Chapter X: Introduction (8)

I knew that he was holding something in reserve, as no Indian would unbosom himself on religious matters to a white man with whom he had not had a long and intimate acquaintance. Especially was this true in view of the warlike turn affairs had taken across the mountains. Consequently I accepted his statements with several grains of salt, but on the whole he seemed to be honest in his belief and his supernatural claims, although, like others of the priestly function, he occasionally resorts to cheap trickery to keep up the impression as to his miraculous powers. From some of the reports he is evidently an expert sleight-of-hand performer. He makes no claim to be Christ, the Son of God, as has been so often asserted in print. He does claim to be a prophet who has received a divine revelation. I could not help feeling that he was sincere in his repudiation of a number of the wonderful things attributed to him, for the reason that he insisted so strongly on other things fully as trying to the faith of a white man. He made no argument and advanced no proofs, but said simply that he had been with God, as though the statement no more admitted of controversy than the proposition that 2 and 2 are 4. From Mr J. O. Gregory, formerly employed at the agency, and well acquainted with the prophet, I learned that Wovoka had once requested him to draw up and forward to the President a statement of his supernatural claims, with a proposition that if he could receive a small regular stipend he would take up his residence on the reservation and agree to keep Nevada people informed of all the latest news from heaven and to furnish rain whenever wanted. The letter was never forwarded.

From a neighboring ranchman, who knew Wovoka well and sometimes employed him in the working season, I obtained a statement which seems to explain the whole matter. It appears that a short time before the prophet began to preach he was stricken down by a severe fever, during which illness the ranchman frequently visited and ministered to him. While he was still sick there occurred an eclipse of the sun, a phenomenon which always excites great alarm among primitive peoples. In their system the sun is a living being, of great power and beneficence, and the temporary darkness is caused by an attack on him by some supernatural monster which endeavors to devour him, and will succeed, and thus plunge the world into eternal night unless driven off by incantations and loud noises. On this occasion the Paiute were frantic with excitement and the air was filled with the noise of shouts and wailings and the firing of guns, for the purpose of frightening off the monster that threatened the life of their god. It was now, as Wovoka stated, “when the sun died,” that he went to sleep in the daytime and was taken up to heaven. This means simply that the excitement and alarm produced by the eclipse, acting on a mind and body already enfeebled by sickness, resulted in delirium, in which he imagined himself to enter the portals of the spirit world. Constant dwelling on the subject in thought by day and in dreams by night would effect and perpetuate the exalted mental condition in which visions of the imagination would have all the seeming reality of actual occurrences. To those acquainted with the spiritual nature of Indians and their implicit faith in dreams all this is perfectly intelligible. His frequent trances would indicate also that, like so many other religious ecstatics, he is subject to cataleptic attacks.

I have not been able to settle satisfactorily the date of this eclipse. From inquiry at the Nautical Almanac office I learn that solar eclipses visible in Nevada and the adjacent territory from 1884 to 1890 occurred as follows: 1884, October 18, partial; 1885, March 16, partial; 1886, March 5, partial; 1887, none; 1888, none; 1889, January 1, total or partial; 1890, none. The total eclipse of January 1, 1889, agrees best with his statement to me on New Year’s night, 1892, that it was about two years since he had gone up to heaven when the sun died. It must be noted that Indians generally count years by winters instead of by series of twelve calendar months, a difference which sometimes makes an apparent discrepancy of nearly a year.

In subsequent conversations he added a few minor details in regard to his vision and his doctrine. He asked many questions in regard to the eastern tribes whose delegates had visited him, and was pleased to learn that the delegates from several of these tribes were my friends. He spoke particularly of the large delegation—about twelve in number—from the Cheyenne and Arapaho, who had visited him the preceding summer and taken part in the dance with his people. Nearly all the members of this party were personally known to me, and the leader, Black Coyote, whose picture I had with me and showed to him, had been my principal instructor in the Ghost dance among the Arapaho. While this fact put me on a more confidential footing with Wovoka, it also proved of great assistance in my further investigation on my return to the prairie tribes, as, when they were satisfied from my statements and the specimens which I had brought back that I had indeed seen and talked with the messiah, they were convinced that I was earnestly desirous of understanding their religion aright, and from that time spoke freely and without reserve.

I had my camera and was anxious to get Wovoka’s picture. When the subject was mentioned, he replied that his picture had never been made; that a white man had offered him five dollars for permission to take his photograph, but that he had refused. However, as I had been sent from Washington especially to learn and tell the whites all about him and his doctrine, and as he was satisfied from my acquaintance with his friends in the other tribes that I must be a good man, he would allow me to take his picture. As usual in dealing with Indians, he wanted to make the most of his bargain, and demanded two dollars and a half for the privilege of taking his picture and a like sum for each one of his family. I was prepared for this, however, and refused to pay any such charges, but agreed to give him my regular price per day for his services as informant and to send him a copy of the picture when finished. After some demur he consented and got ready for the operation by knotting a handkerchief about his neck, fastening an eagle feather at his right elbow, and taking a wide brim sombrero upon his knee. I afterward learned that the feather and sombrero were important parts of his spiritual stock in trade. After taking his picture I obtained from him, as souvenirs to bring back and show to my Indian friends in Indian Territory, a blanket of rabbit skins, some piñon nuts, some tail feathers of the magpie, highly prized by the Paiute for ornamentation, and some of the sacred red paint, endowed with most miraculous powers, which plays so important a part in the ritual of the Ghost-dance religion. Then, with mutual expressions of good will, we parted, his uncle going back to the reservation, while I took the train for Indian Territory.

