444 



INDIAN MESSIAH. 



IOWA. 



was said that during one of these dances the 

 Messiah would appear. Accordingly, this ghost 

 dance or Christ dance was inaugurated, and con- 

 tinued without interruption during the night, 

 although in the daytime it was varied with the 

 old-time war dances. Little Wound wrote to 

 the reservation that " Our dance is a religious 

 dance, and we are going to dance until spring. 

 If we find then that Christ does not appear we 

 will stop dancing." Of the dance itself, the 

 Protestant Episcopal Bishop of South Dakota, the 

 Rev. William H. Hare, says : " The devotees of 

 these ideas are dressed in their exercises in special 

 garb (a shirt made of calico and worn like a 

 blouse, called by them ' the hole ' or ' mysterious 

 shirt,' being its chief feature), and, amid ha- 

 rangues from their leaders and songs in which 

 they cry, ' The buffalo are coming,' the people 

 form rings by joining hands and whirl themselves 

 round and round in wild dances until they fall 

 to the ground unconscious. They are then said 

 to be dead. Their leaders promise that while 

 in this state they will be transported to the 

 spirit world, and will see their friends who have 

 died and the Son of God, and, accordingly, when 

 they recover consciousness, they will tell of the 

 strange visions they have enjoyed." 



Another authority says : " This sacred dance 

 is probably in honor of the dead braves who 

 will soon return to life, and many undoubtedly 

 believe that they may appear at 'any moment. 

 Arranged in a circle, about three hundred of 

 them, alternately a man and a woman, they go 

 round and round ever in the same direction, 

 while the air is filled with a dirge-like chant of 

 a graveyard significance. Now and then one 

 falls down exhausted in a death-like swoon, and 

 is rapidly carried away. In this swoon, it is 

 claimed, the Indian sees and communes with 

 the Messiah and learns his wishes and what is 

 to come to pass." It is said that among the 

 Sioux Indians "the dancers had their medi- 

 cine men concoct the preparation with which 

 the braves of Gen. Custer's time always satu- 

 rated their shirts preparatory to going to war. 

 This mixture is supposed by the Indians to ward 

 off bullets. After the fluid of supposedly won- 

 derful charm had been mixed, a war shirt was 

 dipped into it and then put on one of the braves. 

 The wearer of the charmed raiment jumped into 

 the midst of the dancers and called upon them 

 to fire at him. They complied, and at the first 

 shot the Indian who had on the ' bullet-proof ' 

 shirt fell mortally wounded." 



From Pine Ridge Agency the following story 

 comes : " At last Friday's dance one of the braves 

 was to go into a trance, and remain in this con- 

 dition four days. At the close of this period he 

 was to come to life as a buffalo. He would still 

 have the form of a man, but he would be a buf- 

 falo. They were then to kill the buffalo, and 

 every Indian who did not eat a piece of him 

 would become a dog. The man who was to turn 

 into a buffalo was perfectly willing, and I sup- 

 pose that they have killed and eaten him by this 

 time." 



One authority says : " The Indians do not tele- 

 graph nor write letters. They can not communi- 

 cate except by carriers ; yet we find all the 

 Western tribes, from the coast to the Mississippi 

 and from British Columbia to Arizona, dancing 



the ghost dance and looking for the coming of a 

 great leader." It has also extended to Mexico. 

 All the Aztec tribes scattered throughout that 

 country are believers that a Messiah is soon to ap- 

 pear to free them from their foreign conquerors 

 and restore to them their domain and their pris- 

 tine glory. At Cholula are the ruins of an old 

 Aztec temple. This is the Mecca of the believers 

 in the Messiah, and there are now encamped 

 about it hundreds of Aztecs who are engaged in 

 performing all sorts of mysterious religious rites. 

 Of these rites of old a human sacrifice was part, 

 accompanied with a flower dance. The sacrifice 

 has been done away with, and now only the dance 

 remains. The Aztec prophecy is very similar to 

 that which is believed in by the Sioux. The 

 Messiah, they profess to believe, will cause the 

 volcano Popocatepetl to erupt and overflow the 

 whole country with lava, which will, destroy all 

 the inhabitants except the Aztecs. * 



Its influence has also extended among the 

 Southern negroes, and from Kansas City, Mo., 

 the following comes : " The negroes have been led 

 astray by a voodoo doctor, who came here from 

 Bismarck, N. D. He proclaimed that he was the 

 courier of the Messiah, and that dances must 

 begin at once. Upon the very night of his ar- 

 rival a few negroes began their dance in a little 

 cabin, and on the following night the building 

 would not hold the converts to the new faith." 



IOWA, a Western State, admitted to the Union 

 Dec. 28, 1846 ; area, 56,025 square miles. The 

 population, according to each decennial census 

 since admission, was 192,214 in 1850; 674.913 in 

 1860; 1,194,020 in 1870; 1,624,615 in 1880; and 

 1,911,896 in 1890. Capital, Des Moines. 



Government. The following were the State 

 officers during the year : Governor, Horace 

 Boies, Democrat ; Lieutenant-Governor, Alfred 

 N. Poyneer, Republican ; Secretary of State, 

 Frank* D. Jackson; Auditor, James A.Lyons; 

 Treasurer, Voltaire P. Twombley ; Attorney- 

 General, John Y. Stone ; Superintendent of Pub- 

 lic Instruction, Henry Sabin ; Railroad Com- 

 missioners, Frank T. Campbell, Spencer Smith, 

 and Peter A. Dey ; Chief Justice of the Supreme 

 Court, Josiah Given ; Associate Justices, James 

 H. Rothrock, Gifford S. Robinson, Joseph M. 

 Beck, and Charles T. Granger. Gov. Boies and 

 Railroad Commissioner Dey are the only Demo- 

 crats in the list. 



Finances. The State treasury is now more 

 than able to meet current demands, the floating 

 debt of the past few years having practically 

 disappeared. On June 30 the total cash in the 

 treasury was $261,806.80, and there were war- 

 rants outstanding to the amount of $'(>9.1(>{).75, 

 indicating a net surplus of nearly $200,000. 

 The only bonded State debt is one of $245,345.19 

 due to the State school fund. 



Valuations. The assessed valuation of per- 

 sonal property in 1890 was $105,543.264, an in- 

 crease for the year of $1,979,128. These figures 

 include 3,141,445 cattle, valued at $22,342.4 7S ; 

 1,032,436 horses, valued at $27.324,838 ; 4:i,40( 

 mules, valued at $1,195,696 : 280,050 sheep, val- 

 ued at $334.447 ; 2,850,046 swine, valued at $4,- 

 699,893. The rate of State taxation for the year 

 was 2'5 mills on the dollar. 



Population. The following table exhibits the 

 population of the State by counties, as deter- 



