heaven and profess to be able to bring it back and restore it to him, so that he will not die as soon as he otherwise would. This was also a part of the old tomahnous belief.
They have also prophesied very much. Several times when a person has died they have told me that someone had foretold this event, but they have never told me this until after the event happened, except in one case. They have prophesied much in regard to the end of the world and the day of judgment. Generally, the time set has been on a Fourth of July, and many have been frightened as the time drew near, but, alas, in every instance the prophecy failed. Like Christians, they believe in a Supreme Being, in prayer, the sabbath, in heaven and hell, in man as a sinner, and Christ as a savior, and the system led its followers to stop drinking, gambling, betting, horse racing, the use of tobacco, and the old-style incantations over the sick. Of late years, however, some of them have fallen from grace.
It has been a somewhat strange freak of human nature, a combination of morals and immorals, of Protestantism, Catholicism, and old Indian practices, of dreams and visions—a study in mental philosophy, showing what the mind may do under certain circumstances. Yet it is all easily accounted for. These Indians have mingled with the whites for a long time, nearly ever since most of them were small. All classes of whites have made sport of their religion—the infidel, the profane man, the immoral one, the moral one, and the Christian—and they have been told that God and the Bible were against it, consequently they lost faith in it. But the Indian must have some religion. He can not do without one. They were not ready to accept the Bible in all its purity. They wanted more excitement. Like the Dakota Indians more recently, they saw that Christ was the great center of the most powerful religion of the most powerful, intelligent, successful, and wisest nations with whom they came in contact. Consequently they formulated a system for themselves that would fill all their required conditions, and when a few leaders had originated it, a large share of the rest were ripe to accept it, but having had more Christian teaching than the wild Dakotas, it took a somewhat different form, with no thought of war and with more of real Christianity.
James Wickersham, esquire, of Tacoma, Washington, the well-known historian of that region, is the regular attorney for these people as a religious organization, and is consequently in a position to speak with authority concerning them. In reply to a letter of inquiry, he states that the Shakers believe in an actual localized heaven and hell, and reverence the Bible, but regard John Slocum’s revelations as of more authority. “They practice the strictest morality, sobriety, and honesty. Their 500 or 600 members are models, and it is beyond question that they do not drink whisky, gamble, or race, and are more free from vice than any other church. They practice a mixture of Catholic, Presbyterian, and old Indian ceremonies, and allow only Indians in the church. They have five churches, built by themselves, and the sect is growing quite rapidly.” From all this it would appear that the Shaker religion is a distinct advance as compared with the old Indian system.
Under date of December 5, 1892, Mr Wickersham wrote again on this subject, as follows:
I read your letter to my Indian friends, and they beg me to write you and explain that they are not Ghost dancers, and have no sympathy with that ceremony or any other founded on the Dreamer religion. That they believe in heaven as do the orthodox Christians; also in Christ, and God, the Father of all; that they believe in future rewards and punishments, but not in the Bible particularly. They do believe in it as a history, but they do not value it as a book of revelation. They do not need it, for John Slocum personally came back from a conference with the angels at the gates of heaven, and has imparted to them the actual facts and the angelic words of the means of salvation.
This testimony is even better than the words of Christ contained in the Bible, for John Slocum comes 1800 years nearer; he is an Indian, and personally appears to them and in Indian language reports the facts. These people believe Slocum as firmly as the martyr at the stake believed in that for which he offered up his life; but it is the Christian religion which they believe, and not the Ghost dance or Dreamer religion.
In short, they have a mixture of Catholic, Protestant, and Indian ceremonies, with a thorough belief in John Slocum’s personal visit to heaven, and his return with a mission to save the Indians and so guide them that they, too, shall reach the realms of bliss. Personally, I think they are honest, but mistaken; but the belief certainly has beneficial effect, and has reduced drinking and crime to a minimum among the members of the “Shaker” or “Tschaddam” church.
In conclusion, permit me to say that the general assembly of the Presbyterian church in this state has several times examined into the religion and character of the Shaker or Slocum church, and has highly indorsed its people and their character and actions. Yowaluch is their head now, and the strongest man mentally among them.
Some months later Mr Wickersham forwarded a circumstantial and carefully written statement of the history and present condition of the movement. In accordance with his request, we publish it as written, omitting only some paragraphs which do not bear directly on the general subject. It may be considered as an official statement of the Shaker case by their legally constituted representative. As might have been expected, he takes direct issue with those who have opposed the new religion. The reader will note the recurrence of the Indian sacred number, four, in Slocum’s speech, as also the fact that his first trance was the culmination of a serious illness.