As soon as the news of my arrival went abroad among the Cheyenne and Arapaho on my return, my friends of both tribes came in, eager to hear all the details of my visit to the messiah and to get my own impressions of the man. In comparing notes with some of the recent delegates I discovered something of Wovoka’s hypnotic methods, and incidentally learned how much of miracle depends on the mental receptivity of the observer.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho, although for generations associated in the most intimate manner, are of very different characters. In religious matters it may be said briefly that the Arapaho are devotees and prophets, continually seeing signs and wonders, while the Cheyenne are more skeptical. In talking with Tall Bull, one of the Cheyenne delegates and then captain of the Indian police, he said that before leaving they had asked Wovoka to give them some proof of his supernatural powers. Accordingly he had ranged them in front of him, seated on the ground, he sitting facing them, with his sombrero between and his eagle feathers in his hand. Then with a quick movement he had put his hand into the empty hat and drawn out from it “something black.” Tall Bull would not admit that anything more had happened, and did not seem to be very profoundly impressed by the occurrence, saying that he thought there were medicine-men of equal capacity among the Cheyenne. In talking soon afterward with Black Coyote, one of the Arapaho delegates and also a police officer, the same incident came up, but with a very different sequel. Black Coyote told how they had seated themselves on the ground in front of Wovoka, as described by Tall Bull, and went on to tell how the messiah had waved his feathers over his hat, and then, when he withdrew his hand, Black Coyote looked into the hat and there “saw the whole world.” The explanation is simple. Tall Bull, who has since been stricken with paralysis, was a jovial, light-hearted fellow, fond of joking and playing tricks on his associates, but withal a man of good hard sense and disposed to be doubtful in regard to all medicine-men outside of his own tribe. Black Coyote, on the contrary, is a man of contemplative disposition, much given to speculation on the unseen world. His body and arms are covered with the scars of wounds which he has inflicted on himself in obedience to commands received in dreams. When the first news of the new religion came to the southern tribes, he had made a long journey, at his own expense, to his kindred in Wyoming, to learn the doctrine and the songs, and since his return had been drilling his people day and night in both. Now, on his visit to the fountain head of inspiration, he was prepared for great things, and when the messiah performed his hypnotic passes with the eagle feather, as I have so often witnessed in the Ghost dance, Black Coyote saw the whole spirit world where Tall Bull saw only an empty hat. From my knowledge of the men, I believe both were honest in their statements.

As a result of the confidence established between the Indians and myself in consequence of my visit to the messiah, one of the Cheyenne delegates named Black Sharp Nose, a prominent man in his tribe, soon after voluntarily brought down to me the written statement of the doctrine obtained from the messiah himself, and requested me to take it back and show it to Washington, to convince the white people that there was nothing bad or hostile in the new religion. The paper had been written by a young Arapaho of the same delegation who had learned some English at the Carlisle Indian school, and it had been taken down on the spot from the dictation of the messiah as his message to be carried to the prairie tribes. On the reverse page of the paper the daughter of Black Sharp Nose, a young woman who had also some school education, had written out the same thing in somewhat better English from her father’s dictation on his return. No white man had any part, directly or indirectly, in its production, nor was it originally intended to be seen by white men. In fact, in one part the messiah himself expressly warns the delegates to tell no white man.

+Chapter X+

THE DOCTRINE OF THE GHOST DANCE

You must not fight. Do no harm to anyone. Do right always.—_Wovoka._

The great underlying principle of the Ghost dance doctrine is that the time will come when the whole Indian race, living and dead, will be reunited upon a regenerated earth, to live a life of aboriginal happiness, forever free from death, disease, and misery. On this foundation each tribe has built a structure from its own mythology, and each apostle and believer has filled in the details according to his own mental capacity or ideas of happiness, with such additions as come to him from the trance. Some changes, also, have undoubtedly resulted from the transmission of the doctrine through the imperfect medium of the sign language. The differences of interpretation are precisely such as we find in Christianity, with its hundreds of sects and innumerable shades of individual opinion. The white race, being alien and secondary and hardly real, has no part in this scheme of aboriginal regeneration, and will be left behind with the other things of earth that have served their temporary purpose, or else will cease entirely to exist.

