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
He told us also that all our dead were to be resurrected; that they
were all to come back to earth, and that as the earth was too small
for them and us, he would do away with heaven, and make the earth
itself large enough to contain us all; that we must tell all the
people we meet about these things. He spoke to us about fighting,
and said that was bad, and we must keep from it; that the earth
was to be all good hereafter, and we must all be friends with one
another. He said that in the fall of the year the youth of all the
good people would be renewed, so that nobody would be more than 40
years old, and that if they behaved themselves well after this the
youth of everyone would be renewed in the spring. He said if we
were all good he would send people among us who could heal all our
wounds and sickness by mere touch, and that we would live forever.
He told us not to quarrel, or fight, nor strike each other, nor
shoot one another; that the whites and Indians were to be all one
people. He said if any man disobeyed what he ordered, his tribe
would be wiped from the face of the earth; that we must believe
everything he said, and that we must not doubt him, or say he lied;
that if we did, he would know it; that he would know our thoughts
and actions, in no matter what part of the world we might be.
When I heard this from the Christ, and came back home to tell it to
my people, I thought they would listen. Where I went to there were
lots of white people, but I never had one of them say an unkind
word to me. I thought all of your people knew all of this I have
told you of, but it seems you do not.
Ever since the Christ I speak of talked to me I have thought what
he said was good. I see nothing bad in it. When I got back, I knew
my people were bad, and had heard nothing of all this, so I got
them together and told them of it and warned them to listen to it
for their own good. I talked to them for four nights and five days.
I told them just what I have told you here today. I told them what
I said were the words of God Almighty, who was looking down on
them. I wish some of you had been up in our camp here to have heard
my words to the Cheyennes. The only bad thing that there has been
in it at all was this: I had just told my people that the Christ
would visit the sins of any Indian upon the whole tribe, when the
recent trouble [killing of Ferguson] occurred. If any one of you
think I am not telling the truth, you can go and see this man I
speak of for yourselves. I will go with you, and I would like one
or two of my people who doubt me to go with me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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