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
Through the kindness of Mr Thomas V. Keam, trader for the Hopi and
Navaho, we get a revision of Pütci’s story. Pütci states that in July,
1891, he with three other Hopi went on a visit to the Cohonino to
trade for buckskins. When they arrived in the vicinity of the Cohonino
camp, they were met by one of the tribe, who informed the visitors
that all the Indians were engaged in a very important ceremony, and
that before they could enter the camp they must wash their bodies and
paint them with white clay. Accordingly, when this had been done,
they were escorted to the camp and introduced to the principal chief
and headmen, all of whom they found engaged in washing their heads,
decorating themselves, and preparing for the ceremony, which took place
on a clear space near the camp late in the afternoon. Here a very tall
straight pole had been securely fastened upright in the ground. At the
top were tied two eagle-tail feathers. A circle was formed around this
pole by the Indians, and, after dancing around it until almost dark,
one of the men climbed the pole to the top, and remained there until
exhausted, when he would slide to the ground, clinging insensible to
the pole. After remaining in this state for some time, the medicine-men
resuscitated him. On recovery he stood up and told them he had been
into another world, where he saw all the old men who had died long ago,
and among them his own people. They told him they would all come back
in time and bring the deer, the antelope, and all other good things
they had when they dwelt on this earth. This ceremony lasted four days,
including the cleansing and decorating of the dancers and the climbing
of the pole, with an account of what had been seen by the Indian during
the time he was in an apparently lifeless state. Each day the ceremony
was attended by the whole tribe. (_Keam, 1._) Resuscitation by the
medicine-men, as here mentioned, is something unknown among the prairie
tribes, where the unconscious subject is allowed to lie undisturbed on
the ground until the senses return in the natural way.
Beyond the Cohonino, and extending for about 200 miles along Colorado
river on the Arizona side, are the associated tribes of Mohave,
Walapai, and Chemehuevi, numbering in all about 2,800 souls, of whom
only about one-third are on a reservation. The Chemehuevi, being
a branch of the Paiute and in constant communication with them,
undoubtedly had the dance and the doctrine. The Mohave also have much
to do with the Paiute, the two tribes interchanging visits and mutually
borrowing songs and games. They sent delegates to the messiah and
in all probability took up the Ghost dance, in spite of the agent’s
statement to the contrary. As only 660 of more than 2,000 Mohave are
reported as being on the reservation, the agent may have a good reason
for not keeping fully informed in regard to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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