All this is to be brought about by an overruling spiritual power that needs no assistance from human creatures; and though certain medicine-men were disposed to anticipate the Indian millennium by preaching resistance to the further encroachments of the whites, such teachings form no part of the true doctrine, and it was only where chronic dissatisfaction was aggravated by recent grievances, as among the Sioux, that the movement assumed a hostile expression. On the contrary, all believers were exhorted to make themselves worthy of the predicted happiness by discarding all things warlike and practicing honesty, peace, and good will, not only among themselves, but also toward the whites, so long as they were together. Some apostles have even thought that all race distinctions are to be obliterated, and that the whites are to participate with the Indians in the coming felicity; but it seems unquestionable that this is equally contrary to the doctrine as originally preached.

Different dates have been assigned at various times for the fulfillment of the prophecy. Whatever the year, it has generally been held, for very natural reasons, that the regeneration of the earth and the renewal of all life would occur in the early spring. In some cases July, and particularly the 4th of July, was the expected time. This, it may be noted, was about the season when the great annual ceremony of the sun dance formerly took place among the prairie tribes. The messiah himself has set several dates from time to time, as one prediction after another failed to materialize, and in his message to the Cheyenne and Arapaho, in August, 1891, he leaves the whole matter an open question. The date universally recognized among all the tribes immediately prior to the Sioux outbreak was the spring of 1891. As springtime came and passed, and summer grew and waned, and autumn faded again into winter without the realization of their hopes and longings, the doctrine gradually assumed its present form—that some time in the unknown future the Indian will be united with his friends who have gone before, to be forever supremely happy, and that this happiness may be anticipated in dreams, if not actually hastened in reality, by earnest and frequent attendance on the sacred dance.

On returning to the Cheyenne and Arapaho in Oklahoma, after my visit to Wovoka in January, 1892, I was at once sought by my friends of both tribes, anxious to hear the report of my journey and see the sacred things that I had brought back from the messiah. The Arapaho especially, who are of more spiritual nature than any of the other tribes, showed a deep interest and followed intently every detail of the narrative. As soon as the news of my return was spread abroad, men and women, in groups and singly, would come to me, and after grasping my hand would repeat a long and earnest prayer, sometimes aloud, sometimes with the lips silently moving, and frequently with tears rolling down the cheeks, and the whole body trembling violently from stress of emotion. Often before the prayer was ended the condition of the devotee bordered on the hysterical, very little less than in the Ghost dance itself. The substance of the prayer was usually an appeal to the messiah to hasten the coming of the promised happiness, with a petition that, as the speaker himself was unable to make the long journey, he might, by grasping the hand of one who had seen and talked with the messiah face to face, be enabled in his trance visions to catch a glimpse of the coming glory. During all this performance the bystanders awaiting their turn kept reverent silence. In a short time it became very embarrassing, but until the story had been told over and over again there was no way of escape without wounding their feelings. The same thing afterward happened among the northern Arapaho in Wyoming, one chief even holding out his hands toward me with short exclamations of _hŭ! hŭ! hŭ!_ as is sometimes done by the devotees about a priest in the Ghost dance, in the hope, as he himself explained, that he might thus be enabled to go into a trance then and there. The hope, however, was not realized.

After this preliminary ordeal my visitors would ask to see the things which I had brought back from the messiah—the rabbit-skin robes, the piñon nuts, the gaming sticks, the sacred magpie feathers, and, above all, the sacred red paint. This is a bright-red ocher, about the color of brick dust, which the Paiute procure from the neighborhood of their sacred eminence, Mount Grant. It is ground, and by the help of water is made into elliptical cakes about 6 inches in length. It is the principal paint used by the Paiute in the Ghost dance, and small portions of it are given by the messiah to all the delegates and are carried back by them to their respective tribes, where it is mixed with larger quantities of their own red paint and used in decorating the faces of the participants in the dance, the painting being solemnly performed for each dancer by the medicine-man himself. It is believed to ward off sickness, to contribute to long life, and to assist the mental vision in the trance. On the battlefield of Wounded Knee I have seen this paint smeared on the posts of the inclosure about the trench in which are buried the Indians killed in the fight. I found it very hard to refuse the numerous requests for some of the paint, but as I had only one cake myself I could not afford to be too liberal. My friends were very anxious to touch it, however, but when I found that every man tried to rub off as much of it as possible on the palms of his hands, afterward smearing this dust on the faces of himself and his family, I was obliged in self-defense to put it entirely away.

