FABLE AND FOLKLORE 177 



The so-called Ghost Dance meant to the Plains Indians 

 generally a preparation for the coming of a superhuman 

 Messiah who would restore the old order of things when 

 the redman was supreme in the land, and free from the 

 restraint of an alien and encroaching civilization; and 

 primarily it contained no special hostility toward white 

 neighbors. 



Among the western redmen the eagle for its general 

 superiority, the magpie (particularly by the Paiutes), 

 the sagehen because connected with the country whence 

 the Messiah was to come, and some other birds, were re- 

 vered in certain subsidiary ceremonies; but the central 

 bird-figure in this excitement was the crow, for it was 

 regarded as the directing messenger from the spirit- 

 world, because its color is a reminder of death and the 

 shadow-land. I have seen the figures of two upward fly- 

 ing crows and two magpies in a "medicine shirt" made 

 to be worn in the Ghost Dance. The raven shared in this 

 devotional respect, but is rare on the northern plains, 

 where its humbler relative was an abundant substitute. 

 Some understanding of this supreme position of the crow 

 in the Ghost-dancing — the equivalent of our "revival" 

 meetings — may be had by examining the Arapahoe 

 version of the belief on which the anticipated advent of 

 a red Messiah was based. Dr. Mooney expounds it 7T as 

 follows: 



In Arapahoe belief the spirit world is in the west, not on the 

 same level with this earth of ours, but higher up, and sepa- 

 rated also from it by a body of water. . . . The crow, as the 

 messenger and leader of the spirits who had gone before [i.e. 

 the dead] collected their armies on the other side and advanced 

 at their head to the hither limit of the shadow-land. Then, 

 looking over, they saw far below them a sea, and far out be- 

 yond it toward the east was the boundary of the earth, where 



