Bannock are chiefly on Fort Hall and Lemhi reservations in Idaho. The Shoshoni are on the Western Shoshone (Duck Valley) reservation in Nevada, on Fort Hall and Lemhi reservations in Idaho, and on Wind River reservation in Wyoming. The Ute are on Uintah and Uncompahgre reservations in Utah, and on the Southern Ute reservation in Colorado. There are also a considerable number of Bannock and Shoshoni not on reservations. The Ute of Utah sent delegates to the messiah soon after the first Ghost dance in January, 1889, but it is doubtful if the southern Ute in Colorado were engaged in the dance. Although aware of the doctrine, they ridiculed the idea of the dead returning to earth. ([G. D.], 11.)
In regard to the dance among the Shoshoni and Paiute on the Western Shoshoni reservation, in Nevada and Idaho, their agent writes, under date of November 8, 1890:
The Indians of this reservation and vicinity have just concluded their second medicine dance, the previous one having taken place in August last. They are looking for the coming of the Indian Christ, the resurrection of the dead Indians, and the consequent supremacy of the Indian race. Fully one thousand people took part in the dance. While the best of order prevailed, the excitement was very great as morning approached. When the dancers were worn out mentally and physically, the medicine-men would shout that they could see the faces of departed friends and relatives moving about the circle. No pen can paint the picture of wild excitement that ensued. All shouted in a chorus, Christ has come, and then danced and sung until they fell in a confused and exhausted mass on the ground.... I apprehend no trouble beyond the loss of time and the general demoralizing effect of these large gatherings of people. Several of the leading men have gone to Walker lake to confer with a man who calls himself Christ. Others have gone to Fort Hall to meet Indians from Montana and Dakota, to get the news from that section. In fact, the astonishing part of the business is the fact that all the Indians in the country seem to possess practically the same ideas and expect about the same result. ([G. D.], 12.)
On December 6 he writes that another Ghost dance had then been in progress for six days, and that the Indians had announced their intention to dance one week in each month until the grass grew, at which time the medicine-men had told them the messiah would come, bringing with him all their dead friends. ([G. D.], 13.) This dance, however, was attended by a much smaller number of Indians, and skeptics had already arisen among them to scoff at the new believers. The leaven was working, and only a little shrewd diplomacy was needed to turn the religious scale, as is shown by an extract from a third letter, dated January 10, 1891, from which it would seem that Agent Plumb is a man of practical common sense, as likewise that Esau was not the only one who would sell his birthright for a mess of pottage:
Christmas day was the day set for commencing another dance. On learning this, I told the Indians that it was my intention to give them all a big feast and have a general holiday on Christmas, but that I would not give them anything if they intended to dance. I told them they could play all of their usual games, in fact, have a good time, but that dancing was forbidden. I showed them how continued dancing at various Sioux agencies had ended in soldiers being sent to stop them. I stated the case as clearly as I could; the Indians debated it two days, and then reported that while they hoped their dead friends would come back, and believed that dancing would help to bring them, yet they were friends of the government, and friends of the whites, and my friends, and would not hold any more resurrection dances without my consent. Up to this date they have kept their word. I have no hope of breaking up their dances altogether, but I have strong hopes of controlling them. ([G. D.], 14.)
The Bannock and Shoshoni of Fort Hall reservation in Idaho have served as the chief medium of the doctrine between the tribes west of the mountains and those of the plains. Situated almost on the summit of the great divide, they are within easy reach of the Paiute to the west, among whom the dance originated, and whose language the Bannock speak, while at no great distance to the east, on Wind River reservation in Wyoming, the remaining Shoshoni are confederated with the Arapaho, who have been from the first the great apostles of the doctrine among the prairie tribes. There is constant visiting back and forth between the tribes of these two reservations, while the four railroads coming in at Fort Hall, together with the fact of its close proximity to the main line of the Union Pacific, tend still more to make it a focus and halting point for Indian travel. Almost every delegation from the tribes east of the mountains stopped at this agency to obtain the latest news from the messiah and to procure interpreters from among the Bannock to accompany them to Nevada. In a letter of November 26, 1890, to the Indian Commissioner, the agent in charge states that during the preceding spring and summer his Indians had been visited by representatives from about a dozen different reservations. In regard to the dance and the doctrine at Fort Hall, he also says that the extermination and resurrection business was not a new thing with his tribes by any means, but had been quite a craze with them every few years for the last twenty years or more, only varying a little according to the whim of particular medicine-men. ([G. D.], 15.) This may have referred to the doctrine already mentioned as having been taught by Tävibo.