The piñon nuts, although not esteemed so sacred, were also the subject of reverent curiosity. One evening, by invitation from Left Hand, the principal chief of the Arapaho, I went over to his tipi to talk with him about the messiah and his country, and brought with me a quantity of the nuts for distribution. On entering I found the chief and a number of the principal men ranged on one side of the fire, while his wife and several other women, with his young grandchildren, completed the circle on the other. Each of the adults in turn took my hand with a prayer, as before described, varying in length and earnestness according to the devotion of the speaker. This ceremony consumed a considerable time. I then produced the piñon nuts and gave them to Left Hand, telling him how they were used as food by the Paiute. He handed a portion to his wife, and before I knew what was coming the two arose in their places and stretching out their hands toward the northwest, the country of the messiah, made a long and earnest prayer aloud that _Hesûnanin_, “Our Father,” would bless themselves and their children through the sacred food, and hasten the time of his coming. The others, men and women, listened with bowed heads, breaking in from time to time with similar appeals to “the Father.” The scene was deeply affecting. It was another of those impressive exhibitions of natural religion which it has been my fortune to witness among the Indians, and which throw light on a side of their character of which the ordinary white observer never dreams. After the prayer the nuts were carefully divided among those present, down to the youngest infant, that all might taste of what to them was the veritable bread of life.

As I had always shown a sympathy for their ideas and feelings, and had now accomplished a long journey to the messiah himself at the cost of considerable difficulty and hardship, the Indians were at last fully satisfied that I was really desirous of learning the truth concerning their new religion. A few days after my visit to Left Hand, several of the delegates who had been sent out in the preceding August came down to see me, headed by Black Short Nose, a Cheyenne. After preliminary greetings, he stated that the Cheyenne and Arapaho were now convinced that I would tell the truth about their religion, and as they loved their religion and were anxious to have the whites know that it was all good and contained nothing bad or hostile they would now give me the message which the messiah himself had given to them, that I might take it back to show to Washington. He then took from a beaded pouch and gave to me a letter, which proved to be the message or statement of the doctrine delivered by Wovoka to the Cheyenne and Arapaho delegates, of whom Black Short Nose was one, on the occasion of their last visit to Nevada, in August, 1891, and written down on the spot, in broken English, by one of the Arapaho delegates, Casper Edson, a young man who had acquired some English education by several years’ attendance at the government Indian school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. On the reverse page of the paper was a duplicate in somewhat better English, written out by a daughter of Black Short Nose, a school girl, as dictated by her father on his return. These letters contained the message to be delivered to the two tribes, and as is expressly stated in the text were not intended to be seen by a white man. The daughter of Black Short Nose had attempted to erase this clause before her father brought the letter down to me, but the lines were still plainly visible. It is the genuine official statement of the Ghost-dance doctrine as given by the messiah himself to his disciples. It is reproduced here in duplicate and verbatim, just as received, with a translation for the benefit of those not accustomed to Carlisle English. In accordance with the request of the Indians, I brought the original to Washington, where it was read by the Indian Commissioner, Honorable T. J. Morgan, after which I had two copies made, giving one to the commissioner and retaining the other myself, returning the original to its owner, Black Short Nose.

_The Messiah Letter_ (_Arapaho version_)

What you get home you make dance, and will give ʸᵒᵘ the same. when
you dance four days and ^{in night} one day, dance day time, five
days and then fift, will wash five for every body. He likes you
ᶠˡᵒᵏ you give him good many things, he heart been satting feel
good. After you get home, will give good cloud, and give you chance
to make you feel good. and he give you good spirit. and he give you
ᵃˡ a good paint.

You folks want you to come in three [months] here, any tribs from
there. There will ᴮᵉ good bit snow this year. Sometimes rain’s,
in fall, this year some rain, never give you any thing like that.
grandfather said when he die never ⁿᵒ cry. no hurt anybody. no
fight, good behave always, it will give you satisfaction, this
young man, he is a good Father and mother, dont tell no white man.
Jueses was on ground, he just like cloud. Every body is alive
again, I dont know when they will [be] here, may be this fall or in
spring.

Every body never get sick, be young again,—(if young fellow no sick
any more,) work for white men never trouble with him until you
leave, when it shake the earth dont be afraid no harm any body.

You make dance for six ʷᵉᵉᵏˢ night, and put you foot [food?] in
dance to eat for every body and wash in the water. that is all to
tell, I am in to you. and you will received a good words from him
some time, Dont tell lie.

_The Messiah Letter_ (_Cheyenne version_)

When you get home you have to make dance. You must dance four
nights and one day time. You will take bath in the morning before
you go to yours homes, for every body, and give you all the same
as this. Jackson Wilson likes you all, he is glad to get good many
things. His heart satting fully of gladness, after you get home,
I will give you a good cloud and give you chance to make you feel
good. I give you a good spirit, and give you all good paint, I want
you people to come here again, want them in three months any tribs
of you from there. There will be a good deal snow this year. Some
time rains, in fall this year some rain, never give you any thing
like that, grandfather, said, when they were die never cry, no
hurt any body, do any harm for it, not to fight. Be a good behave
always. It will give a satisfaction in your life. This young man
is a good father and mother. Do not tell the white people about
this, Juses is on the ground, he just like cloud. Every body is a
live again. I don’t know when he will be here, may be will be this
fall or in spring. When it happen it may be this. There will be no
sickness and return to young again. Do not refuse to work for white
man or do not make any trouble with them until you leave them. When
the earth shakes do not be afraid it will not hurt you. I want you
to make dance for six weeks. Eat and wash good clean yourselves
[The rest of the letter had been erased].

