moonet] SHAKER CONTACT WITH WOVOKA 763 



physical, effect on either subject was whatever the operator wished 

 it to be. After bringing both under mental control in the manner 

 described, he suggested recovery to the woman and sickness or death 

 to the medicine-man, and the result followed. 



Until the advent of these women from beyond the mountains such 

 hypnotic performances seem to have been unknown among the Yakima 

 and other eastern tribes of the Columbia region, the trance condition 

 in the Smohalla devotees being apparently due entirely to the effect of 

 the rhythmic dances and songs acting on excited imaginations, without 

 the aid of blowing or manual passes. 



Hypnotism and so-called magnetism, however, appear to have been 

 employed by the medicine-men of the Chinook tribes of the lower 

 Columbia from ancient times. Especially wonderful in this connection 

 are the stories told of one of these men residing at Wushqum or 

 Wisham, near The Dalles. 



About the time the two blower doctors appeared at Woodland, other 

 apostles of the same doctrine, or it may have been the same two men, 

 went up Willamet river into central Oregon, teaching the same system 

 and performing the same wonders among the tribes of that region. 

 And here comes in a remarkable coincidence, if it be no more. It is 

 said among the northern Indians that on this journey these apostles 

 met, somewhere in the south, a young man to whom they taught their 

 mysteries, in which he became such an apt pupil that he soon out- 

 stripped his teachers, and is now working even greater wonders among 

 his own people. This young man can be no other than Wovoka, the 

 niessiah of the Ghost dance, living among the Paiute in western Ne- 

 vada. The only question is whether the story told among the Colum- 

 bia tribes is a myth based on vague rumors of the southern messiah 

 and his hypnotic performances, so similar to that of the blower doc- 

 tors, or whether Wovoka actually derived his knowledge of such things 

 from these northern apostles. The latter supposition is entirely within 

 the bounds of possibility. The time corresponds with the date of liis 

 original revelations, as stated by himself to the writer. He is a young 

 man, and, although he has never been far from home, the tribe to 

 which he belongs roams in scattered bands over the whole country to 

 the Willamet and the watershed of the Columbia, so that communica- 

 tion with the north is by no means difficult. He himself stated thai 

 Indians from Warmspring reservation, in northern Oregon, have 

 attended his dances near Walker lake. 



