Mr. James Mooney of the Bureau of Ethnology, published a very comprehensive monograph, in 1896, entitled “The Ghost Dance Religion”, in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. I shall draw the information presented in this chapter partly from Mr. Mooney’s account, but more especially from my own investigation made in the winter of 1890 at Pine Ridge reservation, South Dakota, where among the Oglala Sioux the Messiah craze reached its culmination. The music of the Oglala dances was taken down at the time by Mr. George E. Bartlett (Husté) and myself. Our work was not copyrighted, and soon found its way into various publications, and after being harmonized, our music was soon in general use. It is no more than fair to say that as I lay no claim to special skill as an ethnologist, Mr. Mooney, having more training and experience in such studies, was able to present the songs and their translations more accurately. I believe, in my original articles published in the _Illustrated American_ of New York in January and February, 1891, some of the Sioux word-syllables were not properly spaced, a number of accent marks omitted, and there were a few minor errors. But in the main the account as published was correct, although it was a “popular”, rather than a technical paper. I did not investigate the Messiah in the West, although the new religion was inaugurated by him. The Sioux told me a great deal concerning him. He was known to them as Johnson, whereas Mooney gives as his proper name, Wovoka. In November, 1891, a year after the trouble at Pine Ridge, Mr. Mooney set out for Pine Ridge, where he spent considerable time, and then visited Walker Lake reservation in Nevada, where Wovoka (Johnson) lived. Here he obtained at first hand the information concerning the origin of the Messiah religion, and has presented us with a very valuable and interesting account. As in the case of all Messiahs or prophets, Wovoka was a dreamer. He inherited the spirit of prophecy, for his father before him was known as a prophet. The young man at the time of Mooney’s visit, had never wandered beyond the valley wherein he resided—a small area, some thirty miles in length. Wovoka belonged to the Paiute, and his religion may be summed up in this statement which Mooney records. “When the sun died, I went up to heaven and saw God and all the people who had died a long time ago. God told me to come back and tell my people they must be good and love one another, and not fight, or steal, or lie. He gave me this dance to give to my people.” If the missionaries and Government employees had seized upon the beautiful sentiment uttered in this remarkable paragraph, the new religion might have been turned to good account. Instead of that, as we shall see presently, an Agent utterly ignorant of Indians, saw in this sacred ceremony nothing beyond a “war dance” and he sent for troops—the very worst possible thing he could have done.