mooney] account of pa'thkski: 701 



The friendship dance went on all through the summer and winter 

 until spring, when the prophet announced that he had received a new 

 revelation forbidding the proposed expedition. His digusted followers 

 at once denounced him as an impostor and abandoned the dance. 

 Sara'minuka was soon afterward killed by an accident, which was con- 

 sidered by the Indians a direct retribution for his failure to carry out 

 his part of the program. The prophet died a few years later while on 

 a visit to Washington with a delegation of his tribe. 



Although the old men consulted on the subject seemed to know 

 nothing of any predicted destruction of the world in this connection, 

 it is probable that the statement given by Agent Fletcher at the time 

 was correct, as such cycle myths are very general among the Indian 

 and other primitive tribes. The Arapaho informed the author that 

 we are now living in the sixth cycle, and that the final catastrophe will 

 take nlace at the close of the seventh. 



TA'VIBO 



About 1870 another prophet arose among the Paiute in Nevada. As 

 most Indian movements are unknown to the whites at their inception, 

 the date is variously put from 1809 to 1872. He is said to have been 

 the father of the present '■ messiah," who has unquestionably derived 

 many of his ideas from him, and lived, as does his son, in Mason val- 

 ley, about GO miles south of Virginia City, not far from Walker River 

 reservation. In talking with his sou, he said that his father's name 

 was Ta'vibo or "White man,*- and that he was a capita (Spanish, capi- 

 tan) or petty chief, but not a prophet or preacher, although he used 

 to have visions and was invulnerable. From concurrent testimony of 

 Indians and white men, however, there seems to be no doubt that lie 

 did preach and prophesy and introduce a new religious dance among 

 his people, and that the doctrine which he promulgated and the hopes 

 which he held out twenty years ago were the foundation on which his 

 sou has built the structure of the present messiah religion. He was 

 visited by Indians from Oregon and Idaho, and his teachings made 

 their influence felt among the Bannock and Shoshoni, as well as 

 among all the scattered bands of the Paiute, to whom he continued to 

 preach until his death a year or two later. (Of. />., 1 and .'; A. G. 0., 1; 

 Phister, 1.) 



Captain J. M. Lee, Ninth infantry, formerly on the staff of General 

 Miles, was on duty in that neighborhood at the time and gives the fol- 

 lowing account of the prophet and his doctrines in a personal letter to 

 the author: 



I was on Indian duty in Nevada in 1869, 1870, and 1871. When visiting Walker 

 Lake reservation in 1869-70, I became acquainted with several superstitious belief's 

 then prevailing among the Paiuto Indians. It was a rough, mountainous region 

 roundabout, and mysterious happenings, according to tradition, always occurred 

 when the prophet or raedicine-men went up into the mountains and there received 

 their revelations from the divine spirits. In the earlier part of the sixties the whites 



