The story of the Brulé, Miniconjou, Oglala, Teton and other divisions, so far as history is concerned, is pretty much the same. The buffalo was their chief support, in fact their very life was bound up in this animal. The wild horse was a later acquisition. In order to understand them thoroughly, the past fifty years, we should study in detail the life of Red Cloud, that of Sitting Bull, and in addition the Messiah craze, as previously mentioned. The contrast between the Pine Ridge of today and that of 1890 is almost beyond belief. In 1890, one of the strangest ceremonies imaginable was in full swing. In 1909, when I visited Pine Ridge, exactly nineteen years later, I found the Sioux working upon their allotments, farming, digging irrigation ditches, and doing their best toward “taking the white man’s road.” On the plains where once clustered the tipis of the Ghost dancers were the large, modern brick buildings of the Oglala school, a most successful institution where young men and women are trained in the arts. Certainly the progress of these Indians is more than surprising—it is remarkable. And it is chiefly due to the fact that they have had as their Superintendent or Agent a man who is in sympathy with them and who has not been replaced through political influence. Major John R. Brennan has supervised the famous old fighting Oglala Sioux for more than fifteen years. The progress of these Indians is, as I have said, creditable, but they are still poor, there is much suffering, and the increase in stock has not been as large as desired. Farming operations continue on a large scale, but the soil is more suited to grazing than farming, although the Indians do the best they can under the circumstances. All of the Sioux have so far progressed, that it is unthinkable that any fanaticism such as the Ghost dance will again overtake them. It is quite safe to predict that since all of their children have been educated and nearly all of the Sioux of every reservation have been allotted land in severalty, they will continue to progress, and if the ravages of tuberculosis are stayed, a large number of the descendants of the full-bloods will survive and become useful citizens. These Indians, after the surrender of Sitting Bull, were not much in the public eye until occurred the famous Ghost dance, or Messiah craze, and that being the chief event since the Custer fight we must needs devote considerable space to it. On several occasions during the past two centuries, in this country, Indian shamans, or priests, have prophesied the coming of an Indian Messiah. We shall at some future time consider this interesting subject in detail, but within the period embraced in this book, that peculiar craze which swept throughout the West and the South during the year 1890, and known as the Ghost Dance, is the chief religious event.