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
awaiting our arrival.
On entering through the low doorway we found ourselves in a circular
lodge made of bundles of tulé rushes laid over a framework of poles,
after the fashion of the thatched roofs of Europe, and very similar
to the grass lodges of the Wichita. The lodge was only about 10 feet
in diameter and about 8 feet in height, with sloping sides, and was
almost entirely open above, like a cone with the top cut off, as in
this part of the country rain or snow is of rare occurrence. As already
remarked, the deep snow at the time was something unusual. In the
center, built directly on the ground, was a blazing fire of sagebrush,
upon which fresh stalks were thrown from time to time, sending up a
shower of sparks into the open air. It was by this means that we had
been guided to the camp. Sitting or lying around the fire were half a
dozen Paiute, including the messiah and his family, consisting of his
young wife, a boy about 4 years of age, of whom he seemed very fond,
and an infant. It was plain that he was a kind husband and father,
which was in keeping with his reputation among the whites for industry
and reliability. The only articles in the nature of furniture were a
few grass woven bowls and baskets of various sizes and patterns. There
were no Indian beds or seats of the kind found in every prairie tipi,
no rawhide boxes, no toilet pouches, not even a hole dug in the ground
for the fire. Although all wore white men’s dress, there were no pots,
pans, or other articles of civilized manufacture, now used by even
the most primitive prairie tribes, for, strangely enough, although
these Paiute are practically farm laborers and tenants of the whites
all around them, and earn good wages, they seem to covet nothing of
the white man’s, but spend their money for dress, small trinkets,
and ammunition for hunting, and continue to subsist on seeds, piñon
nuts, and small game, lying down at night on the dusty ground in their
cramped wikiups, destitute of even the most ordinary conveniences in
use among other tribes. It is a curious instance of a people accepting
the inevitable while yet resisting innovation.
Wovoka received us cordially and then inquired more particularly as to
my purpose in seeking an interview. His uncle entered into a detailed
explanation, which stretched out to a preposterous length, owing to a
peculiar conversational method of the Paiute. Each statement by the
older man was repeated at its close, word for word and sentence by
sentence, by the other, with the same monotonous inflection. This
done, the first speaker signified by a grunt of approval that it had
been correctly repeated, and then proceeded with the next statement,
which was duly repeated in like manner. The first time I had heard two
old men conversing together in this fashion on the reservation I had
supposed they were reciting some sort of Indian litany, and it required
several such experiences and some degree of patience to become used to
it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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