776 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.ann.11 



paralysis, was a jovial, light-hearted fellow, fond of joking and playing 

 tricks on his associates, but withal a man of good hard sense and dis- 

 posed to be doubtful in regard to all medicine-men outside of his own 

 tribe. Black < Joyote, on the contrary, is a man of contemplative dispo- 

 sition, niueh given to speculation on the unseen world. His body and 

 arms are covered with the scars of wounds which he has inflicted on 

 himself in obedience to commands received in dreams. When the first 

 news of the new religion came to the southern tribes, he had made a 

 long journey, at his own expense, to his kindred in Wyoming, to learn 

 the doctrine and the songs, and since his return had been drilling his 

 people, day and night in both. Sow, on his visit to the fountain head of 

 inspiration, he was prepared for great things, and when the messiah 

 performed his hypnotic passes with the eagle feather, as I have so often 

 witnessed in the Ghost dance, Black Coyote saw the whole spirit world 

 where Tall Bull saw only an empty hat. From my knowledge of the 

 men, 1 believe both were honest in their statements. 



As a result of the confidence established between the Indians and 

 myself in consequence of my visit to the messiah, one of the (Jheyenne 

 delegates named Black Sharp Nose, a prominent man in his tribe, soon 

 after voluntarily brought down to me the written statement of the doc- 

 trine obtained from the messiah himself, and requested me to take it 

 back and show it to Washington, to convince the white people that 

 there was nothing bad or hostile iu the new religion. The paper had 

 beeu written by a young Arapaho of the same delegation who had 

 learned some English at the Carlisle Indian school, and it had been 

 taken down on the spot from the dictation of the messiah as his mes- 

 sage to be carried to the prairie tribes. On the reverse page of the 

 paper the daughter of Black Sharp Nose, a young woman who had also 

 some school education, had written out the same thing iu somewhat 

 better English from her father's dictation on his return. No white man 

 had any part, directly or indirectly, in its production, nor was it orig- 

 inally intended to be seen by white men. In fact, in one part the mes- 

 siah himself expressly warns the delegates to tell no white man. 



