The Ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890 : $b Fourteenth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology, part 2.Mooney, James
Religion
The Ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890 : $b Fourteenth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology, part 2.
Mooney, James
Dakota Indians -- Wars, 1890-1891; Ghost dance
“Long ago we knew nothing at all. When Slocum came back from God,
we found out there was a God. From that time we have prayed for
anything we want. We follow God’s way. God teaches us if we do bad
we will go to hell. That’s why we pray and avoid bad habits. If
we don’t ask grace, bad things come when we eating. When we drink
water, we think about God before drinking. If we don’t think of
him, may be we get sick from water. If traveling, may be we die if
we don’t think of God. We are afraid to do wrong against God. Long
time ago we worked on Sundays, but no more now. Our brother Christ
has given us six days to work. On Sunday pray to God. God put
people here to grow—puts our soul in our body. That’s why we pray
so much. If we quit, like a man quit his job, he gets no pay. We
would go to fire in hell. We have no power to put out hell fire.”
“Louis Yowaluch is the strong man of the Shaker church. He is 6 feet
tall, rawboned, muscular, and rather slow. While he may once have been,
as he says, a drunkard, he is now a Christian man. His conservativeness
makes him a fine leader for the organization, while all the Indians
respect him for his humanity and charity, for his honesty and
uprightness, for his fearlessness and love of right. He fully and
freely places John Slocum at the head of the church, as the man who
ascended to heaven and brought back a personal knowledge of the road,
but at the same time he takes the lead in laying out work, building
churches, and sending out preachers to new tribes.”
“A new feature of this religion is found in Sam Yowaluch, the brother
of Louis. He is younger than Louis, and has more of the native
superstition in his character. He has by common consent been placed at
the head of the faith-cure branch of the church. The following synopsis
of his ‘talk’ will be an explanation of his position:”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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