_The Messiah Letter_ (_free Rendering_)

When you get home you must make a dance to continue five days.
Dance four successive nights, and the last night keep up the dance
until the morning of the fifth day, when all must bathe in the
river and then disperse to their homes. You must all do in the same
way.

I, Jack Wilson, love you all, and my heart is full of gladness for
the gifts you have brought me. When you get home I shall give you a
good cloud [rain?] which will make you feel good. I give you a good
spirit and give you all good paint. I want you to come again in
three months, some from each tribe there [the Indian Territory].

There will be a good deal of snow this year and some rain. In the
fall there will be such a rain as I have never given you before.

Grandfather [a universal title of reverence among Indians and here
meaning the messiah] says, when your friends die you must not cry.
You must not hurt anybody or do harm to anyone. You must not fight.
Do right always. It will give you satisfaction in life. This young
man has a good father and mother. [Possibly this refers to Casper
Edson, the young Arapaho who wrote down this message of Wovoka for
the delegation].

Do not tell the white people about this. Jesus is now upon the
earth. He appears like a cloud. The dead are all alive again. I do
not know when they will be here; maybe this fall or in the spring.
When the time comes there will be no more sickness and everyone
will be young again.

Do not refuse to work for the whites and do not make any trouble
with them until you leave them. When the earth shakes [at the
coming of the new world] do not be afraid. It will not hurt you.

I want you to dance every six weeks. Make a feast at the dance and
have food that everybody may eat. Then bathe in the water. That is
all. You will receive good words again from me some time. Do not
tell lies.

Every organized religion has a system of ethics, a system of mythology, and a system of ritual observance. In this message from the high priest of the Ghost dance we have a synopsis of all three. With regard to the ritual part, ceremonial purification and bathing have formed a part in some form or other of every great religion from the beginning of history, while the religious dance dates back far beyond the day when the daughter of Saul “looked through a window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord.” The feasting enjoined is a part of every Indian ceremonial gathering, religious, political, or social. The dance is to continue four successive nights, in accord with the regular Indian system, in which _four_ is the sacred number, as _three_ is in Christianity. In obedience to this message the southern prairie tribes, after the return of the delegation in August, 1891, ceased to hold frequent one-night dances at irregular intervals as formerly without the ceremonial bathing, and adopted instead a system of four-night dances at regular periods of six weeks, followed by ceremonial bathing on the morning of the fifth day.

The mythology of the doctrine is only briefly indicated, but the principal articles are given. The dead are all arisen and the spirit hosts are advancing and have already arrived at the boundaries of this earth, led forward by the regenerator in shape of cloud-like indistinctness. The spirit captain of the dead is always represented under this shadowy semblance. The great change will be ushered in by a trembling of the earth, at which the faithful are exhorted to feel no alarm. The hope held out is the same that has inspired the Christian for nineteen centuries—a happy immortality in perpetual youth. As to fixing a date, the messiah is as cautious as his predecessor in prophecy, who declares that “no man knoweth the time, not even the angels of God.” His weather predictions also are about as definite as the inspired utterances of the Delphian oracle.

The moral code inculcated is as pure and comprehensive in its simplicity as anything found in religious systems from the days of Gautama Buddha to the time of Jesus Christ. “_Do no harm to any one. Do right always._” Could anything be more simple, and yet more exact and exacting? It inculcates honesty—“_Do not tell lies._” It preaches good will—“_Do no harm to any one._” It forbids the extravagant mourning customs formerly common among the tribes—“_When your friends die, you must not cry_,” which is interpreted by the prairie tribes as forbidding the killing of horses, the burning of tipis and destruction of property, the cutting off of the hair and the gashing of the body with knives, all of which were formerly the sickening rule at every death until forbidden by the new doctrine. As an Arapaho said to me when his little boy died, “I shall not shoot any ponies, and my wife will not gash her arms. We used to do this when our friends died, because we thought we would never see them again, and it made us feel bad. But now we know we shall all be united again.” If the Kiowa had held to the Ghost-dance doctrine instead of abandoning it as they had done, they would have been spared the loss of thousands of dollars in horses, tipis, wagons, and other property destroyed, with much of the mental suffering and all of the physical laceration that resulted in consequence of the recent fatal epidemic in the tribe, when for weeks and months the sound of wailing went up night and morning, and in every camp men and women could be seen daily, with dress disordered and hair cut close to the scalp, with blood hardened in clots upon the skin, or streaming from mutilated fingers and fresh gashes on face, and arms, and legs. It preaches peace with the whites and obedience to authority until the day of deliverance shall come. Above all, it forbids war—“_You must not fight._” It is hardly possible for us to realize the tremendous and radical change which this doctrine works in the whole spirit of savage life. The career of every Indian has been the warpath. His proudest title has been that of warrior. His conversation by day and his dreams by night have been of bloody deeds upon the enemies of his tribe. His highest boast was in the number of his scalp trophies, and his chief delight at home was in the war dance and the scalp dance. The thirst for blood and massacre seemed inborn in every man, woman, and child of every tribe. Now comes a prophet as a messenger from God to forbid not only war, but all that savors of war—the war dance, the scalp dance, and even the bloody torture of the sun dance—and his teaching is accepted and his words obeyed by four-fifths of all the warlike predatory tribes of the mountains and the great plains. Only those who have known the deadly hatred that once animated Ute, Cheyenne, and Pawnee, one toward another, and are able to contrast it with their present spirit of mutual brotherly love, can know what the Ghost-dance religion has accomplished in bringing the savage into civilization. It is such a revolution as comes but once in the life of a race.

