November 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



277 



that in settling the various tribes on the reserve territories, 

 those that speals similar or kindred tongues, and preserve 

 somewhat similar institutions, are much more likely to 

 dwell in peace than those in which these common factors 

 are wanting. 



One very important and interesting line of investigation 

 is the endeavour to ehminate from the study of the Ked 

 Man those traits of character and habits acquired since 

 the introduction by Europeans of the horse and iron, and 

 thus to reveal him in 

 his true primitive 

 characters. Not only 

 have the records of 

 the earliest pioneers 

 of civilization been 

 searched and corre- 

 lated, but laborious 

 investigations have 

 been carried on in the 

 ancient quarries 

 where the Ked Man 

 manufactured h i s 

 weapons and imple- 

 ments in pre- 

 European days. And 

 we now know more 

 or less exactly the 

 manner in v.'hich 

 these were made, and 

 the strata from which 

 the material was dug. 



A large portion of 

 the fifteenth Report is 

 occupied by a memoir 

 on the ancient stone 

 implements in the 

 Potomac and Chesa- 

 peake districts, 

 written by Mr. W. H. 

 Holmes, one of the 

 most painstaking in- 

 vestigators on the 

 survey. A very re- 

 markable and unex- 

 pected result of the 

 study of the quartzite 

 quarries of these dis- 

 tricts is that the most 

 rudely flaked imple- 

 ments do not repre- 

 sent an extremely low 

 and primitive state 

 of culture, but that 

 they were contem- 

 poraneous with the 

 finest stone carving, 

 pottery, and basket 

 and wood work. The 

 author is careful to say that these conclusions relate only 

 to these particular districts, but it is manifest that they 

 will have to be taken into careful consideration with regard 

 to the products of other countries. In another paper in 

 the same volume it is shown that the horse was not intro- 

 duced among the Sioux Indians till about the commence- 

 ment of the present century ; and also that this tribe 

 possessed several animals in a kind of semi-domesticated 

 state. 



But from a popular point of view undoubtedly the 

 most interesting of the whole series of memoirs is the one 



Haliaiwiiqti, Natacka, and Soyokiiiana (Medicine Men). 

 From the Fifteeutli Auiuuil Ruitort of the Buretiu uf Ethnoloyy. 



dealing with the so-called " ghost-dance religion," which 

 occupies the greater portion of the second part of the 

 fourteenth Report, and is the work of Mr. J. Mooney. 

 This strange religious cult, which spread over the Western 

 United States between the years 188'J and 1802 with such 

 startling rapidity, and was closely connected with the great 

 outbreak of the Sioux tribe, was so fully reported in the 

 newspapers of the time that it is doubtless still fresh in 

 the memory of many of our readers. In addition to the 



^^^^ rapidity of its spread, 



rr'"" T Ai .. I : -51 the cult was note- 



worthy on account of 

 its powerful influence 

 on the character and 

 conduct of its devo- 

 tees. The normal 

 mental processes were 

 suspended, and the 

 ordmary bodily func- 

 tions dominated for 

 hours or even days. 

 Indians who were 

 ordinarily docile and 

 contented, suddenly 

 became morose and 

 bloodthirsty ; while 

 peaceful tribes in an 

 instant broke into 

 open rebellion against 

 the dominant power. 

 Doubtless the pecu- 

 liar mode of thought 

 characteristic of the 

 Indian generally, his 

 habitual appeals to 

 the unknown for the 

 explanation of simple 

 facts, his habit of 

 peopling his natural 

 surroundings with 

 ghostly imaginations , 

 rendered him pecu- 

 liarly susceptible to 

 the new cult. To our 

 great regret, space 

 forbids quoting any 

 of the descriptions of 

 the curious ceremo- 

 nies connected with 

 the ghost-dance, in 

 many of which hyp- 

 notism played a very 

 important part. Be- 

 tween thirty and 

 thirty-five tribes, 

 numbering some sixty 

 thousandindividuals, 

 seem to have come 

 under its influence. The first of the two illustrations we give 

 represents the devotees engaged in prayer. The portraits of 

 the leadersof the cult, of which there are manyin the volume, 

 have an especial value, not only as representing rapidly 

 waning races, but as depicting some of the master minds of 

 each tribe ; and of no less interest are the figures of the 

 mystic weapons and symbols employed during the dance. 



With the bare remark that our second illustration repre- 

 sents a group of " medicine men," we are reluctantly 

 compelled to bring to a close our brief notice of a very 

 fascinating series of important memoirs. 



