moonky] THE DECLARATION OF SMOHALLA 719 



knew the lake and adjacent mountain chains, and said that he had 

 seen Mormon priests getting commands direct from heaven. He dwelt 

 long over Arizona, and remarked, l had-a Incluui.' " 



Smohalla now declared to his people that the Sa'ghalee Tyee, the 

 Great Chief Above, was angry at their apostasy, and commanded them 

 through him to return to their primitive manners, as their present mis- 

 erable condition in the presence of the intrusive race was due to their 

 having abandoned their own religion and violated the laws of nature 

 and the precepts of their ancestors. He then explained in detail the 

 system to which they must adhere in future if they would conform to 

 the expressed will of the higher power. It was a system based on the 

 primitive aboriginal mythology and usage, with an elaborate ritual 

 which combined with the genuine Indian features much of what he 

 had seen and remembered of Catholic ceremonial and military parade, 

 with perhaps also some additions from Mormon forms. 



His words made a deep impression on his hearers. They had indeed 

 abandoned their primitive simplicity to a great extent, and were now 

 suffering the penalty in all the misery that had come to them with the 

 advent of the white-skin race that threatened to blot them out from 

 the earth. The voice of the prophet was accepted as a voice from the 

 other world, for they knew that he had been dead and was now alive. 

 What he said must be true and wise, for he had been everywhere and 

 knew tribes and countries they had never heard of. Even the white 

 men confirmed his words in this regard. He could even control the sun 

 and the moon, for he had said when they would be dark, and they were 

 dark. 



If genius be a form of insanity, as has been claimed, intense religious 

 enthusiasm would seem to have a close connection with physical as well 

 as mental disease. Like Mohammed and Joan of Arc, and like the 

 Shaker prophet of Puget sound, Smohalla is subject to cataleptic 

 trances, and it is while in this unconscious condition that he is believed 

 to receive his revelations. Says MacMurray: 



Hi- falls into trances and lies rigid for considerable periods. Unbelievers have, 

 experimented by sticking needles through his flesh, cutting him with knives, and 

 otherwise testing his sensibility to pain, without provoking any responsive action. 

 It was asserted that he was surely dead, because blood did not How from the wounds. 

 These trances always excite great interest and often alarm, as he threatens to aban- 

 don his earthly body altogether because of the disobedience of his people, and on 

 each occasion they are in a state of suspense as to whether the Saghalee Tyee will 

 send his soul back to earth to reoccupy his body, or will, on the contrary, abandon 

 and leave them without his guidance. It is this going into long trances, out of 

 which he comes as from heavy sleep and almost immediately relates his experiences 

 in tin- spirit land, that gave rise to the title of ' : Dreamers," or believers in dreams, 

 commonly given to his followers by the neighboring whites. His actions are similar 

 to those of a trance medium, and if self-hypuotization be practicable that would 

 seem to explain it. I questioned him as to his trances and hoped to have him explain 

 them to me, but he avoided the subject and was angered when I pressed him. He 

 manifestly believes all he says of what occurs to him in this trance state. As we 



14 ETII — PT 2 