Early in 1889 a Bannock from Fort Hall visited the Shoshoni and Arapaho of Wind River reservation in Wyoming and brought them the first knowledge of the new religion. He had just returned from a visit to the Paiute country, where he said he had met messengers who had told him that the dead people were coming back, and who had commanded him to go and tell all the tribes. “And so,” said the Shoshoni, “he came here and told us all about it.” Accordingly, in the summer of that year a delegation of five Shoshoni, headed by Täbinshi, with Nakash (“Sage”), an Arapaho, visited the messiah of Mason valley, traveling most of the way by railroad and occupying several days in the journey. They attended a Ghost dance, which, according to their accounts, was a very large one, and after dancing all night were told by the messiah that they would meet all their dead in two years from that time at the turning of the leaves, i. e., in the autumn of 1891. They were urged to dance frequently, “because the dance moves the dead.” One of the Shoshoni delegates understood the Bannock and Paiute language and interpreted for the rest. The information was probably conveyed by the Shoshoni to the Arapaho through the medium of the sign language.
In accord with the report of the delegates, on their return home the Shoshoni and Arapaho at once began to dance. A year later, in the fall of 1890, a dense smoke from forest fires in the mountains drifted down and obscured the air in the lower country to such an extent that horses were lost in the haze. This was regarded by the Indians as an indication of the approach of the great change, and the dance was continued with increased fervor, but at last the atmosphere began to clear and the phenomenon ended as it had begun—in smoke. The dance was kept up, however, without abatement for another year, until the predicted time had come and gone, when the Shoshoni—who seem to share the skeptical nature of their southern kinsmen, the Comanche—concluded that they had been deceived, and abandoned the dance. The Arapaho, who have greater faith in the unseen things of the spirit world, kept it up, and were still dancing when I visited them in the summer of 1892. A part of the Arapaho, headed by their chief, Black Coal, and encouraged by the Catholic missionaries, had steadily opposed the dance from the first. After considerable discussion of the matter it was decided, on Black Coal’s proposition, to send another delegation to the messiah, under the guidance of Yellow Eagle, a graduate of a government Indian school, to learn as to the truth or falsity of the new doctrine. They returned early in 1891 and reported against the movement. Their report confirmed the doubters in their skepticism, but produced little effect on the rest of the tribe.
When I visited Wind River reservation in Wyoming in June, 1892, the agent in charge informed me that there was no Ghost dancing on his reservation; that he had explained how foolish it was and had strictly forbidden it, and that in consequence the Indians had abandoned it. However, he expressed interest in my investigation, and as the Arapaho, with whom I had most to do, were then camped in a body a few miles up in the mountains cutting wood, he very kindly furnished a conveyance and camping outfit, with two of the agency employees—a clerk and an interpreter—to take me out. It appeared afterward that the escort had received instructions of their own before starting. Having reached the camp and set up our tent, the Arapaho soon came around to get acquainted, over a pipe and a cup of coffee; but, in answer to questions put by one of my companions, a white man, who assumed the burden of the conversation, it seemed that the Indians had lost all interest in the dance. In fact, some of them were so ignorant on the subject that they wanted to know what it meant.
After trying in vain to convince me that it was useless to waste time further with the Indians, the clerk started back again after supper, satisfied that that part of the country was safe so far as the Ghost dance was concerned. By this time it was dark, and the Indians invited the interpreter and myself to come over to a tipi about half a mile away, where we could meet all the old men. We started, and had gone but a short distance when we heard from a neighboring hill the familiar measured cadence of the ghost songs. On turning with a questioning look to my interpreter—who was himself a half-blood—he quietly said: “Yes; they are dancing the Ghost dance. That’s something I have never reported, and I never will. It is their religion and they have a right to it.” Not wishing to be an accomplice in crime, I did not go over to the dance; but it is needless to state that the old men in the tipi that night, and for several successive nights thereafter, knew all about the songs and ceremonies of the new religion. As already stated, the Shoshoni had really lost faith and abandoned the dance.