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
While out this last time I camped over night with some Navajo
friends, and over a pipe brought up the messiah topic. This family
belongs to the Bitter-Water gens, and this is the gist of what I
got from them: A Pah-ute came to a family of their gens living
near Navajo mountain and told them that _Na′-Keh-tkla-ĭ_ was to
return from the under world and bring back all the Tinneh (Navajo)
he had killed. _Na′-keh-tkla-ĭ_ (i. e., “foreigner with white foot
sole”) in the long ago had a puma and a bear. These were his pets.
He would call puma from the east and bear from the west, and just
before dawn they met in the center. Thus they met four times. On
the fourth meeting puma reached back with his forepaw and plucked
his mane, tossing the hair aloft, and for every hair a Tinneh died.
This fatal sorcery continued for a long time, and great numbers
were killed. Now, the Pah-ute said, this sorcerer was to return,
and would call his pets, and they would come east and west, and
following their trail would be all the people whose death they
had caused. These Navajo said they had heard of other Pah-ute
prophecies a year or more ago, all to the effect that long dead
people were to return alive from the under world. These resurrected
ones were also to bring back the departed game, and the Tinneh
would again dominate the region. But, said my informant, _datsaigi
yelti_, “it is worthless talk.” (_Stephen, 2._)
In connection with hypnotism as seen in the Ghost dance, Dr Matthews
states that in one curious Navaho ceremony he has several times seen
the patient hypnotized or pretend to be hypnotized by a character
dressed in evergreens. The occurrence of the hypnotic trance is
regarded as a sign that the ceremony has been effective. If the trance
does not occur, some other ceremony must be tried. (_Matthews, 2._)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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