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
Such was in general the substance of his discourses. After having
dilated more or less on the various topics which I have mentioned,
he commonly concluded in this manner: “And now, my friends, in
order that what I have told you may remain firmly impressed on your
minds, and to refresh your memories from time to time, I advise
you to preserve, in every family at least, such a book or writing
as this, which I will finish off for you, provided you bring me
the price, which is only one buckskin or two doeskins apiece.” The
price was of course bought (_sic_), and the book purchased. In some
of those maps, the figure of a deer or turkey, or both, was placed
in the heavenly regions, and also in the dreary region of the evil
spirit. The former, however, appeared fat and plump, while the
latter seemed to have nothing but skin and bones. (_Heckewelder,
1._)
From the narrative of John McCullough, who had been taken by the
Indians when a child of 8 years, and lived for some years as an
adopted son in a Delaware family in northeastern Ohio, we gather some
additional particulars concerning this prophet, whose name seems
to be lost to history. McCullough himself, who was then but a boy,
never met the prophet, but obtained his information from others who
had, especially from his Indian brother, who went to Tuscarawas (or
Tuscalaways) to see and hear the new apostle on his first appearance.
It was said by those who went to see him that he had certain
hieroglyphics marked on a piece of parchment, denoting the
probation that human beings were subjected to whilst they were
living on earth, and also denoting something of a future state.
They informed me that he was almost constantly crying whilst he
was exhorting them. I saw a copy of his hieroglyphics, as numbers
of them had got them copied and undertook to preach or instruct
others. The first or principal doctrine they taught them was to
purify themselves from sin, which they taught they could do by
the use of emetics and abstinence from carnal knowledge of the
different sexes; to quit the use of firearms, and to live entirely
in the original state that they were in before the white people
found out their country. Nay, they taught that that fire was not
pure that was made by steel and flint, but that they should make it
by rubbing two sticks together.... It was said that their prophet
taught them, or made them believe, that he had his instructions
immediately from _Keesh-she-la-mil-lang-up_, or a being that
_thought_ us into being, and that by following his instructions
they would, in a few years, be able to drive the white people out
of their country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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