moonevI A WINNEBAGO PROPHECY 661 



coming of the Spaniards. (Prescott, 3.) In this connection, also, there 

 was usually a belief in a series of previous destructions by Hood, lire, 

 famine, or pestilence, followed by a regeneration through the omnipotent 

 might of the savior. The doctrine that the world is old and worn out, 

 and that the time for its renewal is near at hand, is an esseutial pari 

 of the teaching of the Ghost dance. The number of these cycles of 

 destruction was variously stated among different tribes, but perhaps 

 the most sadly prophetic form of the myth was found among the Win- 

 nebago, who forty years ago held that the tenth generation of their 

 people was near its close, and that at the end of the thirteenth the red 

 race would be destroyed. By prayers and ceremonies they were then 

 endeavoring to placate their angry gods and put farther away the doom 

 that now seems rapidly closing in on them. ( Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, 1. | 



