778 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.ann.14 



sun dauce formerly took place among the prairie tribes. The messiah 

 himself has set several dates from time to time, as one prediction after 

 another failed to materialize, and in his message to the Cheyenne and 

 Arapaho, in August, L891, he leaves the whole matter an open question. 

 The date universally recognized among all the tribes immediately prior 

 to the Sioux outbreak was the spring of 1891. As springtime came 

 and passed, and summer grew and waned, and autumn faded again into 

 winter without the realization of their hopes and longings, the doctrine 

 gradually assumed its present form — that some time in the unknown 

 future the Indian will be united with his friends who have gone before, 

 to be forever supremely happy, and that this happiness may be antici- 

 pated in dica ins, if not actually hastened in reality, by earnest and 

 frequent attendance on the sacred dance. 



On returning to the Cheyenne and Arapaho in < >klahoma, after my 

 visit to Wovoka in January, LS92, I was at once sought by my friends 

 of both tribes, anxious to hear the report of my journey and see t In- 

 sacred things that 1 had brought back from the messiah. The Arapaho 

 especially, who are of more spiritual nature than any of the other tribes, 

 showed a deep interest and followed intently every detail of the nar- 

 rative. As soon as the news of my return was spread abroad, men and 

 women, in groups and singly, would come to me, and after grasping my 

 hand would repeat a long and earnest prayer, sometimes aloud, some 

 times with the lips silently moving, and frequently with tears rolling- 

 down the cheeks, and the whole body trembling violently from stress of 

 emotion. Often before the prayer was ended the condition of the devo- 

 tee bordered on the hysterical, very little less than in the Ghost dance 

 itself. The substance of the prayer was usually an appeal to the 

 messiah to hasten the coming of the promised happiness, with a peti- 

 tion that, as the speaker himself was unable to make the long journey, 

 he might, by grasping the hand of one who had seen and talked with 

 the messiah face to lace, be enabled in his trance visions to catch a 

 glimpse of the coming glory. During all this performance the bystand- 

 ers awaiting their turn kept revereut silence. In a short time it 

 became very embarrassing, but until the story had been told over and 

 over again there was no way of escape without wounding their feelings. 

 The same thing afterward happened among the northern Arapaho in 

 Wyoming, one chief even holding out his hands toward me with short 

 exclamations of hit! lift! hit .' as is sometimes done by the devotees 

 about a priest in the Ghost dance, in the hope, as he himself explained. 

 that he might thus be enabled to go into a trance then and there. The 

 hope, however, was not realized. 



Alter this preliminary ordeal my visitors would ask to see the things 

 which 1 had brought back from the messiah — the rabbit-skin robes, 

 the pinon nuts, the gaming sticks, the sacred magpie feathers, and, 

 above all, the sacred red paint. This is a bright-red ocher, about the 

 color of brick dust, which the l'aiute procure from the neighborhood 



