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
In a short time the news spread to the Cheyenne in Montana and the
Sioux of the Dakotas, and in the fall of 1889 delegates from these two
tribes arrived at Fort Washakie to learn more about the messiah in the
west. The principal Cheyenne delegate was Porcupine, while Short Bull
and Kicking Bear were the leaders of the Sioux party. After hearing the
statements of the Arapaho and Shoshoni, it was decided that some of the
Cheyenne should return and report to their tribe, while Porcupine and
one or two others, with the Sioux delegates, several Shoshoni, and the
Arapaho, Sitting Bull, and Friday, should go to Nevada, interview the
messiah himself, and learn the whole truth of the matter. Accordingly,
about November, 1889, Porcupine and his companions left Fort Washakie
in Wyoming for Fort Hall reservation in Idaho, where they met the
Shoshoni and Bannock and were well received and entertained by them.
The tribes at this place were firm believers in the new doctrine, and
Porcupine states that from there on to the end of the journey all the
Indians they met were dancing the Ghost dance. After stopping a few
days at Fort Hall, they went on again, accompanied by several Bannock
and Shoshoni, and going rapidly by railroad soon found themselves in
the country of the Paiute, and after stopping at one or two camps
arrived at the agency at Pyramid lake. Here the Paiute furnished them
conveyances and guides to the other agency farther south at Walker
river. Porcupine is our principal authority for the events of the trip,
and although he claims that he undertook this journey of a thousand
miles without any definite purpose or destination in view, it is
evident enough from his own narrative that he left Wyoming with the
fixed intention of verifying the rumors of a messiah. He has much to
say of the kindness of the whites they met west of the mountains, who,
it will be remembered, were largely Mormons, who have always manifested
a special interest in the Indians. He also states that many of the
whites took part with the Indians in the dance.
They were now in the messiah’s country. “The Fisheaters, near Pyramid
lake, told me that Christ had appeared on earth again. They said Christ
knew he was coming; that eleven of his children were also coming from a
far land. It appeared that Christ had sent for me to go there, and that
was why, unconsciously, I took my journey. It had been foreordained.
Christ had summoned myself and others from all heathen tribes. There
were more different languages than I had ever heard before, and I did
not understand any of them.” The delegation of which Porcupine was
a member was probably the one mentioned by the agent in charge at
Pyramid lake as having arrived in the spring of 1890, and consisting of
thirty-four Indians of different tribes. (_G. D., 19._)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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