The beliefs held among the various tribes in regard to the final catastrophe are as fairly probable as some held on the same subject by more orthodox authorities. As to the dance itself, with its scenes of intense excitement, spasmodic action, and physical exhaustion even to unconsciousness, such manifestations have always accompanied religious upheavals among primitive peoples, and are not entirely unknown among ourselves. In a country which produces magnetic healers, shakers, trance mediums, and the like, all these things may very easily be paralleled without going far from home.

In conclusion, we may say of the prophet and his doctrine what has been said of one of his apostles by a careful and competent investigator: “He has given these people a better religion than they ever had before, taught them precepts which, if faithfully carried out, will bring them into better accord with their white neighbors, and has prepared the way for their final Christianization.” (_G. D., 4_, and _A. G. O., 5_.)

We may now consider details of the doctrine as held by different tribes, beginning with the Paiute, among whom it originated. The best account of the Paiute belief is contained in a report to the War Department by Captain J. M. Lee, who was sent out in the autumn of 1890 to investigate the temper and fighting strength of the Paiute and other Indians in the vicinity of Fort Bidwell in northeastern California. We give the statement obtained by him from Captain Dick, a Paiute, as delivered one day in a conversational way and apparently without reserve, after nearly all the Indians had left the room:

Long time, twenty years ago, Indian medicine-man in Mason’s
valley at Walker lake talk same way, same as you hear now. In one
year, maybe, after he begin talk he die. Three years ago another
medicine-man begin same talk. Heap talk all time. Indians hear
all about it everywhere. Indians come from long way off to hear
him. They come from the east; they make signs. Two years ago me
go to Winnemucca and Pyramid lake, me see Indian Sam, a head man,
and Johnson Sides. Sam he tell me he just been to see Indian
medicine-man to hear him talk. Sam say medicine-man talk this way:

“All Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing. Pretty soon
in next spring Big Man [Great Spirit] come. He bring back all game
of every kind. The game be thick everywhere. All dead Indians come
back and live again. They all be strong just like young men, be
young again. Old blind Indian see again and get young and have fine
time. When Old Man [God] comes this way, then all the Indians go
to mountains, high up away from whites. Whites can’t hurt Indians
then. Then while Indians way up high, big flood comes like water
and all white people die, get drowned. After that water go way and
then nobody but Indians everywhere and game all kinds thick. Then
medicine-man tell Indians to send word to all Indians to keep up
dancing and the good time will come. Indians who don’t dance, who
don’t believe in this word, will grow little, just about a foot
high, and stay that way. Some of them will be turned into wood and
be burned in fire.” That’s the way Sam tell me the medicine-man
talk. (_A. G. O., 6._)

Lieutenant N. P. Phister, who gathered a part of the material embodied in Captain Lee’s report, confirms this general statement and gives a few additional particulars. The flood is to consist of mingled mud and water, and when the faithful go up into the mountains, the skeptics will be left behind and will be turned to stone. The prophet claims to receive these revelations directly from God and the spirits of the dead Indians during his trances. He asserts also that he is invulnerable, and that if soldiers should attempt to kill him they would fall down as if they had no bones and die, while he would still live, even though cut into little pieces. (_Phister, 3._)

One of the first and most prominent of those who brought the doctrine to the prairie tribes was Porcupine, a Cheyenne, who crossed the mountains with several companions in the fall of 1889, visited Wovoka, and attended the dance near Walker lake, Nevada. In his report of his experiences, made some months later to a military officer, he states that Wovoka claimed to be Christ himself, who had come back again, many centuries after his first rejection, in pity to teach his children. He quotes the prophet as saying:

I found my children were bad, so I went back to heaven and left
them, I told them that in so many hundred years I would come back
to see my children. At the end of this time I was sent back to try
to teach them. My father told me the earth was getting old and worn
out and the people getting bad, and that I was to renew everything
as it used to be and make it better.

He also told us that all our dead were to be resurrected; that
they were all to come back to earth, and that, as the earth was
too small for them and us, he would do away with heaven and make
the earth itself large enough to contain us all; that we must tell
all the people we met about these things. He spoke to us about
fighting, and said that was bad and we must keep from it; that the
earth was to be all good hereafter, and we must all be friends with
one another. He said that in the fall of the year the youth of all
good people would be renewed, so that nobody would be more than
forty years old, and that if they behaved themselves well after
this the youth of everyone would be renewed in the spring. He said
if we were all good he would send people among us who could heal
all our wounds and sickness by mere touch and that we would live
forever. He told us not to quarrel or fight or strike each other,
or shoot one another; that the whites and Indians were to be all
one people. He said if any man disobeyed what he ordered his tribe
would be wiped from the face of the earth; that we must believe
everything he said, and we must not doubt him or say he lied; that
if we did, he would know it; that he would know our thoughts and
actions in no matter what part of the world we might be. (_G. D.,
5._)

Here we have the statement that both races are to live together as one. We have also the doctrine of healing by touch. Whether or not this is an essential part of the system is questionable, but it is certain that the faithful believe that great physical good comes to them, to their children, and to the sick from the imposition of hands by the priests of the dance, apart from the ability thus conferred to see the things of the spiritual world.

Another idea here presented, namely, that the earth becomes old and decrepit, and requires that its youth be renewed at the end of certain great cycles, is common to a number of tribes, and has an important place in the oldest religions of the world. As an Arapaho who spoke English expressed it, “This earth too old, grass too old, trees too old, our lives too old. Then all be new again.” Captain H. L. Scott also found among the southern plains tribes the same belief that the rivers, the mountains, and the earth itself are worn out and must be renewed, together with an indefinite idea that both races alike must die at the same time, to be resurrected in new but separate worlds.

The Washo, Pit River, Bannock, and other tribes adjoining the Paiute on the north and west hold the doctrine substantially as taught by the messiah himself. We have but little light in regard to the belief as held by the Walapai, Cohonino, Mohave, and Navaho to the southward, beyond the general fact that the resurrection and return of the dead formed the principal tenet. As these tribes received their knowledge of the new religion directly from Paiute apostles, it is quite probable that they made but few changes in or additions to the original gospel.

A witness of the dance among the Walapai in 1891 obtained from the leaders of the ceremony about the same statement of doctrine already mentioned as held by the Paiute, from whom also the Walapai had adopted many of the songs and ceremonial words used in connection with the dance. They were then expecting the Indian redeemer to appear on earth some time within three or four years. They were particularly anxious to have it understood that their intentions were not hostile toward the whites and that they desired to live in peace with them until the redeemer came, but that then they would be unable to prevent their destruction even if they wished. (_J. F. L., 3._)

The manner of the final change and the destruction of the whites has been variously interpreted as the doctrine was carried from its original center. East of the mountains it is commonly held that a deep sleep will come on the believers, during which the great catastrophe will be accomplished, and the faithful will awake to immortality on a new earth. The Shoshoni of Wyoming say this sleep will continue four days and nights, and that on the morning of the fifth day all will open their eyes in a new world where both races will dwell together forever. The Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and others, of Oklahoma, say that the new earth, with all the resurrected dead from the beginning, and with the buffalo, the elk, and other game upon it, will come from the west and slide over the surface of the present earth, as the right hand might slide over the left. As it approaches, the Indians will be carried upward and alight on it by the aid of the sacred dance feathers which they wear in their hair and which will act as wings to bear them up. They will then become unconscious for four days, and on waking out of their trance will find themselves with their former friends in the midst of all the oldtime surroundings. By Sitting Bull, the Arapaho apostle, it is thought that this new earth as it advances will be preceded by a wall of fire which will drive the whites across the water to their original and proper country, while the Indians will be enabled by means of the sacred feathers to surmount the flames and reach the promised land. When the expulsion of the whites has been accomplished, the fire will be extinguished by a rain continuing twelve days. By a few it is believed that a hurricane with thunder and lightning will come to destroy the whites alone. This last idea is said to be held also by the Walapai of Arizona, who extend its provisions to include the unbelieving Indians as well. (_G. D., 6._) The doctrine held by the Caddo, Wichita, and Delaware, of Oklahoma, is practically the same as is held by the Arapaho and Cheyenne from whom they obtained it. All these tribes believe that the destruction or removal of the whites is to be accomplished entirely by supernatural means, and they severely blame the Sioux for having provoked a physical conflict by their impatience instead of waiting for their God to deliver them in his own good time.

Among all the tribes which have accepted the new faith it is held that frequent devout attendance on the dance conduces to ward off disease and restore the sick to health, this applying not only to the actual participants, but also to their children and friends. The idea of obtaining temporal blessings as the reward of a faithful performance of religious duties is too natural and universal to require comment. The purification by the sweat-bath, which forms an important preliminary to the dance among the Sioux, while devotional in its purpose, is probably also sanitary in its effect.

