INDIAN MESSIAH. 



443 



heaven, and there saw all the whites and Indians 

 who had lived and died upon earth. He was aft- 

 erward brought back to the earth, to the same 

 spot where he had fallen dead. God told him 

 he had been looking for a mortal whom he could 

 intrust with a mission to reform the world, and 

 had decided on Queetize Ow. Having been in- 

 formed of his mission, he set out to perform it. 

 He taught the Indians that they should work 

 and avoid fighting except in self-defense. Last 

 summer the Indians told him that unless it rained 

 soon the crops would fail. He told them to go 

 home, and in three days an abundance of rain 

 fell. Queetize got his ideas from a religious 

 family with whom he had lived/' 



Lieut. Marion P. Maus, U. S. A., writes con- 

 cerning the Messiah that Porcupine seems to be 

 the great apostle. Of the circumstances of his 

 journey in company with some Bannocks and 

 Shoshones, he says : " He undoubtedly went to 

 Salt Lake, traveling by rail, and then by wagon, 

 until he reached tribes there who belong to the 

 fish-eating class of Indians, who largely live 

 west of the Rocky mountains, and are much 

 more civilized than those on this side. Here, he 

 claimed, he met several hundred Indians in 

 white men's dress fifteen or sixteen tribes from 

 the east side of the Rocky mountains were rep- 

 resented and here he claims to have received a 

 message from the Messiahj saying the Indians 

 should wait fourteen days, when he would ap- 

 pear to them. They also received a white nut 

 which they were directed to eat. After waiting 

 as directed, suddenly a great crowd of Indians 

 and whites appeared unto them, and the Christ 

 was among them. His head was bowed, and he 

 appeared, to Porcupine's astonishment, an Indian, 

 for, he says, ' I always believed that Christ was a 

 white man.' The Christ said : ' I have sent for 

 you, and am glad to see you. I am going to talk 

 to you about your relatives who are dead and 

 gone. My children, I want you to listen to all I 

 have to say to you. I will teach you how to 

 dance a dance, and I want you to dance it. Get 

 ready for your dance, and then, when the dance 

 is over, I will talk to you.' Then they danced, 

 the Christ singing. They danced until late, 

 when he said it was enough. ' The next morn- 

 ing,' Porcupine continues, ' I saw Christ again, 

 and this time he looked different ; he was not as 

 dark as an Indian, nor as light as a white man. 

 He had no beard, but very heavy eyebrows. He 

 was a good-looking man. We were told not to 

 talk ; and even if we whispered, Christ would 

 hear us. He talked to us all day, and began to 

 sing, and then trembled all over violently for a 

 while, and afterward sat down. We danced all 

 night, the Christ lying down as if he were dead. 

 The next morning, when we met again, the 

 Christ was with us. He said : " I am the man 

 who made everything you see around you ; I am 

 not lying to you, my children. I made this 

 earth, and everything on it. I have been to 

 heaven, and seen your dead friends, and have 

 seen my own father and mother. In the begin- 

 ning, after God made the earth, they sent me 

 back to teach the people ; and when I came, the 

 people were afraid of me, and treated me badly. 

 This is what they did to me " (showing his scars). 

 " I did not try to defend myself. I found my 

 children were bad, so went back to heaven, and 



left them. I told them in so many hundred 

 years I would come back to see my children. At 

 the end of this time I was sent 'back to try to 

 teach them. My father told rne the earth was 

 getting old .and worn out, and the people getting 

 bad ; that I was to renew everything as it used 

 to be, and make it better." He said the dead 

 would arise, and the earth, which was too small 

 for them, would be enlarged, and he would do 

 away with heaven, and make the earth big 

 enough for all of us ; that we must all be friends. 

 In the fall of the year the youth of each one 

 would be renewed if he remained good, and no 

 one would ever get over forty years old. I have 

 returned to my tribe,' said Porcupine, 'to tell 

 all this. The Christ said we must tell it to every 

 one.' In his statement Porcupine says nothing 

 of the destruction of the whites. But it must 

 be remembered he was talking to an army officer 

 who had with him three troops of cavalry. Red 

 Cloud, who heard the story from the apostles who 

 claimed to have seen the Messiah, said, 'If it 

 was true, it would spread all over the world ' ; 

 but wisely remarked, 'If it was not true, it 

 would melt away like the snow under the hot 

 sun.' Little Wound, who also claims to have 

 seen Christ when he appeared at the Shoshone 

 camp, describes him as sitting under a wick- 

 iup (the name for a shelter made of boughs in 

 the shape of an Indian tent, or tepee). ' The Mes- 

 siah had long hair down to his shoulders, and 

 when I first saw him he seemed about twenty 

 years old ; the next day he appeared thirty ; the 

 next forty ; and the next an old man. He said, 

 " Come with me, and I will show you your dead 

 relatives " ; and suddenly I heard a noise like 

 that of a railroad train. I was carried through 

 the air, and came to a field with a small house 

 on it. I went in, and there was my mother and 

 father and brother who had died long ago. My 

 brother and father were killed years ago fighting 

 the white man. They came up to me crying, 

 and I shook hands with them.' Sitting Bull's 

 statement how he met the Messiah is suggestive 

 of the teaching received from missionaries. He 

 describes a star he saw while he was hunting, 

 which he followed unconsciously. Then he 

 came upon a large number of Indians, including 

 many of his old friends who had been killed 

 in various fights with the white men. Black 

 Kettle, who was killed by Gen. Custer, he men- 

 tions especially as being among them. They 

 were all arranged in a large circle, and were 

 dancing the ghost dance. A man came to him, 

 who he afterward found was the Indian Messiah. 

 He shook Sitting Bull by the hand, and said, 

 'What would you like to eat?' Sitting Bull 

 said he would very much like some buffalo, as it 

 had been a very long time since he had eaten 

 buffalo. The Messiah waved his hand, and a 

 herd of buffalo appeared, and he went out and 

 killed one." 



Another account tells how the Messiah will 

 put all the Indians behind him and the whites 

 in front of him. He will then roll a stratum of 

 ground over the earth burying the white man 

 and all his works beneath. Then there will ap- 

 pear a hunting-ground filled with game, into 

 which he will lead the Indians. 



The belief as taught by the Indians seems to 

 have included the necessity of dancing, and it 



