About the year 1890 a religious movement, generally known as the “ghost-dance religion,” infected the Plains Indians. The chief feature of this religion was the belief in a speedy return of the old time, the buffalo, and the extermination of the white race. The different tribes had various ideas of their duties with respect to this new faith, and, with the exception of the Dakota, they did not manifest direct hostility to the white race. This warlike people, however, were already greatly dissatisfied with the treatment they received from the Government and with the difficult conditions under which they lived. In consequence, they received the ghost-dance religion as a herald of the good time which, to their minds, was to be secured only by war with the white race. While a great many of the conditions in the immediate environment of the Dakota have been given by various writers as causes for the outbreak, the fact that these Indians interpreted the new religion as the manifestation of a warlike spirit was probably due to the fact that they were at heart a warlike people. Their ideas still run toward military things. As the essential idea of the ghost-dance religion was a return of the old time, the ceremonies pertaining thereto made use of the typical objects and ideas of the past. In this, of course, they were not entirely consistent, since they did not discard the use of fire-arms, and did not actually resurrect bows, arrows, and shields. Yet, as a substitute for the protective power of the shield, they introduced garments bearing protective designs. These garments are generally known under the name of “ghost-shirts,” and at the time of the outbreak were spoken of by white people as “bullet-proof shirts.” The following are descriptions of these garments by eye-witnesses at the time of their first appearance:— “All the men and women made holy shirts and dresses they wear in dance. The persons dropped in dance would all lie in great dust the dancing make. They paint the white muslins they made holy dresses and shirts out of with blue across the back, and alongside of this is a line of yellow paint. They also paint in the front part of the shirts and dresses. A picture of an eagle is made on the back of all the shirts and dresses. On the shoulders and on the sleeves they tied eagle-feathers. They said that the bullets will not go through these shirts and dresses, so they all have these dresses for war. Their enemies’ weapon will not go through these dresses. The ghost-dancers all have to wear eagle-feather on head.”[6]