Among the powerful and warlike Sioux of the Dakotas, already restless under both old and recent grievances, and more lately brought to the edge of starvation by a reduction of rations, the doctrine speedily assumed a hostile meaning and developed some peculiar features, for which reason it deserves particular notice as concerns this tribe. The earliest rumors of the new messiah came to the Sioux from the more western tribes in the winter of 1888–89, but the first definite account was brought by a delegation which crossed the mountains to visit the messiah in the fall of 1889, returning in the spring of 1890. On the report of these delegates the dance was at once inaugurated and spread so rapidly that in a few months the new religion had been accepted by the majority of the tribe.

Perhaps the best statement of the Sioux version is given by the veteran agent, James McLaughlin, of Standing Rock agency. In an official letter of October 17, 1890, he writes that the Sioux, under the influence of Sitting Bull, were greatly excited over the near approach of a predicted Indian millennium or “return of the ghosts,” when the white man would be annihilated and the Indian again supreme, and which the medicine-men had promised was to occur as soon as the grass was green in the spring. They were told that the Great Spirit had sent upon them the dominant race to punish them for their sins, and that their sins were now expiated and the time of deliverance was at hand. Their decimated ranks were to be reinforced by all the Indians who had ever died, and these spirits were already on their way to reinhabit the earth, which had originally belonged to the Indians, and were driving before them, as they advanced, immense herds of buffalo and fine ponies. The Great Spirit, who had so long deserted his red children, was now once more with them and against the whites, and the white man’s gunpowder would no longer have power to drive a bullet through the skin of an Indian. The whites themselves would soon be overwhelmed and smothered under a deep landslide, held down by sod and timber, and the few who might escape would become small fishes in the rivers. In order to bring about this happy result, the Indians must believe and organize the Ghost dance.

The agent continues:

It would seem impossible that any person, no matter how ignorant,
could be brought to believe such absurd nonsense, but as a matter
of fact a great many Indians of this agency actually believe it,
and since this new doctrine has been ingrafted here from the more
southern Sioux agencies the infection has been wonderful, and
so pernicious that it now includes some of the Indians who were
formerly numbered with the progressive and more intelligent, and
many of our very best Indians appear dazed and undecided when
talking of it, their inherent superstition having been thoroughly
aroused. (_G. D., 7._)

The following extract is from a translation of a letter dated March 30, 1891, written in Sioux by an Indian at Pine Ridge to a friend at Rosebud agency:

And now I will tell another thing. Lately there is a man died and
come to life again, and he say he has been to Indian nation of
ghosts, and tells us dead Indian nation all coming home. The Indian
ghost tell him come after his war bonnet. The Indian (not ghost
Indian) gave him his war bonnet and he died again. (_G. D., 8._)

The Sioux, like other tribes, believed that at the moment of the catastrophe the earth would tremble. According to one version the landslide was to be accompanied by a flood of water, which would flow into the mouths of the whites and cause them to choke with mud. Storms and whirlwinds were also to assist in their destruction. The Indians were to surmount the avalanche, probably in the manner described in speaking of the southern tribes, and on reaching the surface of the new earth would behold boundless prairies covered with long grass and filled with great herds of buffalo and other game. When the time was near at hand, they must assemble at certain places of rendezvous and prepare for the final abandonment of all earthly things by stripping off their clothing. In accordance with the general idea of a return to aboriginal habits, the believers, as far as possible, discarded white man’s dress and utensils. Those who could procure buckskin—which is now very scarce in the Sioux country—resumed buckskin dress, while the dancers put on “ghost shirts” made of cloth, but cut and ornamented in Indian fashion. No metal of any kind was allowed in the dance, no knives, and not even the earrings or belts of imitation silver which form such an important part of prairie Indian costume. This was at variance with the custom among the Cheyenne and other southern tribes, where the women always wear in the dance their finest belts studded with large disks of German silver. The beads used so freely on moccasins and leggings seem to have been regarded as a substitute for the oldtime wampum and porcupine quill work, and were therefore not included in the prohibition. No weapon of any kind was allowed to be carried in the Ghost dance by any tribe, north or south, a fact which effectually disposes of the assertion that this was another variety of war dance. At certain of the Sioux dances, however, sacred arrows and a sacred bow, with other things, were tied on the tree in the center of the circle.

SIOUX GHOST SHIRTS FROM WOUNDED KNEE BATTLEFIELD]

EXPLANATION OF PLATE XCIII

The originals of these ghost shirts, now in the National Museum,
were taken, by scouts present during the fight, from the bodies of
Indians killed at Wounded Knee, and were obtained by the author,
at Pine Ridge, from Philip Wells and Louis Menard, mixed-blood
interpreters, the former having also been present as interpreter
for the Indian scouts during the fight. They are made of coarse
white cloth, sewn with sinew. One of the shirts is partially
burned, having probably been taken out of one of the tipis
overturned and set on fire during the action. Two other ghost
shirts, said to be from the same battlefield, are also in the
National Museum.

Valuable light in regard to the Sioux version of the doctrine is obtained from the sermon delivered at Red Leaf camp, on Pine Ridge reservation, October 31, 1890, by Short Bull, one of those who had been selected to visit the messiah, and who afterward became one of the prime leaders in the dance: