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 1883 a new religion was introduced among the Potawatomi and
Kickapoo, of the Pottawotomie and Great Nemaha agency in northeastern
Kansas, by visiting Potawatomi, Winnebago, and Ojibwa from Wisconsin.
As usual, the ritual part consists chiefly of a ceremonial dance. In
doctrine it teaches the same code of morality enjoined by the ten
commandments, and especially prohibits liquor drinking, gambling, and
horse racing, for which, reason the agents generally have not seen fit
to interfere with it, and in some cases have rather encouraged it as a
civilizing influence among that portion of the tribes not yet enrolled
in Christian denominations. The movement is entirely distinct from
the Ghost dance, and may perhaps be a revival of the system preached
by Känakûk more than fifty years before. In 1891 the majority of the
two tribes, numbering in all 749, were reported as adherents of the
doctrine. (_Comr., 5, 6, 7; also reports from the same agency for
1887 and 1889._) A large number of the Sauk and Fox, Kickapoo, and
Potawatomi of Oklahoma are also believers in the religion.
In 1885 Agent Patrick says on this subject:
These Indians are chaste, cleanly, and industrious, and would be
a valuable acquisition to the Prairie band if it were not for
their intense devotion to a religious dance started among the
northern Indians some years since. This dance was introduced to the
Prairie band about two years ago by the Absentee Pottawatomies and
Winnebagoes, and has spread throughout the tribes in the agency.
They seem to have adopted the religion as a means of expressing
their belief in the justice and mercy of the Great Spirit and of
their devotion to him, and are so earnest in their convictions
as to its affording them eternal happiness that I have thought
it impolitic so far to interfere with it any further than to
advise as few meetings as possible and to discountenance it in my
intercourse with the individuals practicing the religion. It is not
an unmixed evil, as under its teaching drunkenness and gambling
have been reduced 75 per cent, and a departure from virtue on the
part of its members meets with the severest condemnation. As some
tenets of revealed religion are embraced in its doctrines, I do not
consider it a backward step for the Indians who have not heretofore
professed belief in any Christian religion, and believe its worst
features are summed up in the loss of time it occasions and the
fanatical train of thought involved in the constant contemplation
of the subject. (_Comr., 6._)
CHEEZ-TAH-PAEZH THE SWORD-BEARER
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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