rôle of missionaries, just as they do in other races to-day. In fact, the recent “Resurrection Dance” or “Ghost Dance” had its prophet who preached to the natives that “the earth was to be all good hereafter; that we must be friends with one another.” Fighting, he declared, was “bad and all must keep from it.” “There is no doubt that his religious teachings rest on a well-ordained religious system, and in spite of the numerous false reports that are spread about him, he does not claim to be either God or Jesus Christ, the Messiah, or any divine, superhuman being whatever. ‘I am the annunciator of God’s message from the spiritual world and a prophet for the Indian people,’ is the way he defines the scope of his work among men.... Thus he considers himself a messenger of God appointed in a dream, and has on that account compared himself to St. John the Baptist.”[359] This man is a full-blood, and it is evident that such an inspiration might have seized a man of a similar temperament at any period of Amerind history, and given rise finally to legends and worship that would incorrectly be ascribed to the myth of the dawn. [Illustration: ANCIENT FABRIC-MARKED POTSHERDS, WITH CLAY CASTS BY HOLMES See page 108 Potsherd Clay Cast Potsherd Clay Cast ] Quetzalcohuatl at length departed with a promise to return, and it was the belief that he would return that caused Montezuma to at first mistake the bearded Spaniards for his emissaries. Quetzalcohuatl also wore a beard. Michabo, the Algonquin counterpart of Quetzalcohuatl, was considered to be the ancestor of the whole tribe, the founder of their ceremonies, the inventor of picture-writing, the ruler of the weather, the creator and preserver of earth and heaven. “From a grain of sand,” says Brinton, “brought from the bottom of the primeval ocean he fashioned the habitable land and set it floating on the waters till it grew to such a size that a strong young wolf, running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its limits.” [Illustration: EHTOHKPAHSHEPEESHAH, THE BLACK MOCCASIN, CHIEF OF THE MINATAREES OVER 100 YEARS OLD George Catlin, 1832 ] Among the Iroquois the hero-god was called Ioskeha, and he possessed many of the qualities of Michabo and Quetzalcohuatl, etc., though in his case as well as that of Michabo there seems to be no historical evidence of existence, as there is with Quetzalcohuatl, and therefore they may be, as claimed by Brinton and others, merely dawn myths. It is possible that they may be compounds of a dawn myth and one or more